Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Night of the Living Hello Kitty Princess Demon-Deity

Escape From Yokai Land by Charles Stross

by Leave a Comment

I’ve had Charles Stross’ Laundry Files series in my TBR for a while; got the first one on Kindle sale a while back; it was pretty good. Grabbed 3 more from the library, although not quite in sequence. It turns out that you can read this series out of order and it will still mostly make sense. There may be references to someone dies or got married or is in another job or a certain probably evil who knows what is back, but how that […]

Like a fantastical, queer Sherlock Holmes.

The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal by K. J. Charles

by Leave a Comment

30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 2 Book 9/30 In my defense, K.J. Charles has a long backlist, but I wish I would have read this particular one sooner. I feel like I say that with her all the time, but with how much I love Sherlock Holmes and mysteries and spooky shit, this one definitely should have been at the top of my TBR. I’m making my way through her entire backlist this year, because her next book isn’t coming until early 2023, so […]

“But a novel always ends, the lies come to the surface, and the deaths are explained. Maybe one of the bad characters gets away with something—that’s fashionable right now—but you are still left with a sense that things are balanced, that dark things come to light, and that the bad person will, at least, most likely be miserable.”

The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

by Leave a Comment

This book lit my brain up like a Christmas tree. Nobody knows why certain books hit certain people like they do. That’s part of the magic of art, and of reading. But it worked for me in individual pieces, and it worked as a whole. During parts of it, I could practically hear my synapses yelling far off in the distance a gleeful “wheeeee”. So, here are all the individual components that got me: *The main character, Shea, reads mystery and crime fiction, and reads […]

The Book of Cold Cases

The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

by Leave a Comment

I think the only book of Simone St. James I have really enjoyed has been The Sun Down Motel, and even that fell apart for me towards the end. I think the supernatural aspects of this book just actually didn’t work in this one one. The main character, Shea, was too self righteous for me and I got really tired of her by the end of the book. “The Book of Cold Cases” follows receptionist, Shea Collins. Shea is just going through the motions of […]

Sweet Queer Supernatural Romance

Match With the Demon by Chace Verity

by 2 Comments

I saw Emmalita’s positive review of this and decided to pick it up — I’d never read anything by Chace Verity and it’s been a while since I read any romance outside of fanfic, so this was a bit of a random read. But it was very sweet and cozy, which is the type of book I was in the mood for. I breezed through it and enjoyed it. Match With the Demon follows Harrison, a single dad whose son Justin just left for college. Harrison […]

“She accepted the visit and lived in anticipation, wondering what was to come. It was November 19, 1950. She would be dead in ten days.”

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

by Leave a Comment

I’m not going to compare this to The Sun-Down Motel, which is the only other book of hers I’ve read, because they are very different books, which I wasn’t expecting because of their seeming similarities (dual timelines, ghosts, murder). And on its own, I enjoyed listening to this book very much. (Rebecca Lowman does a good job with the narration, although her male performances sometimes slip into silliness.) The two timelines are: Vermont, 1950, at the boarding school of Idlewind, a school for girls who […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo