Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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You have to get the words right

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

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This was a reread for me but it was a book club choice and it had been long enough since I read that I was a little fuzzy on the details (also, I’m not sure if I simply read them around the same time or if the authors approached their descriptions in similar ways but the changeling in this novella strongly reminds me of the possessed kid or changelings child in the Emily Wilde novel). This is an alternate version of Sleeping Beauty where Sleeping […]

“I never stopped trying to save you, so don’t you fucking dare stop trying to save yourself.”

A Spindle Splintered (Fractured Fables #1) by Alix E. Harrow

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A Spindle Splintered is a queer retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairytale, playing on the variations that exist and adding one of its own. The basic story has been around for almost seven hundred years and has flown through the hands of Basile, Perrault, and Grimm, and that’s before we get into the hundreds of adaptations so what’s another? Harrow brings her own lens to this, and imbues her lead, Zinnia Grey, with a wonderfully clear voice. It is so realistic that I initially thought […]

Gender-bent re-imagining of Sleeping Beauty with a dash of Indiana Jones

The Bone Spindle by Leslie Vedder

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BINGO – READER’S CHOICE/WHITE WHALE (I’m still planning on reading my original White Whale choice, but I just don’t have the brain space at the moment) Briar Rose, prince of the Kingdom of Andar, is born on the verge of death. His mother reaches out to a powerful witch, the Spindle Witch, to use her magic to save her son in exchange for sharing knowledge of terrible and forbidden magic. The Spindle Witch saves the prince, but the queen walks back on her promise. Seeking […]

Sometimes the editors miss stuff…

Briar and Rose and Jack by Katherine Coville

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Overall, this was a delightful story, and I do recommend it!  It’s a combination of Sleeping Beauty and Jack and the Beanstalk.  The Queen gives birth to twins, but the first baby has deformed features and is deemed unsuitable to be the heir.  Luckily, the second baby is perfect. Due to some quick thinking on the Queen’s part, the first baby is going to be raised as the daughter of a distant Duke who passed away, but brought to the castle to be a playmate […]

“I like stories where women save themselves.”

The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman

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Gaiman smushes the stories of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty together in this gorgeously illustrated novella.  The setting of the book is sometime after Snow White is awakened from her coffin and at the 100 year mark after Sleeping Beauty’s curse set in. But the stakes are raised when the sleeping sickness that has fallen on the princess and her kingdom is spreading out further and further as the curse lingers.  Several of the dwarves bring this to their queen, and conveniently she is looking […]

I Have to Scale a Tower Naked? Where Do I Put My Sword?

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The Mermaid’s Madness by Jim C. Hines (2009) – Okay, I broke a few of my self-imposed reading rules when I picked up this book, and I’m glad I did.  I don’t usually select a book that’s in the middle of a series, and I tend to skip “reworked” fairy tales when I want to read fantasy.  As usual, rules are meant to be broken, and I totally enjoyed this book loosely based on the original Little Mermaid. In this fantasy realm, Snow White, Sleeping […]



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