Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Only mildly witchin’

The Winter Witch by Paula Brackston

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I like a good witch/supernatural story every now and then, so pulled this one off my shelf (cbr13bingo shelfie!) Brackston’s novel centers on Cai, a Welsh drover, and his new wife Morgana. Being a drover requires a wife, to assure the townspeople that the drover will return with their money after talking the village flocks to the London markets. Accordingly, even though Cai is not yet entirely over the death of his beloved first wife, he proposes to and marries Morgana, a younger woman from […]

In case you were wondering, Christopher Marlowe is a little shit, according to this author.

Shadow of Night (All Souls, #2) by Deborah Harkness

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It has been a bit since I read this, so this review will be a bit lacking in details as I struggle to remember why I rated this three stars. I remember the middle particularly being a bit of a slog. Also, not much happened plot-wise for a 600ish page book. The author clearly just got really excited about putting her characters in a 16th century setting with a bunch of famous people from that era (and lots of non-famous people as well, to be […]

“The three of them sat there – a Ministry agent, a half-djinn, and a cat (likely), staring out past the balcony to the sleeping city they somehow had to find a way to save.”

A Master of Djinn (Dead Djinn, #3) by P. Djèlí Clark

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Another book in this world, please! I continue to have a really good time with these audiobooks. I loved Suehyla El-Attar’s narration—even though she mispronounces some words, which would normally make me lose it, but that’s how much I love her voice—it’s so melodious it squashes my inner pedant. We’re back with Fatma el-Sha’arawi—agent of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities—in this first full novel (the first two were novellas) in this alternate-history, fantastical version of 1912 Cairo. Decades previously, a man named […]

Been There, Doing That Again

Rose Gold by Walter Mosley

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Read as part of CBR13Bingo: Old Series. The Easy Rawlins series debuted in 1990. As the times change, Walter Mosley has changed his most famous creation with them. He’s also changed his style. I don’t know if it’s for better or worse but I like it. I’ve written on his Leonid McGill series about how Mosley has incorporated some surrealist existentialism into those works and how they felt different to what he had written before. These don’t read like McGill books but they do have […]

“Of all the myriad races of thinking creatures in the world, the two that most delight in telling stories are the flesh-and-blood humans and the long-lived, fiery jinn.”

The Hidden Palace (The Golem & The Jinni, #2) by Helene Wecker

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I’m having a hard time reviewing this one, mostly because I had a hard time deciding what I thought about it. But I’m on the verge of getting hopelessly behind in reviews again, so it’s time to buckle down and figure it out. I was thinking about the book this morning and I think I’ve finally formed some solid opinions, so here we go. This is a book about change in all its forms: death (and grief), destruction, creation, evolution, the way a person changes […]

A Kennedy I know little about.

The Kennedy Debutante by Kerri Maher

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“If you didn’t know already that Kathleen’s a fighter,” said Rose, her normally shrill voice unusually smooth and low, “then you haven’t been paying attention.” Growing up as a Kennedy woman comes with a specific set of rules. The first being: marry a good Catholic boy from a notable family. The second being: Once you’re married, your only jobs are to have children and keep a full social calendar. Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy is aware of what is expected of her as she is presented to […]



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