Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“I did not come here only to dance. I came here only to dance with you. It is quite a different thing.”

Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater

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This book is marketed as Howl’s Moving Castle meets Bridgerton. I suspect anything by a slightly less known author writing in the Regency era is now sold as X meets Bridgerton. Before the Netflix success of Julia Quinn’s novels, I’m guessing it would be X meets Jane Austen. Obviously, just because it’s set in the Regency era, it isn’t necessarily anything at all like Bridgerton, and that’s absolutely fine, and might, in fact, make more people interested in it. I do see the Howl’s Moving […]

CBR15 Bingo: In the Wild

Magic Claims by Ilona Andrews

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4.5 stars CBR15 Bingo: In the Wild (partly set in a big, spooky wood AND featuring shifters) This short novel, which originally was planned as a novella (but the authors just couldn’t fit all of the story into such a short format, for which their fans are grateful) is the second of the Wilmington Years stories, which could clearly also be called Kate and Curran spectacularly fail at a quiet and uneventful retirement. In the previous story, Magic Tides, Kate has to rescue a bunch […]

More of Bones’ side of the story

Both Feet in the Grave by Jeaniene Frost

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3.5 stars 15-word review: Bones tells his side of the story of how he reunited with his Red Reaper. Jeaniene Frost’s retelling of her successful paranormal fantasy series from the point of view of Bones the vampire continues. This book is a take on the events of One Foot in the Grave. It’s been four long years since Kat Crawfield left him to protect him, not really understanding that if he’d managed to stay alive for two hundred years before meeting her, some secret government […]

This should have been my tenth review of the year – not sure what happened there

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

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This is the concluding volume in a trilogy. It won’t really work for you unless you’ve read the previous two books. Start with A Deadly Education. Also, this review will contain spoilers for the previous book in the series, so proceed at your own risk if you’re not caught up. Galadriel “El” Higgins has done the impossible. She has not only made it out of the Scholomance with her entire graduating senior class, but with every other student in the school as well. Everyone is […]

Demons and wizards and magic – oh my!

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

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4.5 stars Bree Matthews applied to an early admissions residential program at the same college that her mother attended, only to discover that her mother strongly objected to her going there. They had a blistering argument, and Bree’s mother died in a car accident before they had a chance to settle things. Bree blames herself for her mother driving when angry. Her grief and guilt are overwhelming, so Bree hopes that being away from home is the best way forward. She has barely arrived at […]

“You know who you are, I know who you are, and our Lady does, too.”

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

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#CBR15 Passport Challenge: Different genres (paranormal fantasy) Being a queer teen can be difficult enough, even if you don’t come from a long line of magic users with very traditional gender roles. In Yadriel’s family, the brujos can summon the spirits of the dead and help them find peace in the afterlife. The brujas have tremendous healing powers. However, Yadriel’s family won’t let him go through the traditional rite for brujos, because of the gender he was born with. The only ones who seem to […]



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