Engage Grabby Hands Upon...

Inspired by this post at BookRiot, today I wanted to share the keywords or phrases that, when found on books, immediately make my grabby hands start to tingle. And, like Maddie at BookRiot, I basically transform into Fry when I find that some of these things have been combined into one glorious promise of a book.

I actually have a lot in common with BookRiot's Maddie and thus I must agree with her on the following that she mentioned in her post:

- "a pair/group of [young] women must work together"
You want to give me a girl gang? I want that girl gang. Seriously though, I love when women (I specified young women there because I'm focused on YA here) have to team up to get things done. Also, it means more awesome lady characters to enjoy and hopefully wonderful friendships to eat up. Win/win/winwinwin.

- "set in 19th century London"
I don't limit myself to the 19th century or to London - I am a fairly equal opportunity hist. fic. lover - but there's just something about the atmosphere so often found in books about this time and place that sucks me right in.

- "murderess/lady assassin" and my addition, "lady spies"
As if I could even pretend that these ones don't immediately catch my attention.

In addition, here are some of the other things that make me drool for a book right off the bat:

- "Greek/Roman/Egyptian/Norse mythology"
I'm sure I've told this story here before, but I was totally that kid in elementary school who sat in the library and read absolutely everything about mythology that I could get my hands on. I literally did a whole posterboard project on the Egyptian gods (Isis, Ra, and Set, if you're wondering which ones) FOR FUN. And *nerd alert* one of my favourite PC strategy games has always been Age of Mythology. So what I'm saying is that I want all the mythology YA, please and thank you.

- "Tudor"
Yes, seriously, the word Tudor is basically all it takes. I'm a little obsessed with the Tudor line, especially around the rule of King Henry VIII, so I jump all over books that promise

- "witches in historical-leaning fantasy"
I don't really gravitate so much towards modern witch stories but you give me witches in a historical-fantasy-like world and I am so in.

- "WWII"
Dark? Maybe. But honestly, WWII fiction is like cat nip. It's another one of those historical periods that I have always had an interest in and so since I've done lots of studying of the facts side of things, I love reading the stories that people imagine go along with it.

- "girl disguised as a boy"
When girls have to disguise themselves as guys to survive and there's always the risk that they could be discovered and there's usually tension galore? Yeah, gimmie. I think I might have Mulan to thank for loving this trope so much.

- "pirates"
There are not enough pirates in YA these days. Every time I hear about a pirate story I almost start to drool. Pirates are ruthless, exciting, adventurous, and usually a couple of them are pretty sexy (in literature, anyway), and those things are all so much fun to read about. Plus there's often lots of travel in pirate stories, which, honestly, you can't go wrong with.

Now that I've shared by book kryptonite with you, I want to know what yours are! What keywords or phrases set your bookish heart aflutter?