Hm, interesting. I wasn't sure I'd like it at first, but I jammed through Vita Nostra, and didn't realize there were already published sequels until a few days ago, when I immediately moved them to the top of my TBR pile. I'll try to lower my expectations to be more in line with reality--thanks for the heads-up!

Suggestions: Becky Chambers (I think all of her books qualify) - Monk & Robot; Diana Wynne Jones - Howl's Moving Castle

My card: Heather Fawcett - Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

Suggestion: Christopher Paolini - Eragon

My card: Alexandra Bracken - Brightly Woven

Suggestion: Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games; Clive Barker - The Damnation Game

My card: Agatha Christie - The Sittaford Mystery

For hard mode, I could really only find sequels in series, but here are a few suggestions: Andre Norton - Warlock of the Witch World; Michael Moorcock - The Weird of the White Wolf

My card: Max Gladstone - Full Fathom Five (I've been meaning to read the Craft Sequence series anyway.)

Suggestion: any LGBTQIA+ romance, such as TJ Klune - Under the Whispering Door (or pretty much any other book by this author)

My card: TJ Klune - Wolfsong

Suggestion: Nghi Vo - The Empress of Salt and Fortune; Laini Taylor - Daughter of Smoke and Bone

My card: Barry Hughart - The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox (omnibus)

My card: Katherine Arden - The Bear and the Nightingale

Suggestion: Samantha Shannon - The Priory of the Orange Tree; Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange

My card: Jostein Gaarder - The Orange Girl

Suggestion: virtually anything by Jane Austen (so many movies/shows/plays); Gary K. Wolf - Who Censored Roger Rabbit? (warning: not nearly as much fun as the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?)

My card: Jane Austen - Persuasion

Way to crush hard mode for 4A!

Of course, here was my planned card, happy to share and hope it'll be useful for someone else if there are any repeat squares next time. Probably my favorite book from the card was Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland. I really didn't expect it to be as funny as it was, but I laughed out loud quite a bit. I ended up recommending it to all my friends afterward. I used the recommended thread, but I tried to pull as many books as possible from my TBR, to make some additional progress there as well, and almost all of these should qualify for hard mode.

1A - Older Than You Are: Hope Mirrlees - Lud-in-the-Mist 1B - Water, Water Everywhere: J.V. Jones - A Cavern of Black Ice 1C - What's Yours is Mine: Alexandra Rowland - Running Close to the Wind 1D - Family Drama: John Steinbeck - East of Eden 1E - It Takes Two: Stephen King & Owen King - Sleeping Beauties (not hard mode)

2A - New Release: Heather Fawcett - Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands 2B - Plays with Words: Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange 2C - Independent Author: Michelle West - Hunter's Redoubt 2D - Bookception: Jasper Fforde - The Eyre Affair 2E - Disability Representation: Lois McMaster Bujold - The Curse of Chalion

3A - Easy, Breezy, Read-zie: T.J. Klune - The Lightning-Struck Heart (not hard mode for me, sadly) 3B - Stranger in a Strange Land: Edgar Rice Burroughs - A Princess of Mars 3C - One Less: Baroness Orczy - The Scarlet Pimpernel (hard mode with 1A) 3D - There Is Another: Adrian Tchaikovsky - Salute the Dark 3E - LGBTQIA+ Lead: K.J. Charles - The Magpie Lord

4A - Now a Major Motion Picture: Mario Puzo - The Godfather 4B - It's About Time: Rob Grant - Backwards 4C - Award Winner: Larry Niven - Ringworld 4D - Mashup: Aliette de Bodard - The House of Shattered Wings 4E - Local to You: Jonathan Lethem - Gun, with Occasional Music

5A - Debut Work: Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man 5B - It's a Holiday: Ray Bradbury - The Halloween Tree 5C - Institutional: Victor LaValle - The Devil in Silver 5D - Minority Author: Samuel R. Delany - Trouble on Triton 5E - Among the Stars: Christopher Paolini - To Sleep in a Sea of Stars