Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Power of Pottery

The Healing Season of Pottery by Yeon Somin

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The Healing Season of Pottery was my bookclub’s January pick. The member who chose it is really into cozy fiction and came across this title. This was a new author and title for all of us, but had been recommended by an indie bookstore. Jungmin has had a rough year. She’s had a melt down at her high-pressure job and is feeling untethered to life and society around her. She stumbles into a pottery shop that also offers classes and through these classes she finds […]

The new familar

The Princess and the Grain of Rice by Tina Cho

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When I first started working at the bookstore, I decided I was going to collect Cinderella stories from around the world. I found so many I had to stop. There were just too many. Then I decided that I would read as many fairy tales as I could and only collect the ones that really hit the spot.  And what book hits a spot better than a Princess and the Pea story? Or more accurately  The Princess and the Grain of Rice. However, this time […]

I wrote a long review about two books and it’s longer than the books probably…

Sun, Moon, and Star: A Folktale from Korea. by Nancy So Miller

Beatrix and Her Friends by Anne Lambelet

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Folktales have always been a go-to read for me. I enjoy learning about other cultures and seeing how they have been interpreted. Plus, I enjoy comparing them with other cultures’ stories. One true folktale (it even says so in the title) is  Sun, Moon, and Star: A Folktale from Korea. The other, while not a pure folktale, I consider her stories to be folktale adjacent. It is a biography of Beatrix Potter, aptly named, Beatrix and Friends. Nancy So Miller took an established story of […]

A fantastic story of consequences and regrets

Blood for the Undying Throne by Sung-Il Kim, translated by Anton Hur

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I received an advance copy from the publisher via Netgalley for review purposes; this in no way influences my review. Blood for the Undying Throne releases Oct 28, 2025; Blood of the Old Kings is available now. There may be spoilers for book 1 of the Bleeding Empire. One day at the library, I happened across Blood of the Old Kings on the new releases shelf, and because I’m doing a reading challenge for 2025 where one of the prompts is a translated SFF, I […]

The shade of a tree is sweeter shared

The Shade Tree by Suzy Lee

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CBR15Passport country   If you like folktales and legends, The Shade Tree is a great one to add to your collection. It takes a classic Korean folktale and updates it, while keeping a classic feeling. Suzy Lee’s story shows how a traveler tricks a rich man into selling him something that in the end, probably cannot be owned, but due to perception and the entitlement, the rich man thinks if he wants, he can own. And though he might have wealth he is lacking in […]

the many forms of love that shape life and fate

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh

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Alright, so Iron Widow was not my jam (to my disappointment). I was really hoping that the next of my library audiobook holds would turn things around, and Axie Oh’s The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea came to me next. And oh, this one is my jam. Or at any rate, it hits a lot of sweet spots for me and I enjoyed it tremendously. (Not burying the lede this time, either, obviously.) The novel is not exactly a retelling of the Korean folktale “Shim Cheong” (apparently […]



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