Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Vampires in Old Mexico (AKA Texas). What’s Not to Love?

Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Canas

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cbr16bingo horses Mexican gothic has, to my surprise, become a new favorite genre for me.  It’s a different flavor from the British gothic that I grew up on, more of a sense of connection between the living and the not-so-much living, that seems to be a part of the Dia de los Muertos Mexican mentality.  So it’s always a treat to get a new sort of being, such as the vampires in this book.  So yes, they want to drink blood for nourishment (not unheard […]

Hester came awake in the night because something had ended.

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T Kingfisher

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What happens when the weirdest cozy fantasy horror novelist you know of becomes inspired by Bridgerton? A Sorceress Comes to Call is what happens. T. Kingfisher blends the Regency romance of Bridgerton with the Goose Girl fairy tale, a very bad mom, a heaping tablespoon horror, shakes it all up and serves it over a middle aged woman and a teenage girl who are willing to fight an evil who isn’t afraid to kill the innocent. I am 8 books deep in a T. Kingfisher binge. I […]

Frankenstein but plants and gay!

A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock

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I saw a reel on Instagram from the author talking about this book, and I was immediately sold. Frankenstein? Queer? Messy, messy characters? Sign me up! And this absolutely delivers on all fronts. The beginning of A Botanical Daughter is a little slow, but it perfectly sets the scene of Grimfern, an estate inside a greenhouse outside the closest village, and the three main characters – Gregor, botanist and lord of Grimfern; Simon, taxidermist and romantic partner to Gregor; and Jenny, local village girl whose […]

Ed Gein rocked 1950s America, and has left an indelible mark that has lasted 70 years

Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? by Harold Schechter and Eric Powell

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Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Silence of the Lambs, and basically the whole career of Rob Zombie owe a great deal to Ed Gein. Officially, Ed Gein was not a serial killer. Officially, he “only” killed two women: 58-year-old Bernice Worden, the owner of a hardware store, in 1957 and 51-year-old Mary Hogan, the owner of a bar, in 1954. The general baseline used to define a “serial killer” is three or more murders. But his brother, Henry, died suspiciously in 1944 following a […]

“It sounded like the first line of a poem: They never stop, these Stepford Wives, they something, something all their lives. Work like robots? Yes, that would fit. They work like robots all their lives.”

The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin

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Thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the audio ARC. It hasn’t affected the contents of my review. Another banger from Ira Levin. I didn’t love it quite as much as Rosemary’s Baby, but you can clearly tell that this dude could write, and was waaay ahead of his time. And the actual book is much more subtle and impressive than its pop culture residue would have you believe. (Don’t even get me started on the bastardization that is the 2004 film. Now that I’ve read […]

“I should have killed you in your sleep.” CBRBINGO – Dreams

The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim

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I kind of can’t believe how much I liked this. Sometimes you just have to try new things! I do not recommend that the new thing you try be eating human eyeballs, as our MC is into, but like, try some pig ear soup! Or some menudo. You never had jackfruit? Try some jackfruit (had to throw something in for the vegans). You know! Or like me. Reading a book about a woman who looooooves eating eyeballs, a thing most versions of past me would […]



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