Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Magic of Making Yourself a Home

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna

by Leave a Comment

Witches keep to themselves for their own good.  Mingling with other witches is an invitation for trouble and against the rules.  At least that’s what Mika has always been told.  And she’s used to it; like all witches, Mika’s an orphan and was raised by a succession of nannies and tutors.  Her only contact with other witches is on the third Thursday of every third month.   However, when she gets a message online asking her to come and tutor three young witches at Nowhere House, […]

“Why were we taught to fear witches, and not the men who burned them?”

The Witches of Moonshyne Manor by Bianca Marais

by Leave a Comment

Bingo 12: Dwelling There’s a probably slightly magically sentient house in this novel, both in the title The Witches of Moonshyne Manor, and in the background as a character, but mostly as a big part of the setting. The magic manor is only one of many many tropes in this novel, to the point where I’m not sure whether this whole novel is full of clichés or it’s actually mildly ironically self-aware. There’s a sisterhood of witches with the leader type (Queenie), the sexy one […]

The doggy does fine

Mission Yozakura Family vol. 5 by Hitsuji Gondaira

by Leave a Comment

Bingo 11: Relation-ship The manga Mission: Yozakura Family is pretty trope-y but still mostly entertaining. In volume 5 a there are a handful or inter-personal relationships that make some progress as well as an actual ship (ok, small fishing vessel and also a submarine makes a brief appearance; that counts). The main mystery of what really happened to Taiyo’s family makes a bit of progress when it turns out there’s a connection that he didn’t know about to his ‘wife’s’ (they’re about 16, so that […]

She’s a Queen, He’s Just an Asshole

Second Chance with His Viking Wife by Sarah Rodi

by 6 Comments

CBR15 Bingo – Europe: This book is set in Saxon England, and additionally includes Norse characters who immigrated there from Greenland. Teon hasn’t seen his wife Revna in years, when they were forced to wed to prevent a war. He hates Vikings, her father especially, and yet he can’t help but be drawn to her. I picked up this book because I’m trying to read more historical romance from different settings, and I don’t recall having read a Viking romance before, especially one it is the […]

Around the world in 72 days – and more than that

19th Century Female Explorers by Caroline Roope

by Leave a Comment

CBR 15 Bingo – In the Wild: The women of this book ventured into the wild spaces of pretty much very continent at some point or another. In the heyday of European colonialism, social mores were constrained for women, who were expected to stay domestic and tend hearth and home. Despite this, many European women managed to go traveling around the world on just as exciting adventures as their males counterparts did, and often recorded what they saw with clearer eyes as well. Truth is […]

‘No airport was an island either.’

Airport by Arthur Hailey

by 2 Comments

CBR 15 Bingo – Nostalgia: This book is set in the glamorous heyday of air travel (and as I am currently in hour three of a ten hour layover in Munich, I can assure you I am feeling very nostalgic.) Over the course of seven hours, Lincoln Airport must go through a snowstorm, a protest, and the return of an airplane that’s had a hole blasted in its side. I love stories about airports and airplanes. They’re exciting to me because they are emblematic of adventure – […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo