Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The author looks like someone who would write about a pickle

The Wise Pickle by Sarah Howden

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One will never look at a pickle the same way again.  Or you won’t after reading The Wise Pickle by Sarah Howden and illustrated by Sabina Hahn. Due mid/later June 2026 I read this book via an online copy. First, be prepared to witness weirdness. I mean a talking pickle for starters is really just the start of the weirdness. And second, be prepared to be amazed (by the fact there is a talking pickle who is a wise old soul. Or not). And finally […]

Historian friends to lovers, a haunted mansion and a potentially explosive teaspoon

The Antiquarian's Object of Desire by India Holton

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Amelia Tarrant and Caleb Stirling are both history professors at Oxford with a speciality in magical antiques. They have been best friends since childhood, but any hint of affection between them could be ruinous to Amelia’s reputation and the careers of both. As a result, they have to appear to be enemies and stage elaborate public fights every so often to make sure all their colleagues believe them to be bitter rivals. One such fight, involving a volatile magical teaspoon, causes a big enough explosion […]

The Robot Who Cried ‘Wolf!’

The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King

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And so, I’ve finished the fifth level of my second trip to The Tower with Wolves of the Calla (which, incidentally, I have been mispronouncing in my head for over a decade and am still adjusting to the correct pronunciation, having now listened to the audiobook!). The main plot in this hefty tome is that our ka-tet of gunslingers, Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake and Oy, reach one of the last towns, the Callas, of their world and make a final stand to protect the town’s […]

Who ya calling an alien?

Kloud 9: The Star Soldier by AJ O. Mason

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By the time I got to chapter two in Kloud 9: The Star Soldier by AJ O. Mason I decided it reminded me of a much lighter Covenant by Lysandra Vuong (and I mean much much much lighter) and later on it would remind me of Heartstopper by Alice Oseman and Strange Bedfellows by Ariel Slamet Ries (both on the lighter side). Or at least the dynamic between Kal and Cosmo and the protagonists of the other stories are similar. The big difference is that […]

Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom

Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom

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Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery starts off with a marker and that you know that a lot of people died at a particular location. From there, we have someone or something waking up and then a Puritan housewife, Abitha is out searching for her lost goat. Abitha, born and raised in England, was sent to the Colonies to marry her husband, Edward. Abitha is trying to be a good Puritan wife and Christian woman, but finds it hard when she sees the men and some of […]

I did not come all this way to live a smaller life

Prince of Storms by Kit Rocha

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This is a hard review to write because I had such a fractured reading experience. I was never able to get into a rhythm with reading, and whatever narrative tension exists was undercut by constantly having to fight with the digital copy to get back to where I left off. NetGalley Shelf digital copies are pretty but not user friendly. I’m always going to be in favor of reading Kit Rocha. I love their brains (plural, Kit Rocha is a writing duo). Aside from the […]



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