Cannonball Read 12

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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About Aquillia

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Erstwhile PhD in Ancient History. Wannabe fantasy writer. Likes ancient coins, imaginary kingdoms, and failed emperors.

Aquillia's Reviews:

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Delightfully dark (though perhaps not for the current situation?)

The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht

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I read The Monster of Elendhaven (listened to it, actually) months ago, but never got around to reviewing it. It’s more of a novella than a novel, and was marketed as horror but I think the fantasy elements come through more strongly at times. It revolves around “Johann”, the titular monster who cannot be killed and loves killing others, and his relationship with the young, handsome, and equally monstrous Florian, the last surviving member of a rich and powerful family in Elendhaven. Together, they plot […]

Beautiful prose and a beautiful take on an ancient tale

Circe by Madeline Miller

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Madeline Miller’s Circe has been on my radar since it came out, and The Song of Achilles even longer. There were many reviews on CBR last year of the book, most of them praising it if I remember correctly. But it took me a while to actually pick it up. Clearly I should have before, because I loved it! The novel tells the story of the long life of the demi-god/witch Circe of ancient Greek mythology and her interactions with mortals and monsters and gods. […]

A whole lot of Christie short stories

The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories by Agatha Christie

Three Blind Mice and Other Stories by Agatha Christie

Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories by Agatha Christie

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Recently, my husband went away for work for a few days, and I treated myself to a puzzle and took full advantage of my Scribd subscription. After a while, I wanted a break from fantasy and also wanted something that didn’t involve too much thinking, so I returned to one of my old comfort reads: Agatha Christie. I’ve read and re-read most of the novels, so now I turned to her short stories collections. Some of them I had read before, some I recognized from […]

A decidedly average Pratchett

Pyramids by Terry Pratchett

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Another year, another book down on my meandering tour through Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. This time it was Pyramids, which I had high hopes for because it was published around the same time as Mort, which was great, and Guards! Guards!, the perfection of which is only muted by the fact that Men at Arms and Feet of Clay are even better. Pyramids was… eh. It was fine. There were some funny moments. I listened to it on audiobook, and as usual enjoyed Nigel Planer’s narration. The story is about Pteppic, the […]

Forget superheroes; supervillains is where it’s at

Vengeful by V. E. Schwab

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Vengeful is the followup to V. E. Schwab’s delightful Vicious, which I quick-reviewed at the end of 2018 and gave 4.5 stars to (warning, spoilers ahead for Vicious.) Vengeful continues the story of Victor Vale and Eli Ever, two ‘superheroes’ who veer into supervillainy. Schwab neatly gets around the whole hero/villain dichotomy by just calling all her super-powered characters ‘ExtraOrdinaries’. EO’s, as they’re abbreviated, are given their powers when they are resurrected (usually by medical means) from death, and their power relates to the circumstances that killed […]



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