Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A promising start to a new series

Witch Season by Julia Bianco

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CBR18 Bingo: Refuge (The Aestas coven works hard to be a safe haven and refuge for young witches who have snapped and would normally be ostracised by other witches) Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this ARC. This book is on sale now. There are two types of witches (in this world, all magic users are called witches, regardless of gender). The ones who are born from families with established magic, who grew up as part of a coven, and who are […]

When Lovecraft Comes to Leeds

The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross

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One of the issues with the main protagonist ‘leveling up’ is that it can make them harder to write into a story. Bob Howard, who has been the main protagonist of the Laundry Files up until this point, was at the receiving end of both a career and supernatural-power advancement at the end of The Rhesus Chart. And this probably made it harder for Stross the write the same kinds of stories  he had been up until that point. So for The Nightmare Stacks, he […]

Yabba Dabba Ghost

Diary of a Dinoghost V01Unlikely Friends by Monica Arnaldo

Diary of a Dinoghost V02 Sworn Enemies by Monica Arnaldo

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I had a list of online reader copies. And Diary of a Dinoghost boos …   I mean books … one and two kept coming up. I figured I had a few days to read them as the first Unlikely Friends was due in August 2026 and two is due in November 2026 under the name, Sworn Enemies. They are both written and illustrated by Monica Arnaldo and are part of the A Branches Book grouping. Anyway, I kept putting them off, but one day […]

Please, DON’T send in the clown

Hamlet is Not OK by R.A. Spratt

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As a teen (at least 13 and up), Hamlet is Not OK by R.A. Spratt and I would have been friends. This is because I, too, would have had some of the naive ideas about violence and mental health our main character has. Now, I still am not keen on violence as the solution and I understand the difficulties of mental health, but if you change Hamlet (and SPOILER, they do) you have changed practically everything that has come after that was inspired by it, […]

When Sparks Fly

Forgive-Me-Not: A Graphic Novel by Mari Costa

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Forgive-Me-Not: A Graphic Novel by Mari Costa has enough humor to counter the seriousness of being a changeling, the human who is stolen away and the dangers of the Fae realm. The story is pretty familiar, with simple but detailed images to move the story along as much as the text/story itself, with a Damsel in Distress (DID), her hero (who is a heroine) and bad guys.  The Princess is not a Princess but a daughter of the Fae Realm. Her Human Counterpart has made […]

I knew pets were trouble!

Game of Pets Book 1: The Boy Who Knew Too Much by Aaron Blabey

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While I can’t say Game of Pets Book 1: The Boy Who Knew Too Much LEFT our main character hanging off the wheel of the giant monster truck (which he actually was at one point) it does leave you hanging as the cliffhanger ending ends with a police chase and the fate of the world in the hands of a kid, a talking (arm and legless) axolotl, and a crazy pet shop/monster truck owner. Aaron Blabey, you are one weird person. An AXOLOTL? Pets as […]



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