Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

New Year, New (to me) Murderbot!

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

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Oh Murderbot, you charming unit, you! I enjoyed the first entry in this series, and I enjoyed it because y’all told me I would! Murderbot is a much-loved (and rightfully so) character here at CBR, and after reading the first entry back in November, I tried to pace myself. Well, I waited until a whole new YEAR *cough cough few months* before diving back in! I didn’t want to do what I did with Becky Chambers earlier last year – read through everything then spend […]

A gorgeous love story that develops through time and letters

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

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This is How You Lose the Time War deserves the hype. The more fantasy I read, the more I crave something that pushes the boundaries, something that really wows me. Several of the books I read did this year by being ‘utterly bonkers’, as I’ve described them, but This is How You Lose the Time War managed it in an entirely different way. Technically, I think this is science-fiction, not fantasy, but it still pushes the boundaries because it is, first and foremost, an epistolary novel, […]

Talia Hibbert writes cute novellas too

Wrapped Up in You by Talia Hibbert

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Will and Abbie have known each other since they were children. Will and Abbie’s twin brother are best friends. It turns out that both Will and Abbie have been in love with each other since they were teens, but neither had the guts to tell the other. Will went off to become a big-time movie star in Hollywood, Abbie met and married someone else (and later went through a painful divorce with said someone). It’s been two years since they saw each other, as Abbie […]

Don’t insult a goddess in her own temple – gonna have a bad time

The Beast of Blackmoor by Milla Vane

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Mala, sent on a quest by the goddess Vela, comes to Blackmoor to locate and tam the legendary Beast. She initially believes the beast to be a demonically possessed mammoth that plagues the area and is surprised when she instead discovers that it is the warrior Tavik, who she first met protecting a caravan of refugees from blood-thirsty revenants. Tavik is pretty much a broken man, who once foolishly defiled a temple of Vela and now believes that everything that happened since then is divine […]

Revisiting The Folk of the Air, with more Cardan and Jude

How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories by Holly Black

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Spoiler warning! Don’t read this book, or review unless you’ve finished the entire trilogy of The Folk of the Air. The Cruel Prince is the place to start. This companion book, which I suspect would clock in at novella-length if you removed all the beautiful full-colour illustrations throughout by Rovina Cai, works as part prequel and part sequel to The Folk of the Air trilogy, as well as an alternate POV to several of the series’ events, especially in The Cruel Prince, where Prince Cardan is possibly at his most loathsome. In […]

The Justice Bits are the Best

Defy or Defend by Gail Carriger

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The Delightfully Deadly series is basically a companion and continuation to Gail Carriger’s Finishing School series which is a prequel to the Parasol Protectorate (also a series, or rather two). You don’t need to have read the Parasol Protectorate, but it would really help with the Delightfully Deadly series if you have some familiarity with the Finishing School series. All of them are set in a generally steampunk-esque Victorian England that includes some knowledge and existence of werewolves and vampires. Defy or Defend is part […]



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