Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Tigers, Spooks and Podcasters

Real Tigers (Slough House #3) by Mick Herron

Spook Street (Slough House #4) by Mick Herron

A Murder Most Actual by Alexis Hall

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A.k.a. The reviews I didn’t feel like writing, but hey, I read the books.  Real Tigers & Spook Street I read the first two books in the Slow Horses series. I got them from my library, which unfortunately only carried translations.  Pro tip: translations suck and avoid them where you can.  They’re not bad translations, but all the whimsy and finesse are lost. I got the rest of the series in its original English, and whether that’s the sole reason I enjoyed the next parts […]

Violence, Screwball Comedy and Found Family

The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

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I have only read Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy even though I know he has written more novels, including some in the same world as the First Law. While I enjoyed the First Law trilogy, the ending was also a bit darker than I had hoped for/some characters didn’t end up where I wanted them to. Since it’s been a while since I read them, I can’t quite remember too much about the writing style – I am sure there were moments of dark humor in […]

Sapphic vampires but make it boring

Hungerstone by Kat Dunn

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Eh. This was fine. I have never actually read Carmilla but know of its standing as a classic vampire story, so was intrigued by the description of this one as retelling/ reimagining. And maybe it’s unfair to expect anything super original from a retelling but that’s basically the feeling I left this one with – it was all very reminiscent of so many other novels I have read before, and not even in a particularly fun way. I will say that Dunn did a great […]

New favourite author?

An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris

Imperium by Robert Harris

Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris

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I often run into a situation where I am about to go on a trip, so I’m loading up my Kindle but don’t know what to read that is available from the library and looks interesting at the moment. In this case, I asked my dad for suggestions and he mentioned a few things including the historical fiction author Robert Harris, who he has been a fan of for years. I decided to try his books and became hooked, drawn in by the subjects and […]

“Isn’t it better to have your heart broken than to have it wither up? Before it could be broken it must have felt something splendid. That would be worth the pain.”

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

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Valency has always lived a dull and restrained life under the thumb of her family, but decides to start living how she likes when she learns she has only a year to live. I knew the plot twist of this book before I got into it, though I’m not sure how – maybe the plagiarism controversy of Colleen McCullough‘s The Ladies of Missalonghi? Anyway, luckily it didn’t really affect my enjoyment. This book has all the hallmarks of an LM Montgomery book – the rich […]

An intricately woven tale

The Light of All That Falls by James Islington

An Echo of Things to Come by James Islington

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While I read the entire trilogy rather closely together, I reviewed the first novel much earlier in the year. These are large books so it seemed like they each deserved their own review rather than a series review but it was harder for me to articulate my thoughts about the second and third novel. And now, I’m having a hard time entirely distinguishing which parts happened in book 2 vs 3. I had seen some tag lines for this series that compared it to The […]



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