Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I came for the fighting, but stayed for the sweet, sweet love

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

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I’m closer to 40 than I am 30, and I’ve never read The Iliad. I did, however, read The Odyssey in middle school, and quite liked it – though poetry has never been my thing, and the archaic formatting of the translation I read bothered me. Still. It was a good story, and I was in the florescence of my love for heroic fantasy, so The Odyssey kind of felt like the genesis for the types of stories I was reading at the time. So […]

A golden cage is still a cage.

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Yet another book that I probably would not have read if it hadn’t been recommended and eloquently reviewed by fellow Cannonballers.  I took a Greek and Roman mythology course in college a million years ago and, sadly, very little of it stuck in my brain. I’m sure that a better familiarity with Greek gods, goddesses et al would have enhanced my reading of this, but I don’t think that it’s necessary here. This is a well told, gripping story of an immortal woman whose longing […]

At Least This Novel Reconfirms My Circe Tattoo Decision

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I absolutely loved The Song of Achilles. It was incredibly moving and I was surprised how much it changed my view of a hero I basically considered a tool bag (Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Firebrand may have helped shape that interpretations).  I think at least part of the power was because I didn’t not expect to be so moved by a character that often could easily be reduced to warrior with a huge ego. Circe, on the other hand, was a […]

An epic romance sizzles during an Odyssey quest to save the realms

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Breath of Fire is the second book in Amanda Bouchet’s Kingmaker Chronicles series.This novel picks up moments after the end of book one with our heroine, Catalia Fisa, healing from deadly wounds. She has a knack for playing fast and loose with her life, much to the chagrin of her lover Griffin. Cat is the Kingmaker, she can detect lies from anyone. Possession of her is quite handy for anyone in power.  Cat’s mother, Alpha Fisa, would rather manipulate her powers to maintain her iron fist upon […]

This book only gets better the more I think about it.

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This was so good, it made me cry. I’m still crying right now as I type this! Bawling like a little baby. And not because I’m sad! Just because it was perfect and I have all these feelings and they are leaking out of me without my permission. (Okay, some of those feelings are sadness.) I need to buy this book, and I need to buy it in hardcover (the endpapers are so pretty, and the deckled edges make me happy), and I need to […]

Is Rick Riordan Finally Wearing Out?

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I’ve been having some doubts about the Trials of Apollo series. It doesn’t have a terribly interesting heroic character or group, it seems to rely too much on the popularity of previous series’ characters and events, and the plot’s been dragging for two books so far. I was ready to give up after this one. I’m still not sure, so maybe that’s in favor of The Burning Maze? Apollo, Meg, and Grover are still searching for oracles to free and evil emperors to defeat. They’ve […]



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