Top Ten Tuesday: Oh, The Places We Will Go!

As always, this feature is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish! 

This is actually a very easy topic for me to come up with ten items for! I'm all about great settings, and it's always a bonus when an author writes a setting that comes across as authentic. (It's all in the details, I tell you!) If anyone is aware of books that feature these settings, let me know in the comments!

For as long as I can remember, I've had a particularly fascination with ancient Egyptian mythology + culture. While I certainly don't think that things are the same in the Egypt of today, I still find the idea of Egypt mystical and wonderful.

(bonus points for: the Philippines, Korea + Japan) I'm Asian, and I lived over there for almost half of my life. While there are a few books I can point you to that feature the culture, I'm thinking we need more, more, more. I'm particularly enamored with the idea of setting a YA book in my homeland (the Philippines), or in a place that successfully blends modern with history and culture (Japan), or in a place that's beautiful and quirky (Korea).

I've always had an interest in the story of the Romanovs. When I was still in college, I spent a whole afternoon in the library just reading about the Romanov family - and not as a requirement, but because I wanted to. There's something interesting and very intriguing about Russian culture.

After reading Origin last year, I found myself fascinated with the Amazon rainforest. It sounds so mysterious, so dense and so enormous that so many different kinds of stories could possibly be set there.

(bonus points for: England, France + Greece) - There are probably a lot of books set in Europe, but I still have a soft spot for this continent. There's something about that adorable accent (England), the food (France) and the ancient history (Greece) that will always call out to me.

There's something positively charming about the culture down South, which I had to study a little bit in college. The rules of society, and the way people behave and interact are very interesting and I wouldn't mind finding more books set there.

I've fallen more and more in love with this city the longer I've lived/worked/played in it, so it's a no brainer why I put it on this list. There's a constant hustle + bustle here, and there's always something new to discover!

While I probably wouldn't last very long in the actual desert, I always think it would make the most epic setting for a dystopian novel or part of a fantasy novel. It certainly seems majestic (although I'd probably complain about sand in my shoes!)

No one ever gets sick of reading novels set at the beach, especially in the summer when you're actually at the beach. Or maybe that's just me.

I love the idea of kingdoms and royalty, thus the castles. Castles are not only homes, but they serve as the setting for grand adventures - what with the endless secret passages, tunnels, various rooms and floors and more.