Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Return of King: Or how Merry got his groove back

Return of the King by JRR Tolkien

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At last, we have reached the end of the trilogy. I won’t keep you on tenterhooks. My lukewarmest take is still that these books need brutal editing. These books are boring much more often than they are interesting. Still, you’re not here for warm takes. You’re here for hot takes, and I am here to deliver. I first owe Peter Jackson an apology, since Eowyn’s feminist cry was just in the last book rather than in Two Towers. But not a big apology. Tolkien seems […]

Meh

Evocation by S. T. Gibson

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I read S. T. Gibson’s A Dowry of Blood — a retelling of Dracula from the point of view of one of his brides — earlier this year and absolutely adored it. The writing was beautiful, the characters were interesting, and I loved the general vibe (it was giving the vampire flashback scenes from Buffy and Angel, without the terrible accents). Her latest novel, Evocation, the first in a planned series (The Summoner’s Circle), was recently released, so I picked it up. Evocation follows David […]

He went abruptly still. “Would you rather I stay dressed?” “Please don’t,” I blurted.

All The Hidden Paths by Foz Meadows

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“Slyly I said, “So you do like him.” Markel’s expression was pained. “He’s a familiar sort of stupid, that’s all,” he signed. “Like you at eighteen, but with better hair.” ― Foz Meadows, All the Hidden Paths All The Hidden Paths picks up a few weeks after the end of A Strange and Stubborn Endurance. Still grieving after the events of the first book, Cae and Velasin are summoned to the capitol by the Asa, Tithena’s queen. Cae is the unwilling heir of his grandmother’s […]

Remember and Be Nice

Remember by Dac Trung Tran

Troll by Frances Stickley

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Remember by Dac Trung Tran is due February  2025. I was able to locate an online reader copy. Now, I am not completely sure if I will find a finished copy early next year, but I do know I will be recommending it.  And that is despite, or because of, I am not completely sure what was read! I could tell you that it is about a book who wakes up to find his mother has left for work, and she has left him a […]

Just a bit of fun… gone horribly wrong

Read at Your Own Risk by Remy Lai

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I almost didn’t read Read at Your Own Risk by Remy Lai. I have enjoyed reading their Surviving the Wild books and have had other titles by them on my radar, but at first I didn’t realize this was theirs and second it did not look like it was something I would normally read. But since one goal this year is to break away from the reading norm and try new things, I thought a young adult thriller might be good. Well, it is a […]

You’re not paranoid if everyone is actually trying to kill you.

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance (The Tithenai Chronicles Book 1) by Foz Meadows

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I felt a sudden, furious rush of sympathy for every Ralian woman who’d ever been the subject of marital bartering; I was ashamed of my prior indifference to the phenomenon, and wondered, with a certain, sick fascination, if being raised in expectation of such a fate made enduring it any easier. ― Foz Meadows, A Strange and Stubborn Endurance I bought this book a couple of months ago as it was on my “MUST ACQUIRE” list. However, I cannot remember how I heard about it […]



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