Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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I Am Obsessed with These Gay Hockey Players

Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid

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Canadian Shane Hollander and Russian Ilya Rosanov are two of the hottest young prospects in professional hockey. They’re first and second in the draft to division rival teams, and the narrative is born: rivals, always competing against each other for records, for wins, for cups. But behind the rivalry is a shared secret: they can’t keep away from one another. As their relationship transforms from casual hookups to something far more serious, they have to figure out how to navigate their careers, their rivalry, and […]

Hobb-a-thon 2026 begins!

Fool’s Errand: The Tawny Man Trilogy Book One by Robin Hobb

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My final 6 reviews on CBR17 were Robin Hobb’s The Farseer Trilogy and The Liveship Traders Trilogy and I LOVED THEM. I am fully invested in reading all of her Realm of the Elderlings novels and I am back on track with Book one of The Tawny Man Trilogy — Fool’s Errand. I knew I was going to love it because it features two of my favorite characters: Fitz and the Fool. We first met them in The Farseer Trilogy where their unusual circumstances threw […]

Queer Abundance in a Time of Scarcity

Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian

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As soon as I saw the title “Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature” (by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian), I knew I wanted to read this book. It’s been all over the 2025 “best of” lists, from Time to Vanity Fair to Vulture, and it’s easy to see why this one is resonating so intensely given what the last year has meant to LGBTQ+ folks. The queer expansiveness and community-building of Kaishian’s book is an effective emotional antidote to all the anti-trans scare tactics and fake […]

Never Use the Metro Elevator

Just Emilia by Jennifer Oko

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Warning: Spoilers Just Emilia by Jennifer Oko is a story about a middle aged woman who gets stuck in a Washington, DC metro elevator with her teenage self and her elderly self. As a teen, Emilia’s mom, a popular news anchor, dies in a horrible car accident. Emilia blames herself and this guilt follow her into adulthood, affecting all of her relationships. On the anniversary of their mother’s death, each woman takes a decision which brings her to the elevator. The three women must learn […]

Prolonging my time in the Cold Magic world with short stories and essays

The World Begins in Ice by Kate Elliott

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I first learned about Kate Elliott’s Cold Magic series while reading John Scalzi’s website.  In the Big Idea section Elliott described what The History of the World Begins in Ice is all about.  It is a collection of short stories written in the “Spiritwalker Trilogy” as well as essays about the characters and aspects of the world.  The trilogy sounded fascinating, to quote Kate: When I began writing Cold Magic, my primary goal (besides making it shorter than Traitors’ Gate) was to tell a story that would […]

“Books are a weapon against lonliness. Putting them in the right hands lets people see one another. It makes us…better to one another”.

Brigands and Breadknives by Travis Baldree

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Brigands and Breadknives returns us to Travis Baldree’s cozy fantasy world.  While the first book, Legends and Lattes, and the second published book (that’s actually a prequel), Bookshops and Bonedust, are able to be read on their own, Breadknives and Brigands requires you to have read Bookshops and Bonedust, and it’s helpful if you’ve read Legends and Lattes. Foul mouthed rattkin bookseller, Fern, has been adrift in her own life.  Running her bookstore in Murk is no longer giving her the satisfaction it once did.  A change of […]



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