Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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A Hallmark Movie with Talking Plants and Flying Cats

The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst

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The Spellshop is not really a cozy romantasy as it has been sold; it is actually a Hallmark movie trying to disguise itself as romantasy. The premise: a young woman flees the city and her big city career to escape a bad thing, moves back to her very rural hometown, meets an annoyingly helpful and cute neighbor, starts a jam-making business. Along for the ride is the sassy sidekick bestie, and a variety of locals, nearly all of whom love her after some initial hesitation, […]

Right book at the right time

The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst

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I recently finished the last book in Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series, and it pretty much made me into an emotional wreck for at least a few days. I needed a bit of a palette cleanser book, so I picked up The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst, mostly because out of all the books on my TBR, it looked like one of the least likely to make me want to ugly cry. Kiela is a librarian, taking care of the spellbooks at the […]

Of Birds and Trees

The Warbler by Sarah Beth Durst

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This one feels a bit more similar to Sarah Beth Durst’s novel, The Lost, than some of her other more recently published ones – even if The Lost is my most recently read of her. Something about the main character in this one felt very reminiscent of that earlier novel, and both novels were centered within a version of our world rather than within a fantasy world setting (like Race the Sand or The Spellshop). Regardless of the setting, mother-daughter relationships always play a prominent […]

And what did you lose?

The Lost by Sarah Beth Durst

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I thought this was a stand alone novel and it is and it isn’t … from what I saw on a Goodreads review, Durst actually wrote this as a trilogy and the follow up novels are even written but due to some corporate acquisitions and mergers, the new publisher chose not to proceed with the series. Fortunately, I feel like it ends less on a cliff hanger as much as an ambiguous ending in that lets you assume what happens next. As a fan of […]

Nothing inspiring, but not horrible

Spark by Sarah Beth Durst

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This book was a high fantasy world in which the main focus is dragons. The setting is in this land surrounded by mountains, in which the weather is always perfect, because the dragons control it. Anything beyond the mountain range is the wildlands, in which everyone is bloodthirsty, and it’s not at all propaganda. Don’t think about it too much. I think the single best thing about this book was the level of immersion, the level that when you finish reading, you miss something so […]

The Bone Maker

The Bone Maker by Sarah Beth Durst

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In no uncertain terms, this is the best book I’ve read in recent memory. My wife recommended it to me, and every time a character was in peril I messaged her demanding to know if they’d be okay and cursing her for putting this book in front of me and turning my insides into soup. It has emotion, humor, quips, excitement, political intrigue, and a setting that is both immediately familiar to Sword & Sorcery aficionados and unique and new at the same time. In […]



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