Cannonball Read 14

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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A Rose by Any Other Name

Merlin's Keep by Madeleine Brent

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As a big Modesty Blaise fan, I’ve always enjoyed Peter O’Donnell’s writing ability and reread his 15 Modesty books every couple of years. Imagine my surprise from his obituary to discover that he wrote gothic historic romances under the name “Madeleine Brent.” Merlin’s Keep (named after the birds and not the wizard) won the Romantic Novel of the Year for 1978. While I’ve probably never read a gothic historic romance in my life, I ordered several of his romances and started with Merlin’s Keep (because […]

Crossdressing, murder, and blackmail, oh my!

The Body at the Tower (The Agency #2) by Y. S. Lee

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(Note: mild spoilers for Book #1, A Spy in the House.) This has been a fun series to read in the evenings when winding down: the plotting is nicely propulsive, historical London is very well-centered, and Mary Quinn (née Lang) remains an engaging protagonist. This sophomore entry in Lee’s The Agency series picks up about a year after the first book left off: she is now a full member of the all-ladies investigatory firm concealed within Miss Scrimshaw’s School for Girls, and her two superiors […]

monologuing at the mouth of madness

The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O'Donnell

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A strong opening pulls us directly into the spooky fold; a seamstress with a secret hurls herself from a very important man’s very high attic window. The House on Vesper Sands has all of the hallmarks of a Victorian throw-back; mazes of manners, decrepit mansions, and gin-soaked police populate a scuzzy world of destitute working girls, complicated family histories, and genteel young men all-aflutter. The Spiritualist movement is in full-swing and a cloaked and creepy group of “Spiriters” may be responsible for a rash of […]

The cook and the case of the missing children

Murder in the East End by Jennifer Ashley

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This is book four in the Below Stairs series by Jennifer Ashley, set in Victorian England.  The series is unique in that the focus is on Kat Holloway, a cook in a grand house in Mayfair – an upstairs/downstairs premise that gives you a look into the workings of a large kitchen in that time period.  She is intelligent and resourceful, and her quick thinking has saved many a meal when the upstairs folk demand a menu change at the last minute.   But of course, […]

Another solid work from Charlie N Holmberg

Spellbreaker by Charlie N. Holmberg

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In Victorian England, magic leaves traces: runes, smells, and even sounds, and Elsie Camden has the rare ability to not only perceive these vestiges of magic but to undo the magic behind them, though she cannot perform any magic herself. Elsie is employed by two people: a stonemason who can perform only the most basic spells and a mysterious cadre of people trying to equalize the world. It is with this group, The Cowls, that Elsie uses her unregistered and illegal skills to undo unjust […]

Another one on the meh pile

The Wicked Boy The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer by Kate Summerscale

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If I’m not in a reading slump this year, I seem to be in a reviewing slump. This one hasn’t been helped by not really having much of substance to say about it almost a month after reading it, a surprise to me given how much I enjoyed what Summerscale I’d previously read (The Suspicions of Mr Whicher). The Wicked Boy takes a look at another Victorian murder case which the newspapers were fond of writing about, in which 13 year old Robert Coombes and […]



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