Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Let me enjoy my vampire romance nonsense in peace.”

ZomRomCom by Olivia Dade

by Leave a Comment

“Do you ever read anything serious?” Good grief, Susan. Have you seen the state of the world lately? Let me enjoy my vampire romance nonsense in peace. -Random Facebook meme   The apocalypse is coming! Oh wait, it already happened. A decade ago, Zombies were loosed upon the Earth and they ate a LOT of people. Edie Brandstrup survived, but her parents did not. Now she is a forty-something (yeah!), plus-sized (HELL YEAH!) soap maker, who lives next door to a dude-bro named Chad (Boo!). […]

“Gods and goddesses above, he was dangerous, but not for the reasons she’d once feared.”

Zomromcom by Olivia Dade

by 1 Comment

I was unsure about Olivia Dade’s Zomromcom from the moment she shared in her newsletter that this was what she was working on. I’m not, generally speaking, a big paranormal romance person and certainly a book featuring a woman beginning a relationship with a vampire during a zombie attack certainly falls into that category. But I’ve had great experiences with Dade books previously and was willing to give this one a shot; it certainly didn’t hurt that its bright, fun cover qualified for the Purple Bingo Square.  We begin the story by being dumped into action in progress, and it really hampered my ability to sink into the book initially. Honestly, […]

When I told my nephew the zombies were looking for brains and we were safe, he didn’t get it

Plants vs. Zombies Volume 1: Lawnmageddon by Paul Tobin

by Leave a Comment

One day I was with my oldest nephew and I thought I’d take him to the library and pick up a few books to read. I was having trouble getting him to engage (he’s special needs and this was way out of his routine, so it was expected). After I started grabbing a couple titles on a whim (covers do make a difference), we wandered to the checkout desk.  It was then I realized that maybe I had missed his interest level (one never knows […]

Novella Round Up – Expanding Urban Fantasy universes

How Green This Land, How Blue this Sea by Mira Grant

Please Do Not Taunt the Octopus by Mira Grant

Sanctuary by Ilona Andrews

by 1 Comment

I read these novellas at various points this year and figured at this point, it might just be easiest to do a quick post covering all 3 to get them done. The first two are part of the same series. So Green This Land, So Blue This Sea – 3 stars The one follows one of the side characters from Shawn and George’s original blog as he visits some of their network in Australia to write a news story about Australia from an outsider’s perspective. […]

And this is how the end begins

Countdown by Mira Grant

by Leave a Comment

This is one of many novellas that Mira Grant (also known as Seanan McGuire) has written to flesh out her Newsflesh trilogy – or her version of a zombie apocalypse. As a result, I would definitely not recommend this as the entry point even though this is chronologically first and goes back to the very beginning, explaining the circumstances that led to the beginning of The Rising. She had already introduced these ideas in the main trilogy but here goes into the details, introduces the […]

A great addition to its genre (but you’re better off not knowing what it is)

The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey

by Leave a Comment

This is a book best discovered blind, without knowing the plot or even genre. But if you already know, or don’t mind mild spoilers, read ahead. “That’s Pandora…she was a really amazing woman. All the gods had blessed her and given her gifts. that’s what her name means, the girl with all the gifts. So she was clever and brave and beautiful and funny, and everything else you’d want to be. But she just had the one tiny fault, which was that she was very, […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo