Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

An Indie-Published YA Fantasy

A Discovery of Talents by Phoenix McDonald

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This is an indie-published book, which I was excited to read because I want to support indie authors. In this YA fantasy, 16-year-old Marcus discovers that he can travel from earth to another world, called Lysomnus. His father Deacon is kidnapped by someone from that world before he has much of an opportunity to tell Marcus more about this new ability or Lysomnus itself. Marcus sets out with his friends Leopold and Sadie to find his father, and along the way they are thrust into […]

A third re-read for a book whose series I never thought I would continue.

The Magicians (The Magicians, #1) by Lev Grossman

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I have once again re-read this book. (I blame my Narnia re-read, and also I wanted to read it one last time before I started watching the TV show.) My past self would be devastated to learn I have gotten even more out of this read than I did the last. I still really dislike most of these characters, especially when we reach the middle section after they graduate from Brakebrills and become disaffected young adults. I never went through this stage of life and […]

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia, #2) by C.S. Lewis

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**30 Books in 30 Days** Book 1/30 I don’t know why I decided that in June* I would read essentially a book a day, but I decided I wanted to see if I could do it. I have, of course, stacked the deck a little with shorter novels, romances, audiobooks, etc, but I have given myself space to read some chonkers as well. Let’s see if I can do it! *So behind in reviews :(((( My re-visitation of the Chronicles of Narnia opens this challenge. […]

Maybe through the next door…

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alex E. Harrow

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January Scaller is not white. This makes her stand out as an oddity in early 1900s New England despite her clothes and demeanor that would have passed every high-society test on a girl with white skin. Her caretaker, Mr. Locke, has done his best to provide January with all the things she will need to be comfortable: a home, nice clothes, training in being demure and quiet, and a nursemaid. Despite his best attempts to stifle, January is determined to find her own path in […]

I’d rather spend time with David Tennant’s Crowley

The Night Jar by Deborah Hewitt

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I had a hard time getting through The Nightjar. I liked the premise, although it sounded a little like the His Dark Materials trilogy, I liked the setting, although it’s kind of like Neverwhere, and I liked some of the characters, although I never took a liking to either of the two leads. I really wanted to like this, and there were a lot of times where I almost did. The premise is that there is an alternate world attached to our own where people […]

Summer, Baba Yaga, and a were-house

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I love portal fantasies. I’ve loved them for as long as I can remember, from Narnia to Oz to Wonderland to Amber and even for a brief moment Xanth, I have loved stories of someone from this mundane world transported to a world full of magic and wonder. Summer in Orcus is an offering in this category from T. Kingfisher, aka Ursula Vernon, and it is marvelous. The best I can describe it is a middlegrade fantasy for adults, and much like Catherynne Valente’s The […]



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