Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


When kings fall to their knees they sing a woman’s song

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

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  This slim little volume is the first in the Singing Hills Cycle series which follows Chih, a cleric of the Singing Hills Monastary, who travels the land collecting tales. This volume tells the story of Empress In-Yo, a northern royal sent to the south for a political marriage. The story is told by Rabbit, In-Yo’s handmaiden who had been sold to the imperial palace to make up for 5 baskets of day. It’s a beautifully written story that reads like a fairy tale. In-Yo […]

Into Shadow Series Review

The Garden by Tomi Adeyemi

Persephone by Lev Grossman

The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix E. Harrow

Undercover by Tamsyn Muir

What the Dead Know by Nghi Vo

The Candles Are Burning by Veronica G. Henry

Out of the Mirror, Darkness by Garth Nix

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Wow. I really wish this series of short stories had been released around Halloween, some of the stories are very good and the horror/fantasy elements are great. There are at least two stories I wish had been longer novels (The Six Deaths of the Saint and Undercover) because of how good they were and how much I didn’t want the stories to be over when I got to the end. “The Garden” by Tomi Adeyemi (2 stars)-This one compared to the other books in the […]

Angry Mothers Raise Daughters Fierce Enough to Fight Wolves

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo

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Reviews for the Singing Hills Cycle by Nghi Vo! I’m reviewing in the order they were published, but they are connected by place rather than plot, and can be read in any order.   The Empress of Salt and Fortune Chih is a cleric of the Singing Hills Monastery who travels the world to catalog, record, and document histories. Rabbit is the former servant of the exiled empress In-Yo. As Chih catalogs the contents of Rabbit’s house, Rabbit shares with them bits of stories related […]

Old School Hollywood with Demon Deals

Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

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Holy crap, I want more! Siren Queen is the story of Luli Wei, a star who stole her sister’s name to become famous and became the monster in many films, but also managed to find love and friendship outside the monstrous side of Hollywood. There are elements of this that remind me of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, mainly the narration style and the old Hollywood setting. But do not go into Siren Queen expecting the same story or same kinds of characters. Luli […]

a retelling in conflict with itself

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

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Mild spoilers ahead, though if you’ve read The Great Gatsby…not so much. This was a novel I wanted to like much more than I actually did. The basic premise is a compelling one: what if Jordan Baker, a slight but intriguing character at the margins of The Great Gatsby, was actually an adopted Vietnamese orphan, whose wealth gains her entree into privilege circles without ever fully granting her access to the same privilege that characters like Daisy Buchanan enjoy? Vo constructs a strong narrative voice for Jordan: […]

You don’t need to remember very much of The Great Gatsby to appreciate retellings

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

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So here’s the thing: I’m not like, super into The Great Gatsby. I read it in school, and like everyone else I’ve gone to a thousand Great Gatsby parties (hopefully we’re all done with them still, because otherwise the thematic appropriateness means we’ll be flappering well into the mid-20s). But from what I remember, this book nails the overall ~*mood*~ of the book, which I feel is best summarized by one of my favorite words: insouciance. Everyone is always bright and fragile and brittle and shiny […]



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