Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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 […]

More Than Just a Gender Swapping – The Novel is Filled With Interesting Women

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I have never actually read an original Sherlock Holmes novel or story.  I think we read a children’s version of The Hound of Baskerville at one point but it was definitely a simplified version since it was in 6th grade, during our second year of English language instruction at my German school (I of course was already fluent but it’s not like there was an alternative course I could have taken so it made more sense for me to just be in the class with […]

It’s OK to be Genre Fiction, I Promise

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  This review is for the audiobook version of The Quick, by Lauren Owen. This book wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. I don’t think that it’s what it thinks it is either. This is genre fiction that thinks it’s literary, with quirks that seem to scream “I’m different and unique,” when in fact it’s just another vampire story. The blurb described the book as being about a woman, Charlotte, who goes to London after her brother disappears and discovers a few […]



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