Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Life has thrown a lot at me recently, so here are all the reviews I forgot to write!

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

The Miraculous by Jess Redman

The Tea Dragon Festival by K. O'Neill

An Exchange of Gifts by Anne McCaffrey

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher

The Sandman: Act I by Neil Gaiman

The Princess Spy by Larry Loftis

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The Bear and the Nightingale By Katherine Arden (Warning – the review of this book contains f-bombs!) I know this was supposed to be based on a fairy tale, and some parts seemed very fairy tale-like (especially the story the nanny told toward the beginning with the girls in the snow) but I did not correlate them to any story I already knew.  I appreciated the involvement of the Russian household spirits, and how the village did quite well combining their religion and their culture […]

Drunk on mediocrity

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

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Ugh. The cover for this one was so pretty, and I kept seeing it on bookstore shelves, so when I finally was able to snap up a library copy I was really excited. The back cover promises a woman apothecary in the 1700s who helps other women kill all the Bad Men who were oppressing them? Yes please! Alas, this was a lot of promise without the delivery and I was mostly disappointed. FYI that there are some spoilers in my review below. Penner’s novel […]

A large set of 3* romances as I try and catch up on reviews

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Twice Shy Midway through this book I had this sneaking sense of deja vu, like I’d been here before or seen this before–and no, it wasn’t that I’d read this book before but that I’ve read this author before–Sarah Hogle also wrote You Deserve Each Other which was a truly difficult book to get through, a la what I imagine the TV show You’re the Worst to be like but without the expectation that these two were the worst. So, in any case, we’re midway through this […]

Why, yes: I do like fall best. It is just the superior season. I won’t be entertaining arguments.

Sophie's Squash by Pat Zietlow Miller

Sharing the Bread: An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving Story by Pat Zietlow Miller

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Some kids are quirky; Different. In Sophie’s Squash by Pat Zietlow Miller, Illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf, Sophie is one of those kids. Instead of letting the squash her parents bought at the farmer’s market be relegated to their dinner table, she decides instead that the squash is just the right size to love; to “bounce on her knee;” to give a face, name Bernice & become her constant companion. After a while, & many library trips, garden somersaults, baby bottles, hugs and kisses later, nature […]

If Rube Goldberg had written humorous novels…

Cocktail Time by P.G. Wodehouse

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Cbr13bingo Libations, Bingo #5 (Diagonal) I love PG Wodehouse novels, especially the Bertie Wooster/Jeeves series, but this story featuring Uncle Fred, aka Lord Ickenham, is almost as hilarious and entertaining as the Bertie and Jeeves books. Lord Ickenham, in his 50s I think, is the sort of man who knows how to stir up trouble and then orchestrate events so as to calm the afflicted and afflict the calm. In true Wodehouse fashion, there are a number of plots (mostly involving money and love) that […]

I really want to go to the Dark Forest at Sugar Fair – why does it have to be fictional?

Battle Royal by Lucy Parker

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I absolutely adored Lucy Parker’s London Celebrities series and was excited to get my hands on the first book in her next series, Battle Royal. How could I not be excited for a book where the introduction to our protagonists involves a confectionary unicorn hoof hitting one of them on the forehead mid-judging of a televised baking competition? After that first meeting four years ago Sylvie Fairchild has gone on to open her own bakery, Sugar Fair, across the street from Dominic De Vere’s eponymous […]



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