Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Creatures In The Mist

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

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All the creepy existential dread your gothic little heart could desire. Opal is scratching out a meager existence in Eden, Kentucky- a small town plagued by more than its fair share of bad luck. With no remorse she will lie, cheat, and steal in service of a better life for her younger brother out of this miserable place. Opal is offered a surprisingly well paid job as housekeeper at Starling House. She knows she shouldn’t take the job, she knows there’s something wrong with the […]

A Well-Done Portal Fantasy

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

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You all continue to have some of the best recommendations. I don’t know whose review I read that led me to add this to my TBR some time back, but I’m so glad I did. January Scaller is the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke. Her father spends most of his time traveling as one of Mr. Locke’s employees, and her mother is believed to be dead. It’s a fairly lonely existence for her, especially as a girl of color living in the early 1900s. […]

The last books of 2023. I made it to 100!

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

The Six Deaths of The Saint by Alix E. Harrow

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I am nothing if not predictably unpunctual. Here’s the last bit of what I read up until the end of 2023. I literally finished The Six Deaths of The Saint at 11:45 PM Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree One of the first books I read in 2023 was Legends and Lattes, and I haven’t been able to get the warm cozy feeling it gave me out of my head, so when a prequel was announced, I was ecstatic. Of course, I wanted to see […]

Three Five-Star Reads!

Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

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Does anyone else have a really hard time writing reviews of books they absolutely adored? I can rip apart a trashy novel easily, but when it’s something I love, all I can say is “Book Was Good. Me Likey.” I thought if I crammed them into one bigger review it may take some of the pressure off. Anyway, the following books were wonderful, and I definitely likey. Five Stars for all of them. Assistant to The Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer Evelyn Sage is just […]

“When one enters a door, one must be brave enough to see the other side.”

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow

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Poetic, fantasy forward portal type science fiction. Plot: January’s father is a travelling archeologist, working with the financial backing of the wealthy Mr. Locke. Indeed, his generosity extends to taking January on as a ward while her father travels the world. Unfortunately, growing up a mixed-race girl in the house of a wealthy white man with no parenting skills is a mixed bag. January grows up a deeply isolated girl, surrounded by myths of portals to other worlds. Only it turns out they aren’t myths, […]

The Hellmouth May/May Not Be Located in Kentucky Thanks to Miner Barons

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

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Let’s get it out of the way for the CBR Bingo this is row 2, column 1: Dwelling. My rating on Storygraph is 3.5 and we don’t have have decimals and fraction ratings here, but this isn’t something I’d rate a 4. In that case, I’m CBR rating it a 3. I tagged Starling House #StrangerThings and I also tagged it #GothicRomance and #MiningCountry and, in sum, that’s how I’d describe the genre and even plot of this book. This is one I wasn’t sure I’d stick […]



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