Yesssp, it’s that time of the year again! Magical Readathon time, by far my favourite readathon!
On April 1st, all students of the magical Academy of Orilium are expected back in class, to kick off the spring equinox!

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, BookRoast, the creator of this readathon, made a wholeoverview video here. For the announcement of the upcoming instalment in April, watch the embeded video below.

This year is the second year that the readathon is organized in this format and also my second year participating.
In short, Orilium is a prestigious, magical university in the world of Aeldia. We, as readers, create our own character in this world and that character wants to study at this university, with a certain career in mind. To achieve this goal, that character must take exams twice a year for a number of years, starting with the Spring Equinox.

My career

Last year I chose a career as Mage Hunter, the detectives and police of Aeldia.
Because I successfully completed both my spring and autumn exams, I officially passed my freshman year and was awarded the title of Novice.

However, for this second year my options are completely open again.
I don’t necessarily have to continue in my first chosen career, but can choose to try becoming a Novice in another career. Everything is possible in Orilium and the Career guide that BookRoast made for this is really impressive!

But to keep it simple and since I’m not a quitter (and neither is my character, lol), I’m sticking with my chosen career of mage hunter and so this year I’ll try to become an Apprentice!

Required courses

The Orilium academy offers a total of 14 courses. Depending on your chosen career, a number of these are mandatory. For my career I have 4 compulsory subjects, which is not too bad. And yes, these four required subjects are equivalent to four books to read.

School of magic	Course Focus	Reading Prompt	TBR
Elemental studies	Botanic control	Flowers on the cover	Chokshi, Roshani – The Last Tale of the Flower Bride Because I’m prioritising my Fairyloot Adult books, this one seems the obvious choice. Not only flowers on the cover, but in the title as well!
Spells & Incantations	Spell: Magic Missiles	Target length: 389-415 pages	Jackson, Holly – Five Survive The hardcover version of this new mystery from the author of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder runs to 391 pages, according to Goodreads, right in the middle of the target interval. I’ll most likely read it as an audiobook.
Conjuration	Spirit Binding Spells	Recommended by a friend	Stroud, Jonathan – The Whispering Skull My goddaughter is totally obsessed with Lockwood & co and she convinced me to read the first volume in February, which I absolutely loved. So I concider this 2nd book as a recommendation from her. Since she’s my goddaughter, she’s obviously my friend too!
Restoration	Oculi Cures	Close your eyes, shuffle and point	Fawcett, Heather – Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries For this prompt I chose 4 books from my bookcase that I recently received through a book subscription. I gave each of those books a number on a ticket, folded and mixed the tickets and drew one for a book. This was the winner, with photo proof below 😉

Extra credit

Just for the fun of it, I went through all other courses as well, and picked a possible book to read, where I could.

School of magic	Course Focus	Reading Prompt	TBR
Alchemy	Principles of Transmutation	Metal in the name (gold, silver, etc)	I have a lot of physical books that can fit this prompt. Currently, my preference goes to Tan, June C.L. – Jade Fire Gold, mainly because it’s a standalone
Animal studies	Heads & Tails	Flip a coin: heads – non fictions, tails – fiction	I’ll maybe do this later
Art of Illusion	Focus: Disguise self	Match clothes colour to cover colour	Will depend on the moment and my mood
Astronomy	The Exclipse Effect	Two letter E’s in the title	Plenty of choice for this one too, but I’ve been eager to dive into the new book by Janet Healy – The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels!
Demonology	Type: Impersonators	Book compared to your favourite	Maybe for later
Artificery	Conduit Enhancement	Start your read with a snack	Can be whatever, so I’m keeping it empty in case I’m in the mood to read something I have not yet put on my TBR
Inscription	Glyph: Flight	Book from your top (highest) shelf	I have more than one bookcase, one of which contains all my TBR books, sorted alphabetically by author. One of those books is Abercrombie, Joe – Before They Are Hanged, which I actually still want to read in March for the Catch Up Book Club, but most likely won’t get around to it anymore.
Lore	The Legend of Dia	Book with a map	In March I started reading Sanderson, Brandon – Words of Radiance with the aim of reading the first part of the book in March and the second part in April (the book has 1310 pages). This book has a map.
Psionics & Divination	Cloud study 101	Clouds on cover or in title	Don’t have anything in mind for that
Shapeshifting	Form: Wolf	Wolf on cover, title, author’s name	I immediately knew what I wanted to read for this: Whitten, Hannah – For the Wolf

By the way, I shouldn’t forget that last year I also collected some serious reputation points within my guild of the Mind Walkers, which raised me to the rank of Exalted. This gives me the advantage that I can count one book of more than 500 pages towards two prompts!

Additional Side Quest

In addition to the regular reading prompts, BookRoast also provides a lot of additional games and quests throughout the month. This time, instead of creating a bunch of unrelated unique adventures, we’re going on a story quest together!

Not much is known about this quest yet, except that it will have something to do with our dashing Alchemy professor Aubrin Bluewing asking for our help. Based on how we decide to help the professor, we get an assignment and a related reward. Then our story and our adventure continues.

This also sounds so exciting, so I hope I’ll find the time and reading capacity to take part in this side quest too!

And those are kind of my reading plans for April. This readathon is truly a miracle and keeps getting more and more magical!