Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Sometimes the first family you get isn’t the right one.”

The Kingpin of Camelot by Cassandra Gannon

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Yes, I’ve been hoovering this series. Do you like Arthurian legends? Do you want to figure out how a romance novelist wrote a book with Midas, the guy who can’t touch anyone, as a romantic lead? Of course you do. Plot: Guinevere Pendragon is deeply fucked. Her husband, Arthur, is dead, and a Scarecrow made out of vicious birds is trying to steal her kingdom and doing it pretty easily. Good thing she knows where to run – the only person in Camelot with enough […]

“‘Then, Avenant foreclosed on my shoe.’ – Testimony of Old Woman who (Formerly) Lived in a Shoe.”

A Beast in Shining Armor by Cassandra Gannon

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The second in Gannon’s A Kinda Fairy Tale series. Folks who enjoy the archetypes (particular the more brooding, controlling heroes common in them) will definitely like this book better than the first in the series. Plot: Prince Avenant was  born Bad to Good parents who hated him. One of the biggest differences between people born Good and Bad is that Bad people recognise their True Love on sight, while Good people don’t (because otherwise the Baddies would probably accidentally kill them otherwise – oops!). Avenant […]

So much fun it helped with my reading slump!

Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

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Fellow Cannonballer, Teresaelectro, first brought Heroine Complex to my attention.  Then it was a featured book title for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month at Mysterious Galaxy.  I was about to go and to pick up May’s book order, when on a whim I called and asked if Heroine Complex was in stock.  It was and I purchased it over the phone, to bring home with the books that were waiting at the store. Due to events this year, I have found reading to be […]

My high hopes for horror were halted

Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez

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I read another one of Enriquez’s collections of short stories, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, earlier this year. I loved that collection so much. In my review, I called it the ‘most effective collection of short stories I [had] ever read’ and a ‘knockout’. I figured that Things We Lost in the Fire would be similar. Unfortunately that is not the case. In Things We Lost in the Fire, we have the same elements in each short story present in the collection of short stories in The Dangers […]

A book I might have wanted to write for myself

The Councillor by E.J. Beaton

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What’s this? A review? I actually kicked myself to write this review for multiple reasons. This book is a debut and I want to support debut authors. I just finished it but I’m on holiday and cannot yet meet my bookish friend in a café to talk about it. This book is so far up my alley I am devastated that I didn’t write it. (It’s written with far more beauty and panache than I could have, though). Also, Luca Fontaine. Another reason I’m reviewing […]

A weird book I had a lot of things to say about.

A Discovery of Witches (All Souls, #1) by Deborah Harkness

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Oh wow I have so many things to say. The vast majority of the time when I go to write a review I have to sit there and think of things to say, when my instinct is just like, I had feelings okay and now you want me to put them into words? But the words are just wanting to flow for this one. So first, because context is important, three things about this book and also me: 1. It was free. A friend was […]



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