Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Paradise Lost

Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk

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Even Though I Knew the End is a gorgeous, intense, tight rope 3 1/2 hour listen. Set in a slightly alternate, puritanical 1930s or 40s Chicago, C.L. Polk weaves together magic, gritty noir, Heaven, Hell, love, and grief. It’s both spare and lush with just enough detail to give the world texture and context. Women are second class citizens and being queer is dangerous. Helen Brandt sold her soul ten years ago and her payment is about to come due. She has worked as a […]

Read too early and posted too late for Halloween

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna

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This book is The House in the Cerulean Sea except with a het witch instead of a gay orphanage accountant(?). The beats are very similar, from what I remember, but it doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. The adorquirkably named Mika Moon is our protagonist, a half(?)-Indian witch who lost her parents at an early age and was raised by another witch, who serves as the de facto matriarch to a coven of British witches (and, as such, outsourced her upbringing to a series of nannies who […]

Nona would love to meet Mosscap, don’t you think?

Nona the Ninth by Tamysn Muir

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Proper review, a month or so after finishing the book: What it’s only been five weeks since this book came out??? As a sidebar, someone once sent me this scrolling diagram thing to demonstrate why time seems to fly by as you get older and ever since I’ve been terrified of this happening. Why would you find the world less enthralling as you got older? I understand not everything is a first, but there’s so much to do in the world and it’s so fascinating why […]

Gideon and Harrow, retread

Gideon the Ninth by Tamysn Muir

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

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Re-read, September 2022, in advance of Nona Wow. What a change 17 months makes? (edited to note: I originally felt like Gideon was 3.5 stars, too confusing by half, not the best thing I’d read but I was interested to read more) I originally read this in a bit of a weird space. I had made some pretty momentous decisions in my personal life, but due to the whole COVID of it all wasn’t in a place to put them into motion for another half […]

this subgenre continues to be quite fruitful

A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alex Rowland

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Boy did I LOVE THIS BOOK. One of the first five star books I’ve read in a while, and a cynic would say it’s because it’s by an author who also cut her chops writing fan fiction. To which I say, 1) rude and 2) that’s not some hard and fast rule (note my ongoing frustrations with various Hazelwood books!). What I think it means is that in opposition to some of the NA/YA that I read, which emphasizes getting the BIG BEATS of the […]

wasn’t my jam but could be yours!

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows

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CW: rape, of the violent sort, and the aftermath play a key role in this novel from the very beginning so reader beware. There’s also homophobia While this was not my thing, I have some latent fondness for it because it helped me make the comparison to A Taste of Gold and Iron which I liked quite a bit. All in all, it’s a book with some tonal/pacing/detail mismatches that could benefit from a firmer editorial hand. To reiterate, there’s this (for me) well trod habit of […]



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