Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


“That had been a little more than forty years past. Fatma was born into the world al-Jahiz left behind: a world transformed by magic and the supernatural.”

A Dead Djinn in Cairo (Dead Djinn Universe, #0.5) by P. Djèlí Clark

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The highlight of this short story is definitely the world-building. I was immediately intrigued by the way Clark wrote about his alternate-history Cairo in 1912, populated with djinn and angels and steampunk machinery, and refreshingly devoid of colonialism. This takes place in a Cairo about fifty years after a curious man opened up a gateway through which djinn and other supernatural creatures, along with magic, entered the world. Egypt has become a world superpower, as the djinn helped them to kick the British out of […]

That magical unicorn, a successful prequel! (From someone who’s never read the other books.)

Magic Lessons (Practical Magic, #0.1) by Alice Hoffman

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Don’t let your preconceptions keep you from reading this one if it sounds like something you might be interested in. I thought, because I saw the movie adaptation of Practical Magic one time a couple years back, that I knew how Maria Owens’s story would end, because her story is the entire reason that first book exists. That’s how prequels work! The curse she put on her own family as she was killed for being a witch in Salem: that anyone who loved an Owens […]

“There are many kinds of love. But there is nothing like a sister.”

The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner

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3.5 stars Official book description: In a remote village surrounded by vast forests on the border of Moldova and Ukraine, sisters Liba and Laya have been raised on the honeyed scent of their Mami’s babka and the low rumble of their Tati’s prayers. But when a troupe of mysterious men arrives, Laya falls under their spell – despite their mother’s warning to be wary of strangers. And this is not the only danger lurking in the woods.   As dark forces close in on their […]

“There is nothing quite like the anger of someone very powerful who has been thwarted by someone who was supposed to be weak.”

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

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I picked this book as my first read of 2021 because I was honestly being cutesy and thought it was low-key funny to read a book with this title on January 1st. I have actually been avoiding this book, and it was so weird in my brain that I was doing that, because I love portal fantasies, and this is a portal fantasy and it’s got great reviews, so I should read it! Maybe I thought there were enough portal fantasies and what could one […]

So much angst and pining and a big sabre-toothed snow cat (Double Cannonball!)

A Touch of Stone and Snow by Milla Vane

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Official book description (cause I haven’t finished the book yet): Danger lurks in the western realms. The Destroyer’s imminent return has sent the realms into turmoil as desperate citizens seek refuge—but there’s no safety to be found when demons and wraiths crawl out from the shadows. Even Koth, a northern island kingdom left untouched by the Destroyer a generation past, is besieged by terrors spawned from corrupt magics. When Lizzan leads the Kothan army against these terrors, only to see her soldiers massacred and to […]

The ones that I couldn’t finish (NOT my double Cannonball!)

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Trelegemeproblemet (The Three-Body Problem) by Liu Cixin

Of Curses and Kisses by Sandhya Menon

American Demon by Kim Harrison

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Dear readers, I’m not going to lie, I’m racing against the clock to get all of my reviews finished in time for the CBR12 deadline (12 noon EST – or 6 pm Oslo time). I also need to finish 25% of the final novel I’m reviewing, co-parent my autocratic, demanding, and rather clingy almost-three-year-old, plan and prep a three-course New Year’s meal, and possibly do some last-minute shopping. No pressure, right? So when fellow Cannonballer Pixifer posted a review with all of her DNF’s for the year, […]



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