Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Happy Horror Days

Christmas and Other Horrors: A Winter Solstice Anthology by Ellen Datlow (Editor), Christopher Golden, Benjamin Percy, Alma Katsu, Terry Dowling, Nick Mamatas, Glen Hirshberg, Garth Nix, Tananarive Due, Richard Kadrey, Stephen Graham Jones, Nadia Bulkin, Josh Malerman, Cassandra Khaw, Kaaron Warren

by Leave a Comment

I am a big fan of horror all year round, so I am going to be that person right now and be all “Ghost stories at Christmas are Victorian tradition!”  And they were, and I like to embrace this particular tradition.  There are 17 creepy seasonal horror stories in this book, so next year if I am on the ball I might even be able to set up a spooky reading advent-ish adventure for myself. This collection is not just about Christmas, other winter holidays […]

Mythic Alphabet Murders and Staying Normal

The Sinister Booksellers of Bath by Garth Nix

by Leave a Comment

Bingo 2: Part 2 I’m going a tad bit literal here as The Sinister Booksellers of Bath is a sequel. Once again, it’s in 1980s London, Bath, and nearby areas, with some excursions into locations/times folkloric or supernatural. Susan, Merlin, Vivien, and the rest of the booksellers and associates are all back as well. There are essentially two mysteries on hand, both involving Susan: there’s the disappearances and murders in a realm out of time and sort of space, and then there’s Susan’s growing sense […]

Same beginning, different stories

Clariel by Garth Nix

Brightly Burning by Mercedes Lackey

by Leave a Comment

This is a pairing of two stories that may not seem to have too much in common, but they do. At some point last year we acquired most of Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar series through a humble bundle deal. I had read a few of her books over the years, but none of Valdemar. I chose at random Burning Brightly, which turns out to be a rare stand alone in the series. What struck me was the similarities in the initial set up with another stand […]

Old Magic in Not Too Old Times Past

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix

by Leave a Comment

The Left Handed Booksellers of London sounds like an interesting premise, and thankfully one that gets pulled off reasonably well. One thing I will say right off is that it’s a lot more interesting if you know a little bit about British or Celtic folklore; I also think the 1980s setting doesn’t get enough attention and that’s a totally missed opportunity. In a lot of ways the story is pretty standard: country child comes to the big city to pursue an education and find the […]

Into Shadow Series Review

The Garden by Tomi Adeyemi

Persephone by Lev Grossman

The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix E. Harrow

Undercover by Tamsyn Muir

What the Dead Know by Nghi Vo

The Candles Are Burning by Veronica G. Henry

Out of the Mirror, Darkness by Garth Nix

by Leave a Comment

Wow. I really wish this series of short stories had been released around Halloween, some of the stories are very good and the horror/fantasy elements are great. There are at least two stories I wish had been longer novels (The Six Deaths of the Saint and Undercover) because of how good they were and how much I didn’t want the stories to be over when I got to the end. “The Garden” by Tomi Adeyemi (2 stars)-This one compared to the other books in the […]

A return to the old kingdom

Terciel & Elinor by Garth Nix

by Leave a Comment

Way back in 1995 Garth Nix created an intriguing world with his book Sabriel. A world in which a kingdom of magic was separated from a more mundane land (Ancelstierre) that felt like 1930’s England, and in that magic kingdom necromancers raised the dead and risked the world to bring back an ancient evil. Fighting against this were the Abhorsen, a family of good necromancers whose job it was to return the undead to the afterlife. It was a great and rich world that was […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo