Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I Think It’s Me

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

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This review has been difficult to write because this book was good but I didn’t like it. I’m much better when I definitely love or definitely hate something! And this was just…frustrating for me. The story is set over about a week’s time in 1926 London, following a pair of girls who have runaway from York to become stars and inevitably get swallowed in the nightclub scene. And also the ex-field nurse turned librarian who goes to find them. And also the notorious nightclub owner. […]

So much for pacing myself

A Kiss for Midwinter by Courtney Milan

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After The Duchess War, I decided to take a break from Milan just so I wouldn’t finish the series too quickly. Yesterday, I started a novel that is good but kind of grim. Last night, I thought I would just take a look at the next book in the “Brothers Sinister” series, the novella A Kiss for Midwinter, and here we are. This is a holiday story that I know some Cannonballers like to reread at Christmastime, and, in the way of Milan, it offers […]

Fathers and Children

The Duchess War by Courtney Milan

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The Duchess War, while listed as Book 1 in a series, is actually a sequel to the novella The Governess Affair. This novel picks up almost 30 years after the events of the novella and focuses on the next generation of characters. As with The Governess Affair, author Courtney Milan does a wonderful job of putting the reader in a specific historical period and includes fascinating information about the social and economic situation of the time, in this case, 1863 industrial England. I am officially […]

At the very crowded intersection of Black History and Banned Books

Black Was the Ink by Michelle Coles

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CBR15passport new to you authors On February 1, the first day of Black History month, the news hit that fascist Governor DeSantis disapproved of the curriculum for the AP African American History course and would ban it from being taught in Florida. Not long after this story aired, it was revealed that Florida officials and AP officials had been negotiating the content of this course for some time and it looks like the AP/College Board basically caved to reactionary political demands and agreed to censor […]

Eliza Has Monsters

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia

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Eliza has external and internal monsters. She has the external high school kind of monsters who like to pick on and reject anyone who seems different. She has the internal monsters of anxiety and insecurity. And of course, she has the monsters that she has created for her webcomic. Eliza is the creator of a highly popular webcomic called Monstrous Sea. She publishes under a pseudonym, and very few people in her life know that she and her nom de plume LadyConstellation are the same person. […]

It’s rather a lot to tell. But I suppose I should start with the parrot.

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

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CBR15PASSPORT (Stamp #4: Books from different countries. Do international waters count? If not, written by an Australian.) This is the second book of the Last Binding Series. If you haven’t read it yet, by all means read the first in the series that I reviewed here: A Marvellous Light. It’s a surprisingly fresh take on the well-worn “magic is real” carpet set in the early 1900s. Spoilers abound if you haven’t read the first book. In the aftermath of Robyn and Edwin’s discovery that snobby magical aristocrats are conspiring […]



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