Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

cbr12bingo – Red!

Lies Sleeping by Ben Aaronovitch

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Every entry into Rivers of London starts with a splash; we are always diving head-first, sometimes literally, into rivers of blood. Every delightful cover, all done by Patrick Knowles, is a map with a big, red, bloody “X” marking the spot. Every cover is a map, every map is filled with teensy tiny detail, and every seemingly unrelated sketch or nursery rhyme lyric builds together into the marvelous mess that is London. I love his minute details; I feel like I’m looking at a Where’s Waldo illustration for […]

Ever get the feeling that you’re being watched?

The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch

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Well, my library is being watched at least. I keep reading myself in circles; themes from one book bleed into another; people, places, statements, snippets of songs- this year is becoming one giant, roiling, swirling brew of a book. Peter Grant and the Falcon Family (tm tm tm!) are back in London, up to their necks in the Thames and sinking fast. Luckily, the river is full of gods who are just as willing to save them as they are to let them drown. Last […]

A Sweet Romance

The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary

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CBR 12 Bingo: Money! (I think this fits the category.) So, the flat that is being shared is a 1-bedroom. More specifically, a 1-bed. Tiffy and Leon, our romantic leads, have an arrangement in which they will only ever be in the flat when the other person is out. Leon works nights as a nurse and spends the weekends with his girlfriend (until they break up), and Tiffy works a day job and gets to have the flat on weekends. By agreement they each sleep […]

Nevertheless

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

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cn. transphobia Let’s get a few things out of the way real quick: JK Rowling is a TERF. And trans women are women. I checked this one out of the library before Rowling went on her recent bigotry spree on Twitter. She’s always held problematic views regarding transfolk but in recent weeks, she’s decided to just let her phobic flag fly. She also, perhaps not coincidentally, signed the infamous Harpers letter with other popular writers and academics that tut tutted “cancel culture”, the perpetual fear of […]

A Sherlock Holmes Retelling That Actually Works!

The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison

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Katherine Addison might just have made my auto-pre-order list. I loved The Goblin Emperor, and she did it again with her most recent book which is effectively Sherlock Holmes fan-fiction. The cool thing about The Angel of the Crows is how it sets things up to be kind of recognizable but then drops a detail or line that makes it really clear which story you’re in and puts things recently mentioned in new and often interesting perspectives. The world of the story is a Victorian […]

“That which does not kill us,” I said, “has to get up extra early in the morning if it wants to get us next time.”

Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch

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Peter Grant and his partner of sorts, Lesley May, have to do a lot of explaining themselves. Not just their actions as members of The Folly, the (tiny) branch of the London Met that deals with “unusual circumstances”, but also every reference that they make about the modern world. Why is that? They’re making these references to The Nightingale; their commanding officer who has been fighting the bad guys (thieves, murderers, Nazis) since before WWII. Before WWII? But how? Well, Nightingale stopped aging in the […]



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