Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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“Whatever comes of it, I’ll learn more than I know now.” “Unless,” I pointed out, “you die.” He shrugged. “Well. We all have to stop learning sometime.”

A Far Better Thing by H.G. Parry

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I feared this was the best of times; I hoped it could not get any worse. Let’s synopsize: Sydney Carton was stolen as a child and forced to serve the Faery Realm. Charles Darnay is his changeling; Lucie Manette is the changeling of Ivy, Sydney’s childhood friend. Sydney wants revenge on the fae and Darnay for how his life has turned out. The French Revolution happens. This is a homage to A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Spoiler Alert: I discuss plot points of […]

“Free speech may be part of the ideal of any revolution, but soon enough it becomes free speech only where the government approves of it.”

Scarlet (Scarlet Revolution #1) by Genevieve Cogman

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It is 1793 and the French Revolution is in full swing. Vampires, who are as usual, portrayed as rich and aristocratic (they’re blood-sucking leeches who also happen to be corpses; how is this not the White Trash Central group? Though yes, even without being vampiric they’d still be leeches; they are rich after all.) are the largest group to slake the guillotine’s thirst. Luckily for the 1%, The mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel, a disguised British noble, and his League are heroically rescuing dozens of aristocrats from […]

A Tale of Two Realms

A Far Better Thing by H.G. Parry

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I have never actually read A Tale of Two Cities beyond the famous opening paragraph and yet I was very much interested in a retelling with Fae. I’ve read a few novels this year that were either retellings or inspired by other classic texts but they were looser, taking those bones and putting them in a modern setting or otherwise being more homage than retelling. From what I can tell, this one takes the approach of following one of the supporting characters of the original […]

I finally understand the French Revolution.

A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians (The Shadow Histories, #1) by H.G. Parry

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Okay, I always understood the French Revolution, meaning I understood why there was one, and that it got out of control because hUmAnS, but I have never before been able to hold the chronology of it in my head, or remember the various stages, or the political parties or players. And it never descended to the human level for me before, never really reached my emotions because of the ways it’s been funneled at me before. It feels sort of perverse to say that a […]

That’s One Hot Fop!

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We seek him here, we seek him there, Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven? Is he in hell? That demmed, elusive Pimpernel. Back in 1982, a TV-movie version of The Scarlet Pimpernel starring Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour and Ian McKellan aired in the US. My high school BFF and I were completely enthralled, particularly by Anthony Andrews. Honestly, I still am today. After watching clips of it on YouTube, I believe it has withstood the test of time. For me, Anthony Andrews’ […]



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