Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site

> FAQ Home
> Tag: first in a series

“The fifth glass is unarguably clean. Especially because Haf has been pretending to scrub at a stain that isn’t there, like a horny Lady Macbeth wanting to prolong the moment.”

Make You Mine This Christmas by Lizzie Huxley-Jones

by 3 Comments

I love the fake dating trope, so I was pleased as punch that November’s Illumicrate Afterlight book was Make You Mine This Christmas, even more so when forced proximity and all the bisexual chaos enter the equation. The story focuses on Haf who has been having a terrible year and lets her roommate convince her to join them at crashing a Christmas party they may or may not have been invited to. It’s at that party that Haf meets Christopher and following feeling badly for […]

“She was stuck sitting in a wingback chair, her phone as dead as a brick in her hand, and listening to Orchid pepper the townie with questions about how bad the storm had gotten.”

In the Hall with the Knife by Diana Peterfreund

by Leave a Comment

This book wound up on my to read thanks to a Read Harder Challenge from 2020 – read a mystery where the victim is not a woman – and the fact that I had loved the previous books I had read by Diana Peterfreund, For Darkness Shows the Stars and Across a Star-Swept Sea (as well as their accompanying prequel short stories Among the Nameless Stars and The First Star to Fall). It ended up in my hands thanks to my book exchange gifter, NTE. […]

Don’t Mess with the Dairy Queen

Bad Axe County by John Galligan

by 2 Comments

CBR13 Book Bingo Challenge:  NEW SERIES So last week I joined some college friends at a rented cabin near Richland Center, Wisconsin, for a couple of days (which is about 75 minutes NW of Madison for those of you playing at home).  We went into Spring Green one day and stopped at Arcadia Books for coffee and some browsing.  I saw a display for the upcoming release of John Galligan’s mystery novel, Bad Moon Rising, that included a stack of his earlier books and thought, […]

Everything changes in a Season

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

by 2 Comments

Sometimes the weight of expectation is enough to keep me from reading a book I truly want to read. Case in point: I’ve had NK Jemisin’s The Fifth Season on my shelf for almost a year, even though I was sooo excited when I bought my copy. The timing was right, though, since I needed a win after a bit of a streak of so-so reads, and for the most part, this book delivered. The Fifth Season begins with a prologue that introduces the world […]

Dublin Noir Shot With Witty Dialogue Chaser

A Man With One of Those Faces by Caimh McDonnell

by Leave a Comment

Read as part of the CBR10 Bingo: First in a series. This is the first in the Dublin Trilogy. I’m a big fan of the I Don’t Even Own a Television podcast, in which the hosts do a hilarious job chopping up bad books. At the end, they always give recommendations. One of the hosts has a taste for mysteries that is in alignment with mine, so I usually make time to check out what he suggests. This was one and a good one. I’m none too […]

Family, Courage and Magic

The Witch Boy by Molly Knox Ostertag

by Leave a Comment

I like what the publisher description of The Witch Boy says: From the illustrator of the web comic “Strong Female Protagonist” comes a debut middle-grade graphic novel about family, identity, courage–and magic. It sums up the story well (though you do not need to know “Strong Female Protagonist”). Molly Knox Ostertag has created a contemporary story with a role reversal twist. In this case, instead of the traditional story of a girl doing “boy things” a boy is doing “girl things.” The graphic novel format […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo