Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

If Poetry Could Kill

The Poet Emperess by Shen Tao

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I have both ElCicco and Narfa to thank for bringing this book to my attention earlier this year. Completely worth it and up there with The Everlasting and The Raven Scholar as one of the best page turner’s of the year so far.  Very mild spoilers below: This is another one of those fantasy novels that carries over a close Venn diagram with another sub genre—in this case politics intrigue. If you like stories about court politics, this will likely appeal. In the kingdom of […]

Smashing the patriarchy is a brutal business

The Poet Empress: A Novel by Shen Tao

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I picked up this novel based on Narfna’s recommendation, and I’m glad I did. This is an intense fantasy novel about power, magic, literacy and women. And as Narfna says, it is NOT romantasy, no matter how it might be marketed. This is Shen Tao’s debut novel, and she warns readers that it contains violence, sexual abuse, and torture, and some of this involves children. It can be a lot but if you can handle it, it’s worth the ride. The Poet Empress is set […]

This standalone fantasy goes incredibly hard.

The Poet Empress by Shen Tao

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Sending up the Bat Signal on this book, my first use of it this year. (FYI the last time I used it was with The Raven Scholar, my best book of 2025, so you know it’s serious.) I wouldn’t recommend this book as widely or as often as I have The Raven Scholar, but for a certain type of reader, this thing will hit hard. (As it hit me. Last night, crying softly on my couch as I opined to myself, IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL.) First […]



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