Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Maisie Dobbs and the Case of the Dubious Highlighter

Pardonable Lies: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqqueline Winspear

by Leave a Comment

cbr17bingo Family Back in the day, I read quite a few Maisie Dobbs books, and thoroughly enjoyed them.  The first I read was Birds of a Feather, bought purely because of its wonderfully evocative cover art, and then went back to read the first of the series, and any others I could find in book stores.  She went off my radar for awhile, but she is definitely back on again now. The period is post WWI Britain up until the 1930s.  Maisie signed up as […]

“Armageddon was a fire in the harbor, a box delivered on a cold day. It wasn’t one great tragedy, but ten million tiny ones, and everyone faced theirs alone.”

The Warm Hands of Ghosts: A Novel by Katherine Arden

by Leave a Comment

They are fighting their war in the last world, but we’re dying in this one. January 1918. Laura Iven, a revered field nurse, wounded when the Germans bombed the munitions depot her field hospital was next to, is discharged from the medical corps, leaving behind a brother still fighting in Flanders. Months later, back home in Halifax, Canada, Laura lives assisting three elderly mediums after the deaths of her parents. On the night that Pim Shaw, a young widow seeking to connect with her son, […]

The Murderbot Diaries – the novellas and the short stories. Some were re-reads, some were new to me

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy by Martha Wells

Rogue Protocol by Matha Wells

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory by Martha Wells

Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

by 2 Comments

My original reviews and ratings for the first four novellas can be found here. CBR17 Bingo: Favourite (goes for the whole series, and the protagonist) All Systems Red Nowhere Book Bingo 25: First in a series   It’s been five years since I first read The Murderbot Diaries, and it was interesting to revisit the original novella. This was selected as the January selection for my real-life book club (with the option to read the other three if people had time). While a lot of the members really enjoyed […]

I’m a djinni in a bottle, baby

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

by 1 Comment

CBR Bingo: Work (the main character’s motivation is primarily just wanting to do her job as an investigator). I read P. Djèlí Clark’s The Dead Cat Tail Assassins earlier this year and enjoyed it enough that I wanted to read some of his other works, so I recently picked up A Master of Djinn. Set in an alternate-history (in the late 19th century, djinns were introduced into the world) Cairo in 1912, Agent Fatma works for a government agency that investigates supernatural occurrences. One evening, all […]

Sometimes a beautiful cover and a simple story are enough

The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke

by Leave a Comment

CBR 17 BINGO: Purple (see cover) Illustrated by Victoria Sawdon It’s been five years since the publication of Piranesi, and 21 years (!) since the release of the spellbinding Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, so I know I’m not the only fan who squealed with delight at the arrival of a new (tiny) book by Susanna Clarke. I love the existence of this book, but I must warn you up front that it’s a short story, and barely that. You can read it in 20 […]

“For I was indeed a student of human nature, as every orphan and hooker and unwanted kid must be.”

Vera by Carol Edgarian

by Leave a Comment

CBR 17 Bingo: Family – Central to Vera’s story is a desire for a family in which she can truly belong, and her outside status with both her birth mother and her foster family. Vera has always lived under the shadow of a great secret – though raised as the younger daughter in a Swedish household, she is actually the daughter of San Francisco’s greatest madams. In the aftermath of the great earthquake of 1906, these worlds come tumbling together. I remember it was a […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo