Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A very interesting fantasy debut.

The Last Phi Hunter by Salinee Goldenberg

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Thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the content of my review. This was an interesting debut. Not perfect, 3.5 stars, but I enjoyed myself! Before I talk about the book itself, regarding the audio, I wish I had done the hard copy instead. The narrator wasn’t bad necessarily, but he didn’t bring anything to the narrative, either. It was a pretty meh listening experience, and I’m pretty sure he negatively affected my enjoyment of the book, so keep that […]

“Go then, there are other worlds than these.

The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1) by Stephen King

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I rated this four stars the first time I read it. I think that was because I hadn’t read the rest of the series yet, and now that I have in my head what this series can really do when it’s going, this one just feels a little anemic in comparison. Also, it’s such a weird book that I didn’t know what to make of it at the time, but I can see what he’s doing now that I’ve read the rest of it. In […]

“She would build herself a life of plenty. She would force her world to bloom as she’d made the pomegranate tree grow, and Santángel would help her do it. Even if blood watered the soil.”

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

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The Familiar is an atmospheric historical fantasy set in the late 1500s Spain, when the Inquisition was up and running at full power. Our heroine is Luzia Cotado, a scullion in the house of a poor noble family who uses small ancestral magics taught to her by her secretly Jewish family to get through the day: unburning burnt bread, multiplying the potatoes when there wasn’t enough coin at market, heating water, fixing a seam. The plot kicks off when Luzia’s mistress, Doña Valentina, catches her at […]

The Mushrooms from Hell and A Dragon in a Mary Poppins Bag

The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft

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The longer I think on it, the more I think I liked The Hexologists. Sometimes while I reading, I wasn’t feeling super into it, and as soon as I finished I still wasn’t sure. I think part of the challenge for me was that there’s a lot of necessary world-building going on at the same time characters and scenarios are being set up, and some things don’t get even attention. I’m still not sure about the narration; the narrative voice for random reasons suddenly seems […]

An Excellent Heist

A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal

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An Arthurian heist novel featuring a tea shop by day and a blood bar by night? I’m in, I’m hooked, let’s gooooo! Arthie Casimir owns Spindrift, the aforementioned tea shop, collecting secrets from the aristocracy while serving tea while also providing a safe haven for vampires and her ragtag band of orphans. She is infamous for literally pulling her pistol from a stone. Jin Casimir is her adopted brother and right hand man. All is going well for the dynamic duo until Spindrift is threatened […]

Job burn out takes a turn for the literal

A Witch’s Guide To Burning by Aminder Dhaliwal

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This graphic novel is the story of a journey in which magical outcasts, thrown together by fate, must learn to trust and rely on one another in order to heal, grow and find the strength to battle demons. Aminder Dhaliwal has created a magical world with its own unique set of rules. Witches are valued and esteemed so long as they do their job for their towns. Once their magic weakens, they are “cleansed” by fire and a new witch takes over. It’s an old […]



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