Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Nart

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Nart is an avid romance reader who dabbles in other stuff when she has the spoons. When she’s not reading she’s a bureaucrat both professionally and as an activist because she’s a masochist. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Nart's Quick Questions interview.)

Nart's Reviews:

“being around so many people who are accustomed to the presence of human marvels has made him forgetful.”

Marvelous by Molly Greeley

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This book is absolutely perfect for people who loved fairy tales as kids and now hate them for their lack of realism. Plot: Pedro grew up in the Canary Islands, abandoned by his birth parents and reviled by most of the population as a result of having hypertrichosis, a condition by where hair grows constantly across his entire body and face. Colonialism being what it was, Pedro was then abducted as a child and brought to the Kind of France as a fun gift – […]

“I’ve little experience being gracious, so brace for disappointment.”

The War Priest by Ann Aguirre

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Book 5 of Ann Aguirre’s Ars Numina series and it shows. Plot: Callum McRae has been a monk for 15 years, because he doesn’t trust himself out in the real world, but the catastrophe in Ash Valley and its impact on the bear clam has forced him out of hiding and into leadership on the eve of a Golgoth army landing on the bears’ doorstep. And they don’t trust him to lead them to victory, if one is even possible against such overwhelming odds. On […]

“No wonder the South Sea is populated by little mosquitos wearing eye patches.”

How to Tame a Wild Rogue by Julie Anne Long

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We return to the Grand Palace on the Thames for a forced proximity romance between two people who couldn’t be more different, or more the same. Plot: Lorcan St. Leger is a successful smuggler. He’s come a long way from his lonely, painful youth in St Giles, and he’s done it through ferocious determination, intelligence, and an antagonistic relationship with authority. When he sees a woman in fine dress climbing out of a rooming house’s second floor window on a bedsheet, something urges him to […]

“Like all self-mythologising rebels, Mira preferred enemies to rivals”

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

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Read “real fiction” Nart, they say. “You’ll love it” they say. Pass. Plot: Anarchist, socialist, sometimes illicit gardeners Birnam Wood are fighting for a better future with fiery leader Mira  at the helm and her long suffering second Shelley. Yes, like in Macbeth, so you probably know what’s coming. Unfortunately, given that they are a bunch of law breaking anarchist socialists, they can barely keep their operation running, let alone have wide reaching influence. Mira is determined to find a way to break through though, […]

“If you were a thief in Loretz, then your fingers itched for the magic the place was famous for.”

Made Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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Think Pinnochio and Toy Story meets Boxtrolls and you’re most of the way there. Plot: We have robots, they can be made of wood or metal and given life with a special sort of magic. Unsurprisingly, they aren’t treated with the utmost respect in the city of Loretz. Coppelia, a thief in her own right, has met a few of these small creatures and together, they have formed something of a thieving ring to survive, but the eye of the law is on them, and […]

“She had a knack for quiet insurrection.”

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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A fairy tale that is both familiar and new. Plot: Casiopea is living with her grumpy sexist grandfather, timid mother and hostile cousin in effective slavery because her and her mother had no where else to go when her father died. One day she stumbles on a large wooden box. In opening it, she releases a Mayan god, trapped in captivity for decades, and he wants revenge. One problem, she’s now his power source. Shenanigans ensue. I don’t remember quite which review sold me on […]



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