Favourite Series Of All Time

Good book series are probably the best thing ever, because you usually get to read at least three different books with the same beloved characters from the first one. That is, once you get past the pain of waiting a year or so for the release of the next book. I've read so many different series for this exact reason, but I thought I'd talk about some of my absolute favourites which I still go back to regularly. This is in no way in an order from best to worst, mostly because it was so difficult picking just five that I couldn't bear to have to rank them as well.

1. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

I'm not going to bother summarising this one, because I'm pretty sure it's impossible to not have heard of Harry Potter; if you haven't read this yet, I seriously wonder what you've been doing with your life up until now. I must have read this entire series a good seven or eight times over and it still never gets boring to read. This series is like my childhood summed up.

2. The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare

'Is this the part where you start tearing off strips of your shirt to bind my wounds?'
'If you wanted me to rip my clothes off, you should have just asked'

The Shadowhunter world is absolutely beautiful. I mean, there are the shadowhunters, who are these incredibly fierce, tough demon hunters, and then you've got angels and runes, warlocks and magic, vampires and faeries and werewolves, it's brilliant. Cassandra Clare does such a good job making it all seem so real, and really creating an entire world through her books, and I found all six books in this series pretty much impossible to put down. One of my favourite things is actually the witty and sarcastic sort of humour that is scattered throughout the books - I have always loved books which manage to successfully combine fast-paced, dramatic action and hilarious comments from the characters, and this series is one of the few that repeatedly made me laugh out loud. Unfortunately I was in public at this time, so it was a little embarrassing. But yes, I seriously cannot say enough how much I LOVE this series. And Magnus Bane, ohmygod. I can't even describe how great he is.

3. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

The world Philip Pullman creates in this series is actually INSANE. It's so well described and built up, the whole thing is just beautiful. I thought the first book was incredibly well developed, but then he just went and added more worlds in the following ones. Wow. I always loved the idea of the daemons, which are almost like visible parts of people's souls in the form of animals, and when I was younger I wanted one SOOO badly. I still do to be honest. The book series is actually a whole lot more complex and just generally better than the film, as usual, so if you haven't read it yet, you really should!

One moment several things are possible, the next moment only one thing happens, and the rest don't exist. Except that other worlds have sprung into being, on which they did happen.

4. Tiffany Aching by Terry Pratchett

Okay, so this was probably written for children, but Terry Pratchett is so great that I really don't care. This series is also a part of his much larger Discworld series (which is more for adults), and it focuses on a young girl who, whilst looking for her missing brother, meets tiny blue 'pictsies' and gets sucked up into a world of witches and magic. By far the best part of this series are the pictsies, also known as the Nac Mac Feegle or the Wee Free Men. They're a fierce sword wielding clan, whose lack of size (and brains, perhaps) is made up for by their intense determination and love for stealing, fighting, drinking and just generally causing chaos everywhere they go. Everything they say is written in a scottish/gaelic dialect which just makes every scene they're in hilarious.

They are actually some of the BEST characters you will ever encounter.

We always ken where we are! It's just sometimes mebbe we aren't sure where everything else is, but it's no' our fault if everything else gets lost! The Nac Mac Feegle are never lost!

5. Half Bad Trilogy by Sally Green 

This actually still isn't a completed series, so there's a lot of pressure on the last book to be good, but so far it's been one of my favourites. Half Bad is set in world where there are White and Black witches - needless to say, the Black witches are seen as evil, and the White as good. Nathan is born half Black and half White, which rarely happens because of the deep seated hatred between the two, and ends up caught between the two warring sides. The White witches want to use him to kill his dad, one of the most evil Black witches, and the Black witches want him to help lead an uprising against the White, but neither fully trust him. 

The trick is not to mind. Not to mind about it hurting. Not to mind about anything.

This series is such a brilliant combination of magic and adventure and romance - it can actually be quite dark at points, as obviously nothing involving the witches is as black and white as it seems, but that's part of what makes it so gripping. I loved seeing how Nathan developed throughout the first two books, and I love Sally Green's writing style, so I am very excited for the next one (Half Lost comes out March 2016 apparently).

I had to go through a lot of very very good series sat on my shelves to come up with these five, so I hope you enjoyed them as much as I have, and if you've not read them, give them a go. Let me know which series you keep going back to down below :)