Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Heartfelt Office-Based Novel

I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue

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Best for: Anyone who enjoys complicated narrators. Anyone who has worked in an office setting. In a nutshell: Jolene is an office worker who gets caught doing something unprofessional. As part of her improvement plan, she’s accidentally given access to everyone’s emails and chats. Worth quoting: “There’s no way this reality was the intended human experience.” “Nobody is immune to thinking they might be wasting their only life on a place that can toss you out without a second thought.” Why I chose it: Rare […]

“I am so tired of this gothic crap,” I muttered. “Just once, I want to meet the villain in a cheerful, brightly lit room. Possibly one with kittens.”

An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire

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This was the book that almost made me stop reading the October Daye series the first time I read it, still hated it the second time I read, and the third time is no better. It’s not just that this is one of the most dark and depressing books in the series (though it is), it’s not just that the entire book comes across as Toby being constantly behind the eight ball; it’s just bleak and disturbing and not the least bit fun to read […]

Sometimes a tiny bit of blood magic is fine, right?

A Queer Trade by K.J. Charles

Rag & Bone by K.J. Charles

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A Queer Trade is set in the same time period as A Case of Possession. Crispin Trederloe is having a bad week. Returning to London after visiting his ill mother, he learns that his mentor, Mr. Marleigh, was a dangerous warlock and is now dead. Marleigh’s possessions have already been sold or marked for auction, and this includes his boxes and boxes of research. Marleigh and Crispin practice blood magic, which is both extremely dangerous, unpredictable, and explicitly forbidden by England’s magical overseers. At fifteen, […]

It’s hard to resist a book described as “The Dark Sapphic Romance that Inspired Dracula”

Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu

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Originally serialized in the magazine The Dark Blue from 1871-72, Carmilla is the first vampire story. Not only did it serve as the inspiration for for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, it was written by a woman. The novel is just over 150 pages long and is presented as a scientific account of events in the life of a young woman named Laura. The novel opens with an unknown intellectual explaining that he is including Laura’s case in volume 1 of a Dr. Hesselius’ collected papers. So […]

“Shiloh isn’t haunted – men are haunted. Shiloh doesn’t care.”

Red Dragon by Thomas Harris

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I am just not sure if I can see what the big deal is with this book. I know some people find it incredibly frightening: a co-worker stole my mother’s copy of this book off her desk and then didn’t come to work for four days because she was too scared to get out of bed; I just found it slightly boring. I know I didn’t find anyone in it the least bit likable. I felt like I had wandered into the middle of a […]

“Politics is like dice: the better the player, the worse the man”

Heartstone: A Matthew Shardlake Tudor Mystery by C.J. Sansom

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It’s 1545 and Henry VII has gotten England into a war with France; seeing as it’s Tudor-Era England, war with France, Spain, Scotland, or England itself is not really that surprising. It looks like the French will land their invasion force at Portsmouth. Too bad that Portsmouth is around the area Matthew Shardlake is being sent by his patron, Queen Catherine Parr. A servant in Parr’s former household has come to the Queen for assistance; the servant’s son has allegedly killed himself after swearing out […]



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