Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I’m a djinni in a bottle, baby

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

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CBR Bingo: Work (the main character’s motivation is primarily just wanting to do her job as an investigator). I read P. Djèlí Clark’s The Dead Cat Tail Assassins earlier this year and enjoyed it enough that I wanted to read some of his other works, so I recently picked up A Master of Djinn. Set in an alternate-history (in the late 19th century, djinns were introduced into the world) Cairo in 1912, Agent Fatma works for a government agency that investigates supernatural occurrences. One evening, all […]

Sometimes a beautiful cover and a simple story are enough

The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke

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CBR 17 BINGO: Purple (see cover) Illustrated by Victoria Sawdon It’s been five years since the publication of Piranesi, and 21 years (!) since the release of the spellbinding Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, so I know I’m not the only fan who squealed with delight at the arrival of a new (tiny) book by Susanna Clarke. I love the existence of this book, but I must warn you up front that it’s a short story, and barely that. You can read it in 20 […]

‘The Idea Is, Even if I Do Explode, I’m Only Going to Be a Risk to Sheep’

Stone and Sky by Ben Aaronovitch

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Been a while! I can’t believe that we are at now ten books into the Rivers of London series. This is another one of those urban fantasy-slash-detective series that I’ve been enjoying over the years. And like some of the others, Rivers of London has 1) experienced a bit of a gap between novels (three years) and 2) reached a bit of a pivotal point in the over-reaching narrative.  Let’s get the biggest thing out of the way first: Stone and Sky is a Rivers […]

Frothy Mystery

No Wind of Blame by Georgette Hyer

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Bingo: Review Elderberry’s review of Georgette Heyer’s Duplicate Death inspired me to pick up one of Heyer’s mysteries to check her writing out for myself. Overall, I enjoyed this light mystery full to the brim with characters. In No Wind of Blame, Wally, the second husband of wealthy and over dramatic Ermyntrude, is shot to death and everyone is a suspect. There is Ermyntrude’s daughter Vicky, who is a precocious “caution,” as one character puts it. There is Mary who is Wally’s cousin and heir […]

“For I was indeed a student of human nature, as every orphan and hooker and unwanted kid must be.”

Vera by Carol Edgarian

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CBR 17 Bingo: Family – Central to Vera’s story is a desire for a family in which she can truly belong, and her outside status with both her birth mother and her foster family. Vera has always lived under the shadow of a great secret – though raised as the younger daughter in a Swedish household, she is actually the daughter of San Francisco’s greatest madams. In the aftermath of the great earthquake of 1906, these worlds come tumbling together. I remember it was a […]

Personhood in Sci-Fi

Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon

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Volatile Memory fulfills the “purple” square on CBR17 bingo. Generally speaking, I don’t consider myself a sci-fi reader, but Volatile Memory kept coming across my feeds because it’s sapphic and I finally gave into the promo, and I’m glad I did because this ended up being a really interesting story. I’d put it in the same conversations as books like Automatic Noodle and The Stars Too Fondly for the ways it explores transness and gender through presentation as well as whether memories make a person […]



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