Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site

> FAQ Home
> Tag: Victorian era

Death (and other Nonsense) on the Nile

Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

by Leave a Comment

My mom and I shared a love of Ancient Egypt, mythology and archaeology. She was a big fan of Elizabeth Peters mysteries, and I have had a few of the paperbacks from her mystery novel collection buried in my to-read piles for years. I finally decided to dig them out and give Peters a try. The first novel in the series, Crocodile on the Sandbank, introduces readers to her Victorian-era heroine, Amelia Peabody. Amelia is a no-nonsense, feisty woman who has also inherited an interest […]

Crossdressing, murder, and blackmail, oh my!

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

by 1 Comment

(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 […]

The League of Extraordinary Women Strikes Again

A Rogue of One's Own by Evie Dunmore

by 2 Comments

Hmm I feel bad giving this the same rating as the prior entry in the series, Bringing Down the Duke, because while similar this book is so very much better. It is, like the first book, at its heart a romance novel but like Serious and Literary, which you can tell because it gets a proper book release and the cover has the cartoon characters as opposed to a realistic drawing. No one is denying that part of it, there are tropes galore (the dowdy one […]

“The tricky thing about giving opinions is that sometimes they cost you more than you wanted to spend.”

The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee

by Leave a Comment

Jo Kuan and her father figure Old Jin have gotten by pretty well, considering they are Chinese Americans in the deep South of 1890.  Old Jin works as a horse caretaker for a local wealthy family, and Jo has a talent for millinery, so she is hopeful for an apprenticeship at the shop she works.  However, she is abruptly fired one day due to her supposed overly-frank attitude with customers (“You make the customers uncomfortable”).  Old Jin is able to get her a position as […]

A Romance? Historical Fiction? Who Knows?

The Turquoise by Anya Seton

by 4 Comments

Through some rabbit hole on the internet, I stumbled across the name Anya Seton and a fancy cover for her book, The Turqouise. Intrigued, I waited patiently for the inter-library loan snail to bring it to me, and boy was I surprised when the book delivered was a battered hardcover bound with actual thread and smelling of an octogenarian’s basement.  While slightly put-off, I accepted it anyway and went home to discover the strange and satisfying pleasure of reading an old book. I ripped my fare share […]

No man here lives a charmed life.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

by 2 Comments

Okay, I’m probably operating on far too little sleep to write a coherent review, but here goes. The prose here is a luminous dream, casting it’s shadows upon the mind and lulling the reader into a warm and tranquil languidity. Coming so fast on the heels of the tenaciously awkward writing of Stephanie Meyer, the fluidity exhibited by Conrad is both refreshing in its rarity and a disheartening reminder that I can never be the writer I often dream that I am. This story has […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo