Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Thin Line Between Fantasy and Reality

Mary and the Birth of Frankstein by Anne Eekhout

by Leave a Comment

The year is 1812, and fourteen-year-old Mary Goodwin is living in pastoral Dundee, where she may find love but may find danger as well. The year is 1816, and eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley is living in rainy Geneva, where she may conceive of something that is strange and fearful and all hers, if she will allow herself to do it. I have still not read Frankenstein. (I keep meaning to! There’s just so many books to read!) But I am familiar with its plot, and the […]

You Want To Do What With A Library?

The City in Glass by Nghi Vo

by Leave a Comment

The demon Vitrine has loved the city of Azril for centuries. Shaping its walls and guiding its people, it has been built into everything she has ever desired it to be. Then the angels come, and the city burns, leaving her with nothing but memories, and the angel she cursed to wander the city he destroyed. Trying to rebuild the city from the ground up, Vitrine has to deal with her memories, as well as her hatred for the angel who has become entwined with […]

Am I Supposed To Like Him?

The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by MIchael Finkel

by Leave a Comment

Stéphane Bréitwieser is probably the most prolific art thief of all time, pulling off more than 200 heists with his girlfriend as his accomplice on most of them. Stealing from crowded museums, frequently in broad daylight, his collection was worth an estimated $2 billion. Stealing for aesthetic sake alone, he never sold a piece, displaying his stolen art in his attic bedroom. He felt unstoppable. And then everything came to a sudden end. Fortunately, this book also came to an end. I have no idea […]

A banned novel about WWI, conscientious objectors and gays

Despised and Rejected by Rose Allatini

by 1 Comment

Despised and Rejected is a 1918 novel by Rose Allatini (using the pen name AT Fitzroy) that was banned and pulled off the market for being ‘morally unhealthy’ following a trial of its publisher CW Daniel. The Gay Men’s Press republished the novel in 1988 and the Persephone Press edition that I read came out in 2018. Set during WWI, the novel’s main characters are a bisexual woman named Antoinette and a gay man named Dennis who is also a conscientious objector. The novel begins […]

At Least It’s Not Mushrooms This Time

What Feasts At Night: Sworn Soldier #2 by T. Kingfisher

by Leave a Comment

After the nightmare-inducing occurrence at the Usher manor, Alex Easton just wants some rest, relaxation, and calm days, but instead, as a favor to their valet Angus and the mycologist Miss Potter, they find themself heading to their family hunting lodge, deep in the cold, damp, forbidding forests of their home country, Gallacia. Once there, they discover the gamekeeper dead, the villagers closed in and suspicious, with whispers of a strange breath-stealing spirit entering people’s dreams. Alex doesn’t believe it for an instant; but then […]

Half a soul is better than none

Half A Soul: A Regency Faerie Tale by Olivia Atwater

by 2 Comments

  When Theodora Ettings was a small child, a faerie came and stole half her soul. Since then, she lives her life like she’s behind a sheet of glass, observing things yet never actually feeling them. When she goes with her cousin Vanessa into London for the new season, her only desire is to fade into the background and not ruin Vanessa’s chance at a match. Unfortunately for her, she attracts the notice of Lord Elias Wilder, the Lord Sorcier of England, who decides she’s […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo