5 Star TBR Predictions is a feature created by Mercedes @ Mercy’s Bookish Musings and does what it says on the tin! You take a look at your TBR and predict which books you think you’re going to give 5 stars.

As I’ve been on such a fantasy kick lately, I thought it’d be fun to do a fantasy edition of this feature with some books I’m planning to cross off my TBR during 2019!

Some books just give you a feeling, don’t they? I love books that surprise me – my favourite book, The Goblin Emperor, is a book I didn’t realise how much I loved until I finished it – but sometimes I love opening a book and feeling like I’m going to fall in love from the very first page. That’s the feeling I get from Katherine Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale.

I definitely should have read this book by now because I received an eARC from NetGalley, but it’s a book I’ve been wanting to read in the winter and so far every winter it’s somehow passed me by, so I’m determined to cross it off my TBR before the spring this year. I’ve started this one and, even though I’ve only read the first chapter so far, I have a feeling I’m in a very good author’s hands and I’m hoping I’m about to fall in love.

The Priory of the Orange Tree is out at the end of February and at almost 900 pages it’s an absolute beast. I haven’t read any of Samantha Shannon’s other work, but I’ve seen some early reviews of this one promising me an epic, woman-led fantasy with a slow burn f/f romance which is everything I could possibly want from a book. As I’m currently attempting F/Fantasy F/February (I say ‘attempting’ because I’ve felt in a little bit of a slump this month) this is one I’m hoping to pick up as soon as I get my copy.

Spinning Silver is one that I already own and probably the one I’m the least sure of on this list, purely because I didn’t love Uprooted. These two are completely different stories, so I shouldn’t be comparing them in the first place, but it was Naomi Novik’s writing style I couldn’t get on board with. I’ve heard a lot of reviews claiming that people who didn’t love Uprooted would love this novel a lot more, though, and as it’s a retelling of my favourite fairy tale, Rumpelstilskin, I’m hopeful that I’m going to love it. Natalie @ A Sea Change and I are planning to buddy read it very soon!

Madeline Miller’s Circe is another one I’ve owned since its release last spring, and I still haven’t read it. Oops. I adored The Song of Achilles, which I finally read for the first time in 2017, but I loved it so much that I’ve been wary of picking Circe up in case I don’t love it as much – I desperately don’t want to be disappointed by this book thanks to my own expectations, especially when it’s about one of fiction’s first witches. I’ve seen so many fantastic reviews of this one, though, that I just need to pick it up and read the bloody thing.

Bridget Collins’ The Binding is a very recent release, and is a book that seems more historical than fantasy, but it has a speculative element in that the main character finds himself becoming the apprentice to a book binder who has the ability to bind memories into books. It’s a concept that fascinates me, and there’s just something about this book that gives me a feeling that I’m going to love it. I hope I’m right!

Have you read or do you want to read any of these books? Are there any books on your TBR you think you’ll give 5 stars to? What was your most recent 5 star read?