Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Good, the Bad and the Horny

Apprentice to the Villain: A Novel by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

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Apprentice to the Villain is the second of four projected Villain novels (#3 is out now) and continues the romance/fantasy of Evie Sage and Trystan Maverine, aka the Villain. At the end of book one, Evie’s world has been turned on its head. Her boss Trystan has been captured by the evil King Benedict and he thinks Evie is dead. Evie and the rest of the crew at Massacre Manor  have to come up with a plan to get the boss back and save the […]

What Love Story?

Liquid: A Love Story by Mariam Rahmani

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Our unnamed narrator is a post-doc struggling to find even adjunct-level jobs in the cutthroat world of academia. When she’s told that she’s not getting a single course in the fall, her best friend Adam – a marketer by day and poet by night – suggests she just try marrying rich. It’s a joke, but our narrator takes it seriously. She sets herself the task of going on 100 dates over the course of the summer, with the goal being a proposal (or at least […]

A Rollicking Tale of Revenge, and a Reckoning with Grief & Regrets

Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby

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Two fathers; one black, one white. Two sons; married and murdered. One driving mission: find out who did it, and make them pay. Ike Randolph got out of jail 15 years ago and has been on the straight and narrow ever since. But cops knocking at a Black man’s door is never a good thing. In this case, it’s the worst thing. Ike’s son Isaiah has been murdered in cold blood, alongside Isaiah’s white husband Derek. Neither Ike nor Derek’s father Buddy Lee had really […]

A slow burn with fire breathing dragons

Assistant to the Villain: A Novel by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

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Like This Will Be Fun, Assistant to the Villain is a romance/fantasy with a good amount of humor  and thrilling adventure thrown in. Assistant is the first book in a series, and I found this one entertaining enough that I will definitely be reading the next installment Apprentice to the Villain (the third book, Accomplice to the Villain, just came out this year). I’ve sort of accidentally found myself reading romantasy lately, and frankly, it’s kind of a nice break from reality. I liked Assistant […]

All around us are people, of all classes, of all nationalities, of all ages

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

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CBR 17 BINGO: Border, because the murder takes place just after the train passes over the Yugo-Slavian border, resulting in there being no local police onboard. Also, the collection of guests on the train cross many borders into many different nationalities. Last year I received a beautiful Folio Society edition of Murder on the Orient Express for Christmas and have been waiting for just the right time to re-read this mystery. When I planned a train trip across the Canadian Rockies, I knew the time […]

“You take a bunch of people who don’t seem any different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem.” (Bingo)

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

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Nowhere Book Bingo 2025: A book with LGBTQIA-rep CBR17 Bingo: Border (this book is all about a very drawn-out war with borders between the opposing countries constantly changing, depending on who’s currently winning) Spoiler warnings for a 22 year old book. I don’t think I can review it well without revealing some of the more essential plot points. Official plot summary: It began as a sudden strange fancy… Polly Perks had to become a boy in a hurry. Cutting off her hair and wearing trousers […]



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