Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

It’s rather a lot to tell. But I suppose I should start with the parrot.

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

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CBR15PASSPORT (Stamp #4: Books from different countries. Do international waters count? If not, written by an Australian.) This is the second book of the Last Binding Series. If you haven’t read it yet, by all means read the first in the series that I reviewed here: A Marvellous Light. It’s a surprisingly fresh take on the well-worn “magic is real” carpet set in the early 1900s. Spoilers abound if you haven’t read the first book. In the aftermath of Robyn and Edwin’s discovery that snobby magical aristocrats are conspiring […]

“Desire was not passion and passion was not love.”

The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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I have been slow to jump on the Silvia Moreno-Garcia bandwagon, mostly because I read one of her earlier books and it wasn’t for me. Then everyone lost their minds over Mexican Gothic. And I did nothing! But I’m glad I eventually gave her another shot, because this book shows me that I can like what she does, though it still didn’t perfectly gel with my tastes. SM-G is a genre hopping author, and with The Beautiful Ones, she takes on a fantastical version of […]

The Title is Slightly Too Accurate

Even Though I Knew the End by C. L. Polk

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I’m in two minds about this one; on the one hand the characters and the mystery are good, but on the other the ending feels rushed and certain important parts of the world feel a little underdeveloped. That said, in general Even Though I Knew the End was a fun, fast read. In a world that resembles  Dashiell Hamnet if he wrote vaguely Christian supernatural detectives, Helen is a former rising start in the magic world, cast out when she tried to summon a demon […]

I third this fairy tale self aware fun

Cursed Princess Club v.1 by LambCat

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I saw Cursed Princess Club v.1 on a shelf and thought it looked interesting but left it there; then I was reminded of this title by a fellow Cannonballer, and decided that maybe I wanted to pick it up. Turns out I didn’t remember which store I’d seen it in, so I ordered it, then saw it on the shelf again two days before I got it. By this point, there was a second review. I agree with both of them. The art style is […]

“One doesn’t need magic if one knows enough stories.”

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawelett

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I absolutely adored this! One standoffish professor plus her exact opposite best (only) friend plus a countryside full of faeries? Magical! At long last, Emily has made the long journey to Ljosland to study the Hidden Ones, the previous unresearched faeries who live there. Her entry on them will be the crowning achievement to her encyclopedia of faeries. If only she hadn’t somehow offended all the townsfolk on her first day… The sudden arrival of her colleague Wendell – and how quickly the townsfolk latch […]

“We should appreciate the flower, regardless of its roots.”

Daughter of the Moon Goddess (The Celestial Kingdom Duology, #1) by Sue Lynn Tan

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I need to write this review now or I will never come back to it (see below). But I will keep it short! I liked this book a lot, but not as much as I wanted to. The story was great, the world was imaginative , and I liked the characters (though the way the worldbuilding was introduced could have been much clearer; I was well into the book before I felt like I understood where the characters were and what their world looked like). […]



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