Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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En Garde!

The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France by Eric Jager

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I got a familiar feeling when I read this, like I had read something like it before. So I looked up the writer’s name and sure enough, he wrote another, similar book about a crime involving French aristocracy. Blood Royal was a good enough book but it focused less on the crime and more on the budding Civil War in France over the death of Louis X. It dragged the story down and while it was readable, it wasn’t necessarily good. This one avoids that mistake. […]

Annie and Nico are waiting to take you away

Magical History Tour Volume 4: The Crusades by Fabrice Erre

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Magical History Tour Volume 4: The Crusades felt easier to read than the others I have read in this series. Not that it was a younger read, it is still for the aged 8 to 11 (young 12) reader, but it seemed to have less information than Fabrice Erre’s other historical graphic novels. The Crusades are shown in a more European centered manner but touching on some of the non-Christian people and events of importance. The highlights of the crusades are presented in a simple […]

A Gut-Churning Good Time

The Royal Art of Poison: Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine, and Murder Most Foul by Eleanor Herman

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What a ride! Big thanks to badkittyuno for putting this gem on my radar. Or, in the parlance of this book, allowing me to seek of the poisons of this tome via unicorn horn. We, as humans, have done some pretty vile things to ourselves and others since…pretty much the dawn of time. The Royal Art of Poison illustrates-in graphic detail- the poisonous things that people (mostly royalty, but the common man is capable of critical nastiness as well) have been doing intentionally and accidentally to […]

Some Things You Will Remember, Some Things Stay Sweet Forever

The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick

The Winter Crown by Elizabeth Chadwick

The Autumn Throne by Elizabeth Chadwick

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Eleanor of Aquitaine has been a personal hero of mine since I was a kid. At some point in time–maybe around age 10 or 11?–I read E.L. Konigsberg’s A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, which I adored. ADORED, and read a million times, although I never bothered to learn what miniver was until literally yesterday. For those who don’t know, Eleanor of Aquitaine was a queen in the Middle Ages. First she was the queen of France, married to Louis VII. Later, their marriage […]

Time Travel With Heart (and Heartbreak)

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I’ve read this book before (maybe twice before) but it had been so long that I felt it was due for a re-read and review. Obviously, I’m a fan.  Connie Willis can be a bit verbose and repetitive here and there, but I eat it all up anyway.  (I also love J.R.R. Tolkien, Stephen King, T.H. White, and George R.R. Martin, so I can deal with a bit of verbosity and lengthy description). The story starts at Oxford University in the year 2054 in a […]

“Double, double, toil and trouble…”

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Just to be clear, I am not going to include any spoiler warnings for this play, since it’s somewhere between 406-416 years old (sources seem to disagree exactly when it was written). If, for some reason, you’re worried about having major plot points or deaths (there’s a whole bunch, guys) ruined for you, then it’s probably best that you skip this review entirely. So Macbeth or the Scottish play. Despite having English lit as my minor at university, and Scottish history as part of my […]



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