Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Les Amis Des Chats

Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett

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How could I resist that title and that gorgeous cover?!? I couldn’t. I didn’t even try. Cats and magic, only the best for les amis des chats. Agnes runs a charity shelter finding forever homes for the street cats of 1920’s Montreal. Unfortunately a sorcerous duel on her street blasted a hole in one of the shelter’s walls, necessitating a quick move before winter soon sets in. High rents and landlords who aren’t as interested in rescuing cats force Agnes towards the shop everyone is […]

At least the cover is pretty

The Astral Library by Kate Quinn

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Damn … this book is going to be one of those The Last Jedi situations for me, I can already tell. In other words, I was disappointed with the novel/didn’t love it for my own story reasons but a lot of the people leaving negative reviews are doing it for ridiculous conservative reasons. It’s like, “I didn’t have an issue with those things, you book-banning transphobes, I just wanted a more engaging main character/overall story.” It starts off strong, following the main character and narrator, […]

In Which Grad School is Worse Than Hell

Katabasis by R. F. Kuang

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I was mildly apprehensive about reading this because mixed audience reviews came out after I preordered it, but it was great. Kuang does character psychology very well, and that stood out more than anything else. Except for one chapter, the POV character is Alice, graduate student in Analytical Magick at Cambridge. When her piece-of-work advisor Jacob Grimes dies in an accident she blames herself for, she goes to Hell to fetch him—not out of selflessness but because she needs him to finish her degree. Her […]

Dog Days Are Over, Bitches

For Whom the Belle Tolls by Jaysea Lynn

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For Whom the Belle Tolls by Jaysea Lynn is a romantasy that began life as a TikTok skit. Proving the old adage that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, it is also a meditation on grief, loss, love, friendship, family, allyship, and what it means to really live. Throw in some spicy scenes, an unusual presentation of what the afterlife could be, and a great deal of sass, and you have brewed my own personal cup of tea.  When we first meet Lily, […]

“…your ambitions are a feast, Amina Al-Sirafi…”

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

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I’ve seen Shannon Chakraborty’s The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi on a lot of book lists as an entertaining fantasy novel not to miss, and it has been given good reviews here on CBR, too. I enjoyed it immensely and was excited to see that a sequel, The Tapestry of Fate, is coming out on May 12. Based on The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi, I would imagine that several more novels will be forthcoming. If they are as imaginative and well written as this one, I […]

Great Ending to the 1st Part of this series

The Power That Preserves by Stephen R. Donaldson

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God, I love this book. Endings are difficult as concluding a story in a manner that makes sense and is true to the characters you have been on a journey with is akin to landing a rocket on the moon. Donaldson pulled the feat off with this novel. The sequences where Covenant is being pulled into the Land are incredibly strong. The first attempt fails, not because the Lords of the Land were insufficient, but because when they were attempting to summon Covenant he was […]



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