Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

This whole race of aliens forgot how to have children. CBRBINGO – Celestial

The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei

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This was really good! So much better—and different—than the author’s first book. If you want a fun space opera with some adventure packed in, I have a book for you. Maya Hashimoto used to be the Robin Hood of art thieves–stealing from the rich and their museums, and giving back to the alien civilizations where they were stolen from. Maya lives in a world where First Contact happened ages ago, humans still kind of ruined the planet, but also moved out to colonize the stars. […]

Oceans Downton Abbey Eight

The Housekeepers by Alex Hay

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Never mess with the housekeepers; they know where all the bodies are buried. Mrs. King has just been let go from her position as head housekeeper at the extravagant Park Lane estate. Everything is going according to plan. The master of the house has recently passed and his daughter is determined to throw an audacious and slightly inappropriate costume ball. That’s the night that Mrs. King is going to rob Park Lane of every elegant possession. She and her group of carefully chosen accomplices are […]

“In Swahili it’s called utu. In Zulu, the word is ubuntu. It translates to ‘humanity,’ but what it really means is ‘community.’ I am because we are. Our humanity is tied together.”

The Monsters We Defy by Leslye Penelope

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Yet another book being done a disservice by its cover. (Should I switch careers and become a book designer? I have zero art skills but I could supervise people who do and like make decisions and stuff!) Anyway, it’s an attractive, colorful cover that I really like the look of, but it doesn’t convey at all the tone of the book or what it is about. I can’t even tell this is a fantasy from looking at this cover, and this is definitely a fantasy, […]

“It was a trap after all,” Alric said. He turned to Royce. “My apologies for doubting your sound paranoia.”

Theft of Swords (The Riyria Revelations, #1-2) by Michael J. Sullivan

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This was fun! It was a plot-forward fantasy adventure story, and even though we’ve seen many of these plots before in different configurations, I think because I haven’t read a lot of plotty adventure fantasy in the past several years, it felt fresh to me. Also, it’s just a really well done version of this type of story. I will definitely be continuing in the series. Okay, but Theft of Swords! Which is a bind-up of the first two books in The Riyria Revelations (The Crown […]

A perfect example of what modern fantasy can do.

Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy, #1) by Robert Jackson Bennett

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Loved this! Just a straight up great fantasy book right here. Great, unique worldbuilding. Loved the characters. Loved the exciting, heisty plot. Perfect build up to the next book. I just loved it, okay! I think I had this idea from just looking at the cover that this book was going to be kind of dark and dour, and it’s not at all. It’s clever and funny, and yes there are some darker places where the characters experience hardship, but it’s also just a really […]

“It is difficult, after the passage of more than a century, to understand the extent to which the train robbery of 1855 shocked the sensibilities of Victorian England.” #CBRBingo – Money!

The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton

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I would love to see the movie version of this, which Crichton also wrote and directed. Sean Connery as Edward Pierce, the mastermind behind the robbery that threw Victorian England for a loop. He really was a smart guy. It’s obvious Crichton did his research about the period (apparently he became obsessed with the Victorian criminal underworld). The book is chock full of criminal slang. You catch the meaning eventually, and it certainly lends an atmosphere. This was a bit hard to get into at […]



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