Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A lovely historical romance with some supernatural elements

The Widow of Rose House by Diana Biller

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4.5 stars Nowhere Book Bingo: Came out more than 4 years ago CBR16 Sweet Books: New (new author) It’s 1875 and Professor Samuel Moore is doing marvellously, thanks to the many inventions he and his family are coming up with. What he really wants to do, though, is investigate and possibly prove the existence of ghosts, and to do that, he requires an introduction to the infamous Mrs. Alva Webster, a widow with a scandalous reputation. Sam doesn’t really care about Mrs. Webster’s apparently lurid past, […]

a lovely story of what it means to be human…

Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino

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…with a godawful cover and title. ARRRGH! This is a magical little slice of existence, but one would never know that based upon the generic title and messy cover art. Honestly, had I not been introduced without the cover, I can’t say that I would have picked it up! Adina enters our world at the same moment that Voyager (that of Carl Sagan’s Golden Record) leaves this very same world. There’s some sort of transference of energy and matter; one magical thing leaves and another […]

how much is folklore and how much is just a mad ramble?

Treacle Walker by Alan Garner

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Alan Garner is a titan of British literature, but it took two other lions of language and a slow day in the shop for me to finally crack open one of his tales. Why did I wait so long? Treacle Walker is exactly the kind of woodsy weirdness that calls to me from the gloam. It was a snowy evening and dead quiet in the bookstore. Every task was complete, everything that could be tidied was tidy beyond tidy, and I had some time to […]

Slewfoot: the devil is in the details

Slewfoot by Brom

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mood music: me and the devil – Soap&Skin I had never heard of Brom and I was unfamiliar with his work before picking up this book. I found out about this book through TikTok and was intrigued by the premise, even if it was something that was outside of my usual reading genres. Slewfoot is set in colonial New England, a few years after the Salem Witch Trials. The protagonist, Abitha, is a young woman who is a fairly recent arrival to the colonies as […]

Is it too early in the year for me to claim my favorite book?

Poor Deer by Claire Oshetsky

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Reader, this book grabbed me by the perpetually wet shoestrings and dragged me through the night on a quixotic and tragic adventure. We know the hallmarks of Southern Gothic, but what about New England? Often we get the “spooky” bits of New England: Lovecraft, Salem, Puritans, but that’s not the full scope of New England Gothic. As a life-long resident of the damp and dark North, allow me to shed some weak Winter light on our Gothic trademarks: dying mill towns crumbling churches perpetual piles […]

More books I read this summer and am only reviewing now to make it to 104

Cassiel's Servant by Jacqueline Carey

Codename Charming by Lucy Parker

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo

Sleep No More by Seanan McGuire

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Cassiel’s Servant – Jacqueline Carey Rating: 3.5 stars Kushiel’s Dart is one of my favourite fantasy books, and books in general, of all time. It stands up, I re-read it this summer in preparation for the release of this. Has Jacqueline Carey done exactly the same thing as Stephenie Meyer and E.L James did, and retold her already existing novel from the POV of another central character? Yes, she has. Was I pretty sure that this was going to be a lot more worthwhile and […]



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