Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Pirates and Witches and Austen, oh my!

The League of Gentlewomen Witches: Dangerous Damsels Book 2 by India Holton

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Cbr18bingo Summer (my final book review of astronomical summer, which officially ends September 22, 2026, at 8:05 pm ET) What a delightful way to end summer! This book had me from page one, and the fact that I hadn’t read the first book in the series did not get in the way of enjoying this one. India Holton imagines a Victorian England in which witches and pirates, who are mortal enemies, abound. They are all thieves of some taste and class (depending on who you […]

This is propaganda to allow dogs to eat roadkill. And one of my comfort reads.

The Inheritance by Ilona Andrews

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I don’t know what kind of addictive substances Ilona Andrews puts in their writing, but please don’t send me to rehab. I am sometimes surprised by which books become comfort reads. I have several, including a couple from Ilona Andrews. The Inheritance is one of the books that took me by surprise. I read it while it was being serialized and enjoyed it, but my world wasn’t rocked by it. And then I got the itch to listen to the audiobook. Still enjoyable but not […]

Very much NOT a romantasy

Monster, Monarch, Maiden by Rae Carson

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This was an ARC; thank you to NetGalley, Harper Audio and Greenwillow Books. My opinions are my own. This book is on sale now. Bria Angarsold is an innkeeper’s daughter (she mentions this at seven different points in the story, in case you were likely to forget) who was kidnapped by raiders, along with her sister and several other people who were at her family’s inn at the time. Bria is one of the last surviving captives when the raiders’ caravan is attacked by a […]

The future is bleak and cold

Far North by Marcel Theroux

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CBR18 BINGO: Wheels, because Makepeace’s family (and others) moved to the Far North to survive Far North takes place in a dystopian future that is usually depicted as arid wasteland. In this case, the wasteland is the frozen tundra, which is represented rather beautifully on the book cover. A lone figure and a horse stand gazing across the snow-covered landscape; it looks peaceful and hints at a more beautiful story than one finds within. Not that Far North is completely bleak; there’s an unusual undertone […]

Oxford Drama

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett

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It’s been seventeen years since Kathryn Stockett put out her debut novel The Help. Her second, The Calamity Club, is also set in Stockett’s native Mississippi, albeit about thirty years earlier, in 1933. The story follows two protagonists. The fist is Birdie Calhoun, a 24-year-old single woman traveling to Oxford to visit her sister Frances and her new husband. Birdie’s family is in danger of losing their home, so she has been sent to plead with her sister’s well-to-do new family, the Tartts, for some financial assistance. […]

Not for me

For the Wolf: The Wilderwood Book 1 by Hannah Whitten

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Cbr18bingo Middle because I quit in the middle of this one I picked this one up thinking it would be right up my alley. It’s a fantasy novel centered around the Little Red Riding Hood/Big Bad Wolf story, with dark magical woods and so on. Well over 100 pages in, I realized it was not for me for a few reasons, but it might be for you. It might be for me at some later time.  For the Wolf takes place in a cold, landlocked […]



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