Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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To know the ocean, I have always felt, is to recognize the teeth it keeps half-hidden.

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

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Miri said this to me once: Every horror movie ends the way you know it will. ― Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea Having people be kind to you is so important, but it’s also incredibly irritating. It’s hard to find the balance of what you’re actually able to accept without wanting to hit someone. ― Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea When Miri’s wife Leah, a scientist and explorer, returns home safely after a submarine accident, Miri has to learn how to […]

Freaky, Funny, and Frustrating (In a Good Way)

Parasol Against the Axe by Helen Oyeyemi

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Every time I think that I may have Helen Oyeyemi figured out she hits me with another blast of wild magic. She often deals in the inner workings of fairy tales, but this time she has taken on a fairy tale of a city: Prague. We’ve all heard of the (super played out trope) of “New York City IS a character!”, but Prague is in charge here. Prague may be driving the theoretical bus, but Thea, Hero, and a cast of bizarre folks including a […]

A lovely historical romance with some supernatural elements

The Widow of Rose House by Diana Biller

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4.5 stars Nowhere Book Bingo: Came out more than 4 years ago CBR16 Sweet Books: New (new author) It’s 1875 and Professor Samuel Moore is doing marvellously, thanks to the many inventions he and his family are coming up with. What he really wants to do, though, is investigate and possibly prove the existence of ghosts, and to do that, he requires an introduction to the infamous Mrs. Alva Webster, a widow with a scandalous reputation. Sam doesn’t really care about Mrs. Webster’s apparently lurid past, […]

a lovely story of what it means to be human…

Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino

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…with a godawful cover and title. ARRRGH! This is a magical little slice of existence, but one would never know that based upon the generic title and messy cover art. Honestly, had I not been introduced without the cover, I can’t say that I would have picked it up! Adina enters our world at the same moment that Voyager (that of Carl Sagan’s Golden Record) leaves this very same world. There’s some sort of transference of energy and matter; one magical thing leaves and another […]

how much is folklore and how much is just a mad ramble?

Treacle Walker by Alan Garner

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Alan Garner is a titan of British literature, but it took two other lions of language and a slow day in the shop for me to finally crack open one of his tales. Why did I wait so long? Treacle Walker is exactly the kind of woodsy weirdness that calls to me from the gloam. It was a snowy evening and dead quiet in the bookstore. Every task was complete, everything that could be tidied was tidy beyond tidy, and I had some time to […]

Slewfoot: the devil is in the details

Slewfoot by Brom

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mood music: me and the devil – Soap&Skin I had never heard of Brom and I was unfamiliar with his work before picking up this book. I found out about this book through TikTok and was intrigued by the premise, even if it was something that was outside of my usual reading genres. Slewfoot is set in colonial New England, a few years after the Salem Witch Trials. The protagonist, Abitha, is a young woman who is a fairly recent arrival to the colonies as […]



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