Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

want more wooing, gosh darn it

Wooing the Witch Queen by Stephanie Burgis

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hot take felt like too much tell don’t show, ended up skipping ahead bc I wanted to see how it ended. I think my biggest issue with this book was that I felt that our male lead–Felix–was much more interesting of a character than Saskia, despite the fact that she’s the titular Witch Queen to be wooed. She felt like an idea of a role (sarcastic, misunderstood, guarded) without enough time for us to see this and believe it, so we skip over by having […]

The first sign that Felix was nearing his destination came when a line of skulls suddenly burst into flames directly ahead of him.

Wooing the Witch Queen by Stephanie Burgis

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I loved this book. It has a grumpy witch queen who just wants to be left alone to do her magic experiments. It has a sweet poet, who is actually an escaped Archduke masquerading as a dark wizard/librarian. There are crow friends, wicked queen friends, and not human people friends. This layer cake of a book has kindness in every slice. Just because someone is a wicked queen with a bone crown and flaming skulls lighting the path to her castle doesn’t mean she isn’t […]

Two words: Sapphic. Necromancers.

Dangerous Flames by Stephanie Burgis

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With Mia and Leander fairly well settled in Hapthorn, it’s fallen to Carmilla, Countess Cardenza, to investigate the last loose threads from the previous novella. But first, she has to not kill anyone at their wedding, not even her annoying (-ly beautiful) old flame. That’s right, it’s a second-chance sapphic romance between two necromancers! Carmilla’s taken it upon herself to check each and every bit of bland, boring respectable wedding preparations to avoid any nasty surprises. Sure, Leander’s undead minions are doing a great job […]

“I never had any idea how much one’s neighbors really can change one’s life.”

Good Neighbors by Stephanie Burgis

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I’ve been a fan of Stephanie Burgis since Snowspelled. So much so that I’m a subscriber to her Patreon. So while I received all these stories as they came out there, I’m only now getting around to reading them. And just like I was expecting, they were the perfect cozy fantasy vibes for to get me out of my post-holiday blues! Good Neighbors (short story) “I bared my teeth up at him in a ferocious smile. “Of course,” I said sweetly, “I’d be delighted to […]

Someone Else Will Like This Better

Scales and Sensibility by Stephanie Burgis

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This is a book that was not at all for me, but other people will like much more than I did. I wanted to like it. It’s an homage to Jane Austen, but with magic and dragons. The things I didn’t like are mostly your mileage may vary kinds of things. I find stories in which the protagonist tells an easily discovered lie or is engaged in a three racoons in a trench coat kind of disguise very stressful. Elinor Tregarth is living with her aunt, […]



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