Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Fae Murder Mystery in San Francisco

Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire

by Leave a Comment

Rosemary and Rue is the first book in the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire. I’ve been meaning to read this forever. I’m a big fan of detective mysteries and urban fantasy. I’m very happy to review it for the And So It Begins CBR11 bingo square. October Daye, Toby for short, is a changeling and a knight errant to the Duke of Shadowed Hills. In this universe, the Fae are hidden to humans and live amongst them in secret. Toby’s mother is a powerful […]

Revisiting the Early Novels of a Long Running Series

An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire

Late Eclipses by Seanan McGuire

by Leave a Comment

While the October Daye series didn’t start clicking for me until the third book, it has since become one of my favorite urban fantasy series.  I love the expansive world building and even thirteen books in, the series keeps growing without conflicting with itself.  I don’t know if McGuire always had this extended world in her head but didn’t know how much time she would have to explore it or if she is going novel to novel on the fly, but it has been such […]

I Have Always Imagined that Paradise Will Be a Kind of Library

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

by 2 Comments

Have you ever felt that a book was written just for you? Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is my Platonic ideal: a novel by an Elder Millennial, set in an alternate San Francisco Bay Area populated by talented, curious people, weird-but-plausible technologies, and endless shelves of books. By the time I discovered the in-story trilogy of fantasy novels and the credible centuries-old secret society, I committed to becoming a Sloan completist. Our initially hapless first-person hero Clay Jannon is looking for a job, any job. His […]

Union Man, Private Eye

October Heat by Gordon De Marco

by Leave a Comment

As I’ve said multiple times on this here website (and other places): the concept of a lefty-leaning private eye is not all that radical (no pun intended). Chandler, Hammett, and Macdonald, often considered the trinity of male PI literature that birthed the modern Lone Detective mystery tale for America, were all sympathetic to working class folks and skeptical of the rich and those who protected them. Books cannot escape their context: look at Robert Crais’ Elvis Cole, whose early-90s novels carry the spirit of the […]

How to Party with an Infant by Kaui Hart Hemmings

by Leave a Comment

Something about this book just did not connect, and I’m really torn about whether it’s me or the author who’s the issue. Mele Hart is a single mom in San Francisco whose boyfriend/baby’s father turned out to be already engaged (this isn’t a spoiler, it’s on the blurb). She’s part of a playgroup with a few other moms and one dad. People get assigned to small groups (is this a thing? The closest thing I’ve heard of is MOPS) by a larger organization, which also […]

https://cannonballread.com/2019/03/how-to-party-with-an-infant-blingle-bells/

Love in an elevator

by Leave a Comment

The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory was simply lovely. Alexa and Drew meet when stuck in a hotel elevator together in San Francisco. Alexa is on her way to meet her sister to celebrate a promotion. Drew is begrudgingly going to his ex-girlfriend’s wedding. The two strangers hit it off immediately, so Drew takes a chance and invites Alexa to the wedding. He gets a bit carried away and tells everyone she’s his girlfriend. Luckily, Alexa doesn’t mind and they have an amazing time at the wedding and […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo