Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Girl Coming of Age Story Full of Kicking *ss and No Romance

Mistress of the Storm by M. L. Welsh

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Continuing my exploration of intermediate reader books this year is leading to a lot of, judging books by their cover. And this time I hit the jackpot. Verity Gallant is miserable. Her family doesn’t understand her, and she has no friends (she’s around 12-ish, I guess). She visits the library one day and sees a mysterious stranger. He steals a book so she chases after him. At the beach, before he sets sail, he hands her back the book and a round wooden ball with […]

Outlander meets Criminal Minds

A Murder in Time by Julie McElwain

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When brilliant FBI agent Kendra Donovan stumbles back in time and finds herself in a 19th century English castle under threat from a vicious serial killer, she scrambles to solve the case before it takes her life—200 years before she was even born. This was certainly not a book to take seriously – think of a wallpaper historical novel with a modern day heroine who just doesn’t fit in, nor does she seem to care to.  Kendra Donovan is supposedly a child prodigy; she went […]

A political system that might just make more sense then North America’s

Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake

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Book: Three Dark Crowns, Book 1 of Three Dark Crowns Series Medium: Book Dates Read: Jan 1-3, 2018 Overall Review (out of 5): 4 light-hearted fluff points out of 5   There isn’t a better way to start off a reading year than with some good old YA.  At least that’s what I find, as it’s always best to progress to more serious reading material as the year goes on then start there.  YA keeps you reading in the meantime. My 4/5 rating is not that this […]

Maybe Don’t Bind Your Fate to First Hottie You Meet

Smoke & Summons (The Numina Series, Book 1) by Charlie N. Holmberg

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I’m choosy in my reading–unless of course the book is free (as this one is, for Amazon Prime members through January). The pretty flaming horse on the cover is Ireth, a powerful being from another plane that can be temporarily summoned into a human vessel. You can probably guess the requirements: good health, no piercings to mar one’s wholeness, a summoning tattoo in an extinct language, and…virginity. (Because it’s YA!) Our human vessel is eighteen year old Sandis, the favorite slave of an underworld kingpin whose gun-toting grafters […]

Ending with a Zombie Killing Porn Star and a Priest in a Bar

Devil Said Bang by Richard Kadrey

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I continue with my end of year promise to finish several started but unfinished books before beginning anything new. Next up: Devil Said Bang, Sandman Slim #4. Maybe it was the month or few between starting and picking it back up, but this one seemed to have a lot less action, and a lot more of Stark inside his own head or contemplating his situation or himself. I’m not complaining about this, it just seems a little different from the previous novels in the series. […]

The Emerald Circus is multi-faceted but disappoints

The Emerald Circus by Jane Yolen

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When Kindle asked me to rate this out of 5 stars, I had a moment’s pause.  My confession: it took me over six months to make it through this collection of 17 short stories by Jane Yolen. Some I read in a single sitting, desperately flicking through the pages without hesitation. But unfortunately, most of the stories were a hard slog that I struggled to finish. This is my first (and likely, last) Jane Yolen novel. The stories of The Emerald Circus are typically slanted […]



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