Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

So much for pacing myself

A Kiss for Midwinter by Courtney Milan

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After The Duchess War, I decided to take a break from Milan just so I wouldn’t finish the series too quickly. Yesterday, I started a novel that is good but kind of grim. Last night, I thought I would just take a look at the next book in the “Brothers Sinister” series, the novella A Kiss for Midwinter, and here we are. This is a holiday story that I know some Cannonballers like to reread at Christmastime, and, in the way of Milan, it offers […]

“You rescue me. I rescue you. That’s how this works.”

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

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This is the second book in the Alex Stern series. This review will contain some spoilers for the first book in the series, Ninth House because I’m not sure how to review it without referencing things that happened in the last book. So if you’re new to this series, start there. Darlington is still missing, “in Spain” to those not in the know, and in Hell, possibly dead to those initiated in the secrets of Lethe House. Galaxy “Alex” Stern doesn’t have a lot of […]

Fathers and Children

The Duchess War by Courtney Milan

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The Duchess War, while listed as Book 1 in a series, is actually a sequel to the novella The Governess Affair. This novel picks up almost 30 years after the events of the novella and focuses on the next generation of characters. As with The Governess Affair, author Courtney Milan does a wonderful job of putting the reader in a specific historical period and includes fascinating information about the social and economic situation of the time, in this case, 1863 industrial England. I am officially […]

“When you catch someone lying about a murdered girl, you go ask them why”

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

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CBR15 Passport Challenge – New to me author Five years ago, blonde and beautiful high school girl Andie Bell was murdered, although no one ever found her body, despite careful searching. However, Andie’s boyfriend Sal Singh confessed in a text message to his dad and then committed suicide before he could be arrested by the police. So everyone knows that he did it, and the case is closed. Pippa Fitz-Amobi remembers Sal Singh as a kind and considerate young man, with a promising university career […]

At the very crowded intersection of Black History and Banned Books

Black Was the Ink by Michelle Coles

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CBR15passport new to you authors On February 1, the first day of Black History month, the news hit that fascist Governor DeSantis disapproved of the curriculum for the AP African American History course and would ban it from being taught in Florida. Not long after this story aired, it was revealed that Florida officials and AP officials had been negotiating the content of this course for some time and it looks like the AP/College Board basically caved to reactionary political demands and agreed to censor […]

“My inner being is exceptionally cranky and I often don’t want her company myself.”

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik

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CBR Passport Challenge: Books Recommended by Friends This is the second book in a trilogy. It doesn’t really make sense if you’ve not read the series from the beginning. So if you’re not caught up, go read A Deadly Education. It’s great, I’ll wait. El and Orion are now seniors in the Scholomance, and they have absolutely no way of knowing if their very dangerous mission just before graduation to fix the furnaces worked. Did they manage to clear the graduation hall of the majority […]



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