Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Alex Craft, Witch Detective

Grave Witch by Kalayna Price

Grave Dance by Kalayna Price

Grave Memory by Kalayna Price

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As soon as I saw Grave Witch by Kalayna Price in The Ripped Bodice bookstore, I knew I’d probably love it. The series is about Alex Craft, a grave witch who consults with the Nekros police. Her grave magic allows her to raise shades. Not to be confused with ghosts, shades take the form of the body just before it died and contain the soul’s memory. This is a pretty handy skill to have the victim’s shade testify in their own murder case. Grieving relatives hire […]

A Dinétah monster killer

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

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I was familiar with Rebecca Roanhorse from Twitter and her articles on Tor.com, so definitely excited for Trail of Lightning‘s release last year. I guess I wasn’t the only one because it was sold out at The Ripped Bodice when I went to buy it! Always a good sign and her novel did not disappoint. Trail of Lightning is the first entry in the series: The Sixth World. After a climate apocalypse that drowns most of the world, several nasty things that go bump in the […]

Awfully * Bloody * Cute

The Little Red Cat Who Ran Away and Learned His ABC's (the Hard Way) by Patrick McDonnell

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My sister teaches kindergarten, and for Christmas she gave me this book with a note that said, “This book has become a class favorite, and it’s a real nail biter!” I can see why! I can’t remember “reading” a children’s book as adorable and clever as this one. I put “reading” in quotes because it contains very few words. The title indicates that kitty learns his ABCs “the Hard Way,” because there are mostly pictures that go along with each letter of the alphabet; however, […]

A mixed bag, but in the end it won me over

Believe Me: a memoir of love, death, and jazz chickens by Eddie Izzard

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Another shout-out for the little free libraries of Burbank, CA! This book is a roller coaster, if your idea of a roller coaster starts out as insanely boring with bits of really interesting insight and a few chuckles along the way that leaves you with more questions than answers. I realize that is not a resounding endorsement, but I’m giving this book  3 stars because in spite of many flaws I found it rather inspiring. I’m going to be kind of hard on it though, […]

Every romance has a Happily Ever After but this series has sisterhood too

Scandalous Desires by Elizabeth Hoyt

Thief of Shadows by Elizabeth Hoyt

Lord of Darkness by Elizabeth Hoyt

Duke of Midnight by Elizabeth Hoyt

Darling Beast by Elizabeth Hoyt

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My first review for Elizabeth Hoyt’s Maiden Lane series was not particularly effusive but as I have continued on in the series I have come to appreciate it more. Hoyt tells stories that interweave with various threads being teased in every book. There is a large cast of main characters who generally connect in some way. And while these are romances, with the requisite strapping heroes and irresistable heroines, there is also the Ladies’ Syndicate for the Benefit of the Home for Unfortunate Infants and […]

Get lured in by the world-building, stay for the intersectional dissection of oppression

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

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“The point is what you do when you don’t have the details. Do you interrogate? Do you examine? Or do you settle for the obvious answer?” Most people don’t deeply question (cough, Kanye, cough) why enslaved people “allowed” themselves to remain enslaved. But most of us also don’t dwell deeply on what systematic physical and psychological trauma would be needed to keep a whole class of people oppressed and how that trauma may ripple out generationally. And why would we? Envisioning something like that is […]



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