Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Bad Llama. Level 3. It’s a llama, but it’s bad. If he were human, he’d be covered in prison tattoos and would be hanging out in front of the Circle K hitting on 14-year-old girls.”

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

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CBR17 Bingo: Rec’d (I honestly don’t know how many people have raved about this book, on CBR, other review sites on the internet, as well as in my IRL book club) By now, most people who are even vaguely interested in this series probably know what it’s about, but I’ll try to give a brief summary. Carl is wandering around, half-dressed in the snow, looking for his ex-girlfriend’s prize-winning Persian cat, when Earth is suddenly attacked by aliens. All the buildings collapse in an instant […]

The Jock and the Nerd, 20 years later

Writing Mr. Wrong by Kelley Armstrong

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Bingo Square – Arts (one character is a writer – this could have also fit into Play with the hockey but I have something else in mind for that square) I was surprised when I saw that Kelley Armstrong was writing contemporary romances since I had first discovered her through her urban fantasy series, Women of the Otherworld– then again, I read broadly across genres so it makes sense that an author would have a variety of interests. This is the second of her contemporary […]

B is for Ballad

The Ballad of Perilous Graves by Alex Jennings

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Bingo 1: “B” square I was in New Orleans in January for a work conference; the only time I went into the French Quarter was to visit a bookstore. On the local interest shelf there was one title I vaguely recognized: The Ballad of Perilous Graves. This was for the first half a generally interesting musical and magical realism kind of mystery in which local kids notice something is wrong with the spirit of the city of Nola and must then save everyone and everything […]

Novella Round Up – Expanding Urban Fantasy universes

How Green This Land, How Blue this Sea by Mira Grant

Please Do Not Taunt the Octopus by Mira Grant

Sanctuary by Ilona Andrews

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I read these novellas at various points this year and figured at this point, it might just be easiest to do a quick post covering all 3 to get them done. The first two are part of the same series. So Green This Land, So Blue This Sea – 3 stars The one follows one of the side characters from Shawn and George’s original blog as he visits some of their network in Australia to write a news story about Australia from an outsider’s perspective. […]

I’m on a roll with Japanese stories containing cats! (This review is cat approved)

The Blanket Cats by Kiyoshi Shigematsu

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CBR 17 BINGO: “B” (for “Blanket”) On a recent visit to my local library, I was attracted to this book by the adorable illustration on the cover. Reading the book jacket, I learned that The Blanket Cats is a collection of seven stories about a pet shop in Tokyo that rents out cats for three days and two nights. Each cat comes with a special blanket to which they are very attached (do not lose or wash that blanket!). Some customers have practical reasons for […]

“The Caravan of life is moving by, Quick! to your places in the passing show.”

Caravan by Dorothy Gilman

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CBR17 Bingo: Culture – Caressa encounters and immerses herself in multiple cultures during her wanderings through the Sahara, including the Tuareg and the Hausa. By the age of sixteen Caressa has been a carnie, a Boston schoolgirl, and the wife of an anthropologist – but in her years in the Sahara desert, she will go on to become a widow, a sorceress, a slave, and much more. The trouble with this book is that the description is rather misleading. There’s a little magic, and a […]



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