Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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More books I read this summer and am only reviewing now to make it to 104

Cassiel's Servant by Jacqueline Carey

Codename Charming by Lucy Parker

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo

Sleep No More by Seanan McGuire

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Cassiel’s Servant – Jacqueline Carey Rating: 3.5 stars Kushiel’s Dart is one of my favourite fantasy books, and books in general, of all time. It stands up, I re-read it this summer in preparation for the release of this. Has Jacqueline Carey done exactly the same thing as Stephenie Meyer and E.L James did, and retold her already existing novel from the POV of another central character? Yes, she has. Was I pretty sure that this was going to be a lot more worthwhile and […]

“When love buds between great princes”

Queens of the Age of Chivalry by Alison Weir

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England’s Age of Chivalry was a surprisingly turbulent period marked by coups, civil unrest, and outright war on multiple fronts. We meet five queens in this book, including one of the most reviled and one of the most beloved in all of English history. This is the third book in Alison Weir’s England’s Medieval Queens, in which she profiles the queens of medieval England from the Conquest to (I believe) the end of the War of the Roses. In this book, we meet the queens […]

The Faces That Launched a Thousand Political Conflicts

Medieval Royal Mistresses: Mischievous Women who Slept with Kings and Princes by Julia A. Hickey

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In an era where women were constrained by their sex and status, royal mistresses managed to have outsized influence of English history through their connections with kings and the children that they bore them. As I got into this book, it occurred to me that when you learn about history, the various favorites of kings and queens are left out except in very few instances where the story would make no sense without their inclusion (Anne Boleyn of course comes to mind). Instead their illegitimate […]

From Serf to Empress

Tsarina by Ellen Alpsten

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CBR 15 Bingo – History: This is a historical novel which in following the rise of Catherine I recreates the world of late 17th century Russia. Born a serf, Marta manages through her cunning and luck to rise through society until she becomes the mistress and later wife of Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia. This is an insane story of stratospheric social mobility, and I am shocked I hadn’t heard of it beyond Alpsten’s books. There’s plenty of shadowy corners in Catherine’s biography in […]

One of My Top Books of the Year

The Quest for Queen Mary by James Pope-Hennessy (edited by Hugo Vickers)

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CBR15Bingo — History I love, love, loved this book. This is a highlight of my reading year so far and a real keeper for my library of royal books. I do wonder what it is about royalty that tends to attract gay men — glamour? — because I felt very in sympathy with Pope-Hennessy’s fascination with royalty as a separate species of human beings throughout (I related very much to him being described as unremittingly homosexual in the introduction). As someone with a not insubstantial […]

Some princesses, a prince and a bear go on an adventure

 Swan Lake: Quest for the Kingdoms by Rey Terciero

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cbr15bingo Politics: two rival kingdoms are pitted against each other due to lack of understanding and greed There are way too many references to modern ideas, not to mention Swan Lake and Tchaikovsky in the graphic novel, Swan Lake: Quest for the Kingdoms.  But that is part of its charm for adults. For the 10 and up crowd, it is a funny, interesting story that mixes in friendship and assumptions and sword fights together. Combining all the fantasy and science fiction elements (I can make a […]



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