Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Bloody Chamber

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

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I recently decided to re-read The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (it was my choice for my book group). It was as fun as I remembered. Carter’s sexy takes on traditional fairy tales like “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Sleeping Beauty” and “Puss in Boots” is at times over-the-top in its prose, humor, and horror – which suits her feminist takes on damsels in all sorts of distress perfectly. She delivers a great vampire tale, “The Lady of the House of Love,” too.  But I think […]

Steeped in Meaning

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

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I had the pleasure of reading A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, which turned out to be the perfect end-of-your-day read: light but meaningful, engaging without being taxing. The story follows Dex, a monk in a futuristic society that has rebalanced itself after the AI singularity. In this imagined future, robots gain consciousness and – rather than triggering a bloody, Terminator-style war – humans and robots amicably agree to go their separate ways. Decades pass without contact as robot territory becomes the Wild, […]

New Year’s Yearning and Spice

This Time, Next Year by Ruby Barrett

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I’ve seen some discussions in the romance community that claim high heat/open door romances lack yearning. This is Puritan nonsense. I could point to hundreds of examples of books that have both. Ruby Barrett’s New Year’s Eve focused novella, This Time, Next Year is one. Nora and Finn belong to a friend group that celebrate NYE together every year. On one New Year’s Eve, Nora and Finn share a kiss. Every New Year’s Eve after, Nora is in a quandary, will she kiss Finn? Will […]

Fake engagements, angst and lots of secrets and lies

In a Second by Kate Canterbary

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3.5 stars This was an ARC from the author. I am very grateful, but my opinions are my own. Audrey Saunders has not seen her former boyfriend, Jude Bellessi, since he showed up at the church, only moments before she was due to get married, to ask her to run away with him instead. Because of a whole host of reasons, Audrey couldn’t tell Jude why she was getting married, and why she broke up with him in the first place and moved across the […]

Three by three

The Strength of the Few by James Islington

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The Will of the Many was one of my favorite reads earlier this year and led to me reading Islington’s Licanius trilogy. Since I had waited a bit to read The Will of the Many, it meant my wait for the second novel was relatively short, with it being out in November. I don’t want to get too deep into the details – there is a lot going on! Overall, I quite enjoyed it but don’t think it was quite as strong as the first […]



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