#TopTenTuesday 10 Book Mash-Ups I’d Love to Read

Posted August 7, 2018 in BOOKS, Uncategorized / 10 Comments

Badge for Top Ten Tuesday meme

It’s time for Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme originally created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Every week there is a new topic or theme to base your top ten list on. You can find more details about it and see the list of topics here.

This week’s topic is:

“Books You’d Mash Together (pick two books you think would make an epic story if combined)”! Which books would you love to smush together and read the resulting story? Or maybe you don’t want to mash-up the entire story, just certain elements or characters? Maybe you loved the world in one book and the characters in another and want to put the best of both books together. 

Submitted by Rissi @ Finding Wonderland, expanded by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl.

I actually found this topic quite difficult to begin with, but in the end I found some books that would work well together and I got a little carried away writing summaries for them. I apologise for the long post in advance, but I had fun writing these and I hope you’ll enjoy them too!

10 Book Mash-Ups I’d Love to Read

1) The Lion, The Wizard and the Vanishing Cabinet

Book covers for The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S Lewis + Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J K Rowling

Hundreds of years ago, four friends called Lucy Hufflepuff, Edmund Slytherin, Susan Ravenclaw and Peter Gryffindor stumble upon a hidden fantasy land. Lucy is the first to find the secret of the vanishing cabinet in the Professor’s mysterious old house, and at first, her friends don’t believe her. But soon Edmund, Susan and Peter discover Narnia and meet Azlan, the Great Wizard, for themselves. Azlan teaches them how to tap into their hidden magical ability and soon the four friends become gifted witches and wizards.

But one day, Edmund betrays his friends and joins forces with the evil wizard Voldermort, who has created an eternal winter. Edmund becomes an Animagus who can transform himself into a huge snake and has the power to turn people to stone with a single look. Soon Narnia is lost to darkness and most of its inhabitants are turned to stone. But with the help of Azlan, Lucy, Susan and Peter manage to defeat Voldermort, trapping him behind a layer of ice. Edmund returns to them begging for forgiveness, and they decide to give him another chance. After restoring Narnia to its former glory, they return through the vanishing cabinet and back into their own world.

Once the Professor passes away, the four friends decide to turn his old house into a boarding school for young people with magical abilities, which they name Hogwarts. They establish the four houses: Hufflepuff for the loyal, Ravenclaw for the intelligent, Gryffindor for the brave and Slytherin for the ambitious. However, Edmund falls out with his friends over his belief that only pure-bloods should be allowed to attend the school, and eventually leaves.

For many years, all is well and the wizarding school flourishes long after the founders have passed away. But unknown to the others, Edmund has used dark magic to make himself immortal and had created a huge underground chamber beneath the school. There he hides in his snake form, waiting for his chance to lure a student through the vanishing cabinet and use them to restore the dark wizard Voldermort to full power…

2) A Thousand Nights in Bloom 

Book covers for A Thousand Nights and Wither

A Thousand Nights by E K Johnston + Wither by Lauren DeStefano

The world is cursed with a deadly virus that reduces the lifespan of males to 25 years and females to just 20. The virus is only transmitted through skin-to-skin contact, so those infected are forbidden from touching other humans.

The formidable King Lo-Melkhiin ignores this rule-he wants as many people as possible to suffer the same cruel fate that awaits him in a few short years. He likes to claim girls on the brink of their 20th birthday to become his brides, then have the pleasure of sleeping with them and watching them die at his hand. He has killed hundreds of girls this way.

When Lo-Melkhiin arrives at Rhine Ellery’s home on the eve of her 20th birthday, she makes the ultimate sacrifice to save her twin sister from certain death by taking her place. Though Rhine should die after only one night, a strange magic flows between her and Lo-Melkhiin and night after night she survives.

Finding power in storytelling, the words Rhine speaks are given strange life of their own. It seems that Lo-Melkhiin is falling hopelessly in love with her, and she can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she should. He was not always a cruel ruler, and she suspects he is being manipulated by his scientist father. She hopes one day she can use her magic to save him from himself, but she is also desperate to escape from her life of confinement and return to her twin sister, who surely believes her to be dead.

Will Rhine be able to escape? And could her stories somehow have the power to cure the virus?

3) The Electric Dreamer

The Body Electric by Beth Revis + Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

Sarai has a unique gift-using technology developed by her mother she can enter people’s dreams and memories. She’s always used this technology to help others relive their happy memories, but one day she starts seeing impossible things-images of her dead father, warnings of who she cannot trust. She is recruited by the government to spy on a rebel group and use their dreams to influence their memories and obtain information.

But one of the rebels, Lazlo Strange, is different from all the others. He dreams of a world so beautiful and magical, filled with wonders that she has never seen before and free from the government’s control. He claims they used to be in love and that the world he dreams about-Weep he calls it, really does exist. But Sarai is certain she never met him before in her life. Which can only mean one thing…someone has altered her memory.

Lazlo was a junior librarian in the magical city of Weep before it was taken over by the corrupt government who killed Sarai’s family. He was in love with Sarai from the beginning, ever since she first entered his dreams when they were just children. But she doesn’t seem to remember him. Someone is manipulating her, but who? Lazlo must do everything he can to restore her memories and convince her to save Weep before it’s too late.

4) The Turning Rooms

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James + Rooms by Lauren Oliver

Wealthy Richard Walker has just died, and his unruly children Trenton and Minna need a governess. Anna moves into the old country house to take care of them. However, she’s soon disturbed when she begins to see strange apparitions and fears she is going crazy.

The house is haunted by long dead residents Alice and Sandra, who have been tortured for years by the screams and squeals of the Walker children. They start to speak to the governess through the house itself-in the hiss of the radiator, a creak in the stairs, the dimming of a light bulb. Their primary goal is to drive the governess to insanity and lead her to silence the children once and for all…

5) The Corpus Monster

Origin by Jessica Khoury + Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Pia has grown up in a secret laboratory hidden deep in the Amazon rainforest. She was raised by a team of scientists working for Corpus, an organisation obsessed with bestowing animation upon lifeless matter. They created Pia to be the start of a new immortal race, assembling her from stolen body parts. Yet, Pia is not the beautiful creature that they hoped for and they condemn her to a life of isolation.

But on the night of her seventeenth birthday, Pia discovers a hole in the electric fence that surrounds her sterile home―and sneaks outside the compound for the first time in her life. In the rainforest, she meets a boy named Eio who tells her the truth about her origins. She falls in love with him, but Eio rejects her, confessing that he finds her to be a hideous abomination. Tormented by loneliness and resentment, Pia kills Eio and sets out to unleash a campaign of murderous revenge against her creators, Corpus.

6) The Girl at 451

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury + Matilda by Roald Dahl

Guy Montag is a fireman. In a world where all literature is banned by Commander Trunchbull, his job is to destroy the illegal books he finds, along with their owners’ houses. He never questions the destruction, until one day he meets an eccentric young neighbour, Matilda, who lives at number 451.

Guy finds himself fascinated with the little girl, who is extraordinarily gifted. Matilda loves books and she opens his mind to the wonderful experience of reading. She tells him about a past where people did not live in fear. She also introduces him to the possibility of fighting back against the controlling government, even just in small ways. Despite her youth, Matilda is smart and cunning, and together they concoct a daring plan to assassinate Commander Trunchbull and restore the gift of reading to society.

7) Harry Potter and the Maze of Fire

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling + The Maze Runner by James Dashner 

Harry awakens in the middle of a glade, unable to remember anything but his first name. But he’s not alone-an army of boys welcomes him. They explain that they are all wizards-that Harry is too. They say someone put his name in a goblet and it got called out-that’s why he’s here. They’re all competing in a competition called the Triwizard Tournament, but none of them know what the prize will be.

Harry doesn’t remember any of that, he doesn’t even remember who he is. He just wants to get out of here. But the only way out is through the Maze of Fire-a huge and complex labyrinth of flames filled with terrifying creatures that the boys called Dragons. Harry is desperate to find out what he is doing here-but will he make it out of the maze alive?

8) The Boys of Smoke and Bone

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor + The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Seventeen-year-old art student Karou has been balancing her studies with her other life as errand-girl to a monstrous creature known as Brimstone, who deals in teeth and wishes. All her life, the clairvoyants that care for her have warned her that one day she will cause her true love to die, but she has never taken it seriously. What plagues her more, is the uncertainty of where she came from and the feeling that she is not quite whole.

One night, Karou sees a vision of a boy called Gansey and learns that he will soon be dead. Karou discovers that he is a student at the local private school and she is inexplicably drawn to him. As she gets to know Gansey, she finds that he is much more than a rich and handsome student-he is not even human. Gansey and his friends Adam, Ronan and Noah belong to a race of seraphs-celestial beings with dark wings that are known in local legend as ‘raven boys’.  

The boys are on a quest to discover an entrance to ‘Elsewhere’-the alternate dimension they came from. She wants to help them, but she comes to learn that the seraphs are at war with her people, and threaten to destroy everyone she loves. As she falls more in love with Gansey, can she convince him to stop a war between their people, or is it too late?

9) The Incarnate

Incarnate by Jodi Meadows + The Host by Stephanie Meyer

For thousands of years in Range, a million souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. But Ana is new, she has never been reincarnated before. When she was born, she took over a body that already contained a soul, and no one knows why.  

Ana’s people fear her, and believe she is a ‘no soul’. When dragons and sylph attack the city, they blame her. But Sam believes that Ana is good and stands up for her. They find themselves falling in love, but will Ana’s enemies allow them to be together?

Ana has been hiding a secret from everyone, even Sam. Melanie, the soul who inhabited this body first is not really gone. Melanie is growing stronger and trying to take back possession of her body. She forces Ana to set off on a quest to search for Jared, the man she loves. Confused by her feelings for both Sam and Jared, Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else’s body before Melanie is lost for good. But her quest threatens to destroy the promise of reincarnation for everyone.

10) The Loneliest Girl in the Oasis

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James  + Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Every day since her parents died, Romy Silvers has been escaping from her miserable, solitary life and entering the Oasis, a virtual reality world designed by her parents. Before they died, they were working on a way to upload a person’s entire consciousness into the Oasis, so that one day all of humanity could live out their lives there, safe from famine, poverty and disease.

But something went wrong with their experiments and the minds they tried to upload were rejected by the simulation, lost forever in the ether. Now it’s up to Romy to continue their work, piecing together the clues they left behind.

One day a new avatar called J appears in the Oasis, and instead of being a computer simulation, he claims to be a real person, just like her. J says he knows all about her mission and wants to help her. Before long, she finds herself falling in love, he seems to be her perfect match. But she can’t rid herself of the niggling feeling that J knows more than he’s telling her.   

Before you go…

Did you enjoy my mash-ups? Which two books would you like to combine together? Let me know in the comments!

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10 responses to “#TopTenTuesday 10 Book Mash-Ups I’d Love to Read

  1. So fun! I love that you wrote summaries AND created unique new titles for your mash up stories. That’s so fun. Also glad to see ‘Narnia’ on some lists today. 🙂

    Happy Top Ten Tuesday.

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