So, I titled this "New to Q&B" ... Obviously, I'm not new to our own universe. And to start off this thread, I'm actually going to be asking y'all who are not new to Q&B to help out those who are.

One question I get a lot is "Where do I start?" I never know how to answer this and usually cop out with "well, wherever interests you". I thought it might be useful to ask those of you who have already enjoyed our works to give your recommendation for someone who is new to the universe and is daunted by the amount of stories and words.

Did you read one story, then another? Did you jump between my main story and Anzel's to read things in "chronological" order? Do you think starting with one story is a "better" experience than another, whether that be entering through a main story or a side story?

All input is appreciated! Once I get some responses, I'll rewrite this post to be more geared to new folks to the universe.

I think Memoirs is the place to start. Then, after getting to the part where a certain mare enters the stage, the commencement of Crystal's Wishes should begin. The two pair together rather nicely, with Anzel's story giving that clean-cut guard vs. Crystal's giving what I have come to call butter words. :3 My two bits.

I started in Memoirs, and read through Secrets. From there, I bounced in-between short stories depending on whatever characters interested me, and finally worked through Crystal's Wishes.

It's interesting to read the same scenes from each character's perspective in Wishes and Memoirs/Secrets, but I'd imagine that it's hard to jump back and forth on a per-chapter basis because the pacing varies from story to story. However, each story has its own distinct arcs, which are good lift-off points to delve into side stories.

The important thing to keep in mind is that the tone of Memoirs/Secrets is much more serious at times than Wishes, but Wishes focuses more on the results of stuff that happened in Memoirs/Secrets, rather than the trials that Silent went through. Because of this, at least for me, it felt more complete to balance Memoirs/Secrets with Wishes.

tl;dr
Memoirs --> Side story or two --> Secrets --> Wishes

I'd say, Crystal's Wishes and Memoirs simultaneously, then the side stories like 4 of diamonds and whatever, then Crystal's Hopes and Secrets simultaneously? I guess Memoirs is chronologically mostly before Wishes and Secrets is chronologically mostly after Hopes.

Different case here. Started small, with Lovey Dovey and the Business Stallion as a short rom-com story, then worked my way down to the larger stories.

The extremely long story lengths put me off at first, but still.

I personally started with Memoirs of a Royal Guard and then halfway through started Crystal's Wishes. I've read most of the side stories as they came out with the exception of Sunny's Days which I put off.

If I were to give a recommendation, it would be:
1) Read either Crystal's Wishes or Memoirs AND Secrets of a Royal Guard
2) Read the other of the two
3) Read Velveteen Mask if you read Crystal's Wishes first or Three of Hearts/Three of Diamonds if you read Memoirs/Secrets first

My favorite thing is that roughly the second half of Crystal's Wishes, Secrets of a Royal Guard, Velveteen Mask and Three of Hearts/Diamonds all cover roughly the same time frame and you get a LOT of perspectives of different characters from the perspectives of all the other characters. This is my favorite thing about the Q&B Universe.

I personally started with Sunny's days, then went to the Royal Guard series. If you want more action, go with ToaRG and the sequels. If you want more romance, go with Crystal's Hopes. The only side story that will make sense out of context from the rest of the series is the aforementioned Sunny's Days. If you don't care about context, go with Azurte's series Three of Hearts and Three of Diamonds (can't remember which one is first). Those stories are also the most random.

I think reading the first two books in tandem, then the side stories, then the other books in tandem.

Though, personally, I would like to see a note on each chapter showing where in the other stories we currently are. But that may just be me.

I started off reading Secrets & then Memoirs (which was about 1/3 of the way done when I started reading).

For some reason it took me a while to get into Wishes(I think it was the lack of connection in the first few chapters, LOVE it now!) . So I read that after I ran out of Memoirs updates, as it was still being written at that point.

Now a days I read things as they come out, there's no real order for me anymore, just waiting on those sweet, sweet, updates

Where others should start is a bit more complicated. I personally like the approach I took, which is, "start with what interests you and go from there". But of course there is a semi definitive order, and if someone has the chance to follow it, and has the dedication, then more power to them

I started with Memoirs, then Secrets, then on to Crystal's Wishes. I think Memoirs lays down very good groundwork for the entire universe, and I found myself super invested by the time I started Wishes.

I think that was the difference for me, it turned me from Casual Reader to militant MUST READ MORE.

I started reading Memoirs. I liked so much I just had to read the next one. I recently finished Secrets and am currently reading Trials. I didn't know that much about Fimfiction. When I found out about The Q&B I had to check it out. now I'm just browsing. love the stories.

P.S. Runic and Miley are my favorite.

So, being the oddball that I am, I did a thing. And this thread is probably the best place to share it.

A while back, we got our wonderful books; Crystal Wishes: Once Upon a Time, and Memoirs of a Royal Guard, of course. Now, seeing as how I originally read Memoirs, then Secrets, then Wishes, and then went on to Hopes and Trials, with the books—and a second read-through of the stories—I wanted to do it in a different way so it would be somewhat of a new experience.

So I set out to read it chronologically.

Wishes starts off quite a fair bit before Memoirs, so it wasn't until now that I reached the point where Memoirs begins in the Wishes timeline and went to figure out how to go about side-by-side reading. At first, I did math, and figured I could read X chapters of Wishes for Y chapters of Memoirs, but that quickly didn't work out as the Grand Galloping Gala chapters didn't align.

And so, I made a proper reading guide by going through the chapters on Fimfic, and seeing which chapters have shared scenes.

AND HERE IT IS: Crystal's Wishes: Once Upon a Time/Memoirs of a Royal Guard Chronological Reading Guide

This is how I'm reading the books, and I'm enjoying the different approach so far. I also made a Timeline kind of thing, which is the same as the reading guide, but has all the shared scenes/concurrent moments next to each other.

Took quite some time to put together, but I'm happy with the result.

I read Memoirs, Secrets and then Trials. And then everything else I could find because I liked it all so much.