CBR18 Book 51: "The Tainted Cup" by Robert Jackson Bennett

Page count: 410 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Dark Corner selection: April 2026

Nowhere Book Bingo 26: Award Winner (Hugo and World Fantasy Award 2025)

CBR18 Bingo: Map (there's a map at the start, showing the various walls to keep out the Levianthans)

Official plot synopsis (since I'm reviewing a book I finished in APRIL):

In Daretana’s most opulent mansion, a high Imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree spontaneously erupted from his body. Even in this canton at the borders of the Empire, where contagions abound and the blood of the Leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death at once terrifying and impossible.

Called in to investigate this mystery is Ana Dolabra, an investigator whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol. Din is an engraver, magically altered to possess a perfect memory. His job is to observe and report, and act as his superior’s eyes and ears--quite literally, in this case, as among Ana’s quirks are her insistence on wearing a blindfold at all times, and her refusal to step outside the walls of her home.

Din is most perplexed by Ana’s ravenous appetite for information and her mind’s frenzied leaps—not to mention her cheerful disregard for propriety and the apparent joy she takes in scandalizing her young counterpart. Yet as the case unfolds and Ana makes one startling deduction after the next, he finds it hard to deny that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the safety of the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

My book club discussed this book at the end of April (we meet on the last Wednesday of every month), and my memory is not as good as it once was, so there are absolutely talking points I will have forgotten by now. I think most people enjoyed the story, but some thought it was a bit too tropey as a mystery, and had figured out a lot of the plot twists ahead of time as a result. At least half the readers were especially fascinated by the giant leviathans that appear and threaten the developed areas every so often, and our collective guess is that they may be more sentient than we are told in this first story.

The worldbuilding is very interesting, with everything technological being biologically based, rather than industrial, such as giant mushrooms cooling down a room rather than an air conditioner. The various modifications people could make to their minds and bodies were also fascinating. Our POV character, Dinios "Din" Kol, has been altered to have absolutely perfect recall. He can remember anything he observes or hears, with the help of little vials of scent. He smells the vial before he starts "recording" and will then be able to recall everything he saw, heard, smelled, and/or tasted forever afterwards, by just smelling the same scent one more time. Due to his abilities, he is highly sought when it comes to investigative work. He hides a big secret, which he is terrified of anyone discovering, especially his superior, the brilliant Ana Dolabra. 

I think it's impossible not to compare Ana to Sherlock Holmes, one of fiction's most famous and very eccentric detectives (the only one to rival him would be Hercule Poirot, I would guess). She's brilliant, strange and behaves in ways odd to absolutely everyone, including her patient and long-suffering assistant. Her mind is a steel trap, and she has any number of strange rituals and habits to make her function properly. She even plays a stringed instrument (bringing to mind Holmes' violin). There doesn't seem to be such a thing as neurodivergence in this universe, but doing a mental tally of all the various mystery books I've read, it seems likely most of the really clever sleuths are on the autism spectrum. I don't want to say that neurodivergent minds are just better at solving mysteries, but mystery fiction strongly seems to suggest it. Some of the people in my book club felt that she was more like a series of quirks in a trench coat, but she's memorable, and I'll be intrigued to see how the relationship between her and Din develops. Also, I don't think this counts as a spoiler - of course she knows exactly what Din's deep, dark secret is; he's just an idiot for realising it. 

I had thought this was the first book in a trilogy, but now it seems as if it's going to be a longer, ongoing series. I have only heard excellent things about the next books as well, and I want to spend more time in this unusual fantasy world, so I'm happy. 

Judging a book by its cover: In a lot of cases, I prefer the UK covers to books than the American ones, but in this case, the US cover is SO much nicer. The UK cover is basically just mushrooms and other plant matter (not a huge fan of mushrooms). The elegant black and gold, with the plants seeming to be creeping in from one side - this is the book I wish I had on my shelves.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

#CBR12 Book 21: "Brown Girl Dreaming" by Jacqueline Woodson

Page count: 368 pages
Audiobook length: 3 hrs 55 mins
Rating: 4.5 stars

Official book description:
Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson’s eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.

This unusual autobiography, written in verse, is absolutely lovely. I chose to listen to it in audiobook, narrated by Ms. Woodson herself, mainly because I find poetry is always more accessible when it's read to me, rather than when I have to read it myself. Possibly my only complaint with this book is that it was much shorter than I was expecting, mainly because it's by no means a full autobiography of Ms. Woodson's life. It covers her childhood and adolescence and tells the story of how, although she had big problems learning to read, she found a love of books and stories and became determined to become an author.

A book written in verse may seem a bit daunting, but the language that Ms. Woodson uses throughout is descriptive, evocative, and in no way dense. Each chapter is relatively short, so you can easily break up your read if you want to. I found the short chapters made it even more tempting to keep going for longer, which made me finish the book sooner than I was expecting.

In general, while parts of Ms. Woodson's early years were sad and dramatic, most of the stories in this book are hopeful and heartwarming. I can easily understand why the book has been so critically acclaimed and been nominated for and won a ton of awards. I suspect this is the sort of book that will work very well for a number of reading challenges - written by an African American woman, dealing with various kinds of marginalisation and racism, it's autobiographical, it's aimed at YA/middle-grade readers, it's won a bunch of awards AND it's written in verse.

Judging a book by its cover: It's almost difficult to find an image of the plain cover for this book, considering that the standard cover now seems to be covered in little medals announcing the many awards this book has won or been nominated for. The silhouette of the little girl, reading a book, and butterflies and golden swirls seemingly erupting from its pages seems very appropriate. The colours of the sky behind the girl are lovely and evoke hopefulness and optimism, in my mind.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Books 56-58: "The Hat trilogy" by Jon Klassen

Total page count: 136 pages

#CBR11 Bingo: Award Winner 

I Want My Hat Back has won award in at least three countries, including the Selezionato Mostra Internazionale d'Illustratazione per infanzia di Sarmede in 2011, E.B White Award Read Aloud Award for Picture Books in 2012, Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis for Bilderbuch in 2013.

This is Not My Hat won the Caldecott Medal and the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award for Children's Picture Book in 2013, and the Premi Llibreter de narritiva for Album illustrat and the Kate Greenaway medal in 2014.

I Want My Hat Back - 5 stars

A bear is sad. His hat is missing and he wants it back. He goes and politely enquires of all the animals he meets whether they've seen his hat. They all try to help, but none of them have the answer he is looking for. A helpful deer asks him to describe the hat, and which triggers the bear's memory: He has seen his hat! You will be relieved to hear that the story ends happily, with the bear and his hat reunited.

Of all the books my husband and I read to our son, this is our favourite. While I was pregnant, I asked friends for recommendations of good children's books to get for our boy. This came warmly recommended to us by an old friend from university, who works as a librarian and has children of her own. She claimed that she would probably read  and recommend these books, even if she didn't have little girls to read them to. We have (as most parents probably do with children's books) by now lost count of the number of times we've read this book, but neither of us ever gets sick of it. I have probably written more words about this book than the entire forty pages contain. It's not a particularly complicated tale.

The whole story takes place in simple dialogue. "Have you seen my hat?" and "Thank you anyway." are the phrases most often repeated. While the bear is distressed and really wants his hat back, he's also unfailingly polite throughout. The illustrations in the book are simple and delightful, the variety of animals the bear comes across during his search (there's a frog, a snake, what we're pretty sure is an armadillo, a rabbit, a fox, a tortoise and of course the helpful deer) are not exactly your standard Northern European forest selection.

I promise I am not lying when I say that the tension builds over the course of the story, and there's a delightful twist ending that tends to make people who encounter the book for the first time laugh out loud (we have shown the book to pretty much all of our guests in the last eighteen months).

This is Not My Hat - 4.5 stars

A little fish wearing a fetching blue hat zips through the water. It confesses that the hat it's wearing does, in fact, not belong to it. It stole it from a much bigger fish, who was sleeping at the time of the audacious theft. The little fish feels that the small blue hat suits it much better, as it was much to small for the big fish. Now the little fish is making his hasty escape, but is pretty confident that the big fish isn't going to wake up for a while, and when it does, it may not even notice that the hat is missing. Spoiler! The big fish does wake up, immediately notices its missing hat, and seems to have a pretty good idea who the thief is. The little fish swims to where the plants are big and tall and close together. Nobody will ever find it there. Will the little fish get away? Will the big fish catch up with him and retrieve his hat?

This is Not My Hat has a more open ending than I Want My Hat Back. In the first book in the series, there is very little doubt in the reader's mind what the fate of the hat thief is. In this book, it's more open to interpretation whether the little fish gets away or not, but the big fish DOES have its hat back in the end, and the big fish seemed none to pleased to discover it was missing in the first place. There is a very high chance of the little fish having come to an unpleasant end, just as it thought it was safe in the tall plants.

As with the first book, the fairly simple and brief story is illustrated beautifully. My favourite page is probably the one that shows the crab, who apparently promised not to say anything about having seen the little fish, clearly pointing its claw in the direction of where the little fish has swum, helping the big fish find it. Because I am a huge nerd, this page is usually accompanied by a "Curse your sudden, but inevitable betrayal." line being added to the story when I read it to our son. Gabriel likes This is Not My Hat, but he doesn't love it as much as he does I Want My Hat Back.

We Found a Hat - 4 stars

This book is actually divided into clear sections. Part one: Two tortoises, wandering in a barren landscape, find a hat. They try it on, it looks good on both of them. However, there are two of them and only one hat, so they decide that the best course of action is just leaving the hat behind. Part two: The tortoises are watching the sunset together. One of the tortoises claims to be thinking about the sunset, whilst the other claims not to be thinking about anything at all (but it's clear that the tortoise is really thinking about, and missing, the hat they found earlier). Part three: The tortoises are lying on rocks, about to go to sleep. As one of the tortoises is nearly asleep, the other is sneaking away towards the hat, until inquiring about the first tortoise's dream. When the second tortoise hears what the first tortoise is dreaming about, it lies down peacefully and goes to sleep next to its friend. It is a good dream, resolving the possible conflict about the hat entirely (but I'm not going to spoil the particulars, because that would ruin the punchline of the book).

We Found a Hat is quite a bit longer than the other two books in the trilogy. The focus here also seems to have shifted from clear hat ownership and attempted theft to aspirational hat ownership, friendship and togetherness. It's a much gentler and friendlier story, but possibly, because it lacks the edge and bite of the previous two books, it's also the book we least often seek out for reading to our son. Although, his attention span is also very short at the moment, so this book, with it's slightly longer story line and added demand on sitting still for story time may become more of a favourite as he gets a bit older.

It's probably encouraging that the trilogy ends on a lighter, sweeter and friendlier note.

For anyone with kids, my husband and I highly recommend all these three books. I have not regretted purchasing them for a second and all three books are already well loved by all the members of our little household.

Judging the books by their covers: Each of the covers gives a pretty good idea of the spare and simple, yet very engaging style in which Jon Klassen illustrates his books. The animal or animals on the cover are cute and look like creatures you'd want to read about.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 11: "The Girl Who Drank the Moon" by Kelly Barnhill

Page count: 400 pages
Ratin: 4.5 stars

Because tradition dicatates it, each year on a certain day, the council of elders in the Protectorate take an infant and leave it in the woods as a sacrifice to the witch. Bad things will happen to the settlement if they don't (although no one is really clear what dire consequences there will be, because there has never been a time when they didn't place a child in the woods). Normally, the grieving family whose child has been selected meekly go along with the council's edict, but one year, the infant's mother rages, screams and tries to fight back (can't say I blame her). She's locked away in a tower, run by sinister nuns. Antain is a young apprentice elder, and he is deeply discomfited by the whole thing. Eventually, he quits the council and becomes a carpenter instead.

Xan, the witch in the woods, travels to the same spot in the woods each year, to pick up the poor, abandoned child left there. She feeds the babies starlight and finds them good homes in the cities on the other side of the forest, far away from the Protectorate. These star children are always deeply cherished and go on to lead especially successful lives. This one year, she's a bit late, and flustered, she feeds the baby moonlight instead of starlight. Moonlight gives the recipient magical power, and before Xan has a chance to rectify it, little Luna (as she names the girl) is clearly brimming with magical potential. Because of the accident, Xan can't give Luna up to another family and takes it upon herself to raise the girl herself. Aided by Glerk, a pessimistic, yet very poetic bog monster and Fyrian, a tiny, hyperactive dragon, she does her best to teach Luna, while hoping that she can prepare her properly for her magical gifts, that are likely to come bursting forth around puberty.

As Luna happily grows older in Xan's care, her mother sits locked up in a tower in the Protectorate, making elaborate birds from paper she seems to conjure out of nothing, longing for her lost child. Antain, horribly scarred after a meeting with the madwoman, becomes a very successful carpenter, marries and gets his own child. However, the Protectorate tradition has marked his unborn baby the next to be left in the woods. Antain decides he has to track down the witch and stop her once and for all.

This book has already been reviewed a bunch of times by other Cannonballers, and as far as I can tell, they all really loved it. That's because this is an absolutely wonderful middle grade book, which I would have adored if it had been available to me growing up. It's a different kind of fairy tale, and subverts the reader's expectations several times throughout the story. I loved the way magic seems to work in the story, and the way the story slowly unfolded, giving little glimpses of important backstory portioned out along the way, so it took quite some time to understand the whole picture.

I loved the found family of Xan, who end up raising Luna, despite being really rather unprepared for the task of bringing up a very magically gifted child. I felt immense sympathy for poor Luna's mother and think I may also have been driven utterly mad had someone stolen my child away from me. I was very glad when they were eventually reunited, even as I ached for all the years they had lost.

I saw a Goodreads review that complained that while there are a number of interesting and powerful women in this story, all the male characters are utter buffoons. I'm not entirely sure what book that person has read, because that is not my experience here at all. Yes, there are some male characters that are stupid, but others who are very heroic and capable, if misinformed for parts of the story.

This book won the Newberry Medal in 2017, as well as several others, plus it was nominated for a bunch it didn't win. It's a lovely story, which while sad at times, has a proper and satisfying resolution. I can't wait for my son to be old enough to read it for himself.

Judging a book by its cover: Such a sweet book, such a lovely cover. I love everything about it, from the glowing paper birds, to the tiny dragon, to the giant moon with the dynamic little girl in front of it. If I recall correctly, the cover is one of the reasons I wanted to pick up this book in the first place.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 100: "The Cuckoo's Calling" by Robert Galbraith

Page count: 550 pages
Rating: 4 stars

#CBR10Bingo: Award Winner (LA Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller 2013 and an Anthony Award for Best Audio Book in 2014)

Supermodel Lula Landry topples from her third floor balcony and cracks her head open on the snow-covered pavement far below. Strangely, the paparazzi that were surrounding her apartment building earlier in the evening were nowhere to be seen when it happened. After careful investigation, the police rule the death a suicide, although the tabloids have all manner of conspiracy theories, the most popular being that she was murdered by her equally famous boyfriend. Lula's adopted brother disagrees with the police's verdict and is willing to pay a large amount of money to Cormoran Strike, a private detective and war veteran.

As Strike has recently broken up with his girlfriend of many years and is literally living in his office, knowing full well that he's about to have to declare bankruptcy, the case comes as a bit of a lifesaver. Nevertheless, he's not sure that his new client isn't delusional, and nobly tries to pass on the case to begin with. Lula's brother is adamant, and Strike is persuaded to look into the death, quickly discovering that there are things that the police seem to have missed and a lot of conflicting stories surrounding the event.

Along as an assistant, Strike has Robin Ellacott, as temporary secretary sent by an agency (because he forgot to tell them he couldn't afford anyone anymore) who turns out to be a lot more skilled and efficient that any of his previous ones. She's just got engaged to her long time boyfriend, who can't really see why Robin wants to keep working for Strike when she has a lot of other attractive job offers available. Robin seems to really enjoy her forays into investigating and gathering information, however, and while Strike is initially doubtful about even having her in the office (where they both pretend that it's not obvious that he's sleeping every night), he comes to really value her help.

I don't suppose it's much of a spoiler that Lula didn't, in fact, commit suicide. It wouldn't be a very good, or especially long, book if she did. PI checks if police's theory is correct. It is. The end. No one would bother reading that, no matter how famous the author was.

Because of course, as everyone knows by now, this is the first mystery novel that J.K "one of the richest people in the world" Rowling wrote, under a pseudonym. The book had been published, sold pretty well and received a fair amount of good reviews before the truth came out and the sales rocketed.

I'm one of these people who likes the Harry Potter books just fine, but they were not a transformative experience for me, and I don't love them as wholeheartedly and fiercely as a lot of my friends, both in real life and online. When ruthlessly culling my book collection when we moved, I got rid of all but the first three, because with book 4, the series starts getting needlessly bloated (book 5 is especially bad) and I just don't see myself wanting to reread them any time soon. When Gabriel is old enough, if he's interested in fantasy (which I hope to God he is, or we may have to leave him in the woods and try for another) we can always get copies at the library (or I can buy them second hand at a charity shop).

OK, my digression about HP over - I wasn't really sure what to expect from this book. As Cannonball Bingo turned into a bit of a challenge for me to tackle some books that have been on my backlist for a long time, it seemed like the right time to finally read this one. I used to love mysteries  as a teenager and in my early twenties and read them all the time. As I got older and the world has gotten more depressing, I find myself unable to deal with blood, gore misery and horribleness (which sadly often features in mysteries nowadays) and I want my escapism with a guaranteed happy ending. With the exception of J.D. Robb's futuristic In Death books or the occasional Victorian lady solves crimes with some handsome and probably surly gentleman by her side (all of these have a strong romantic element), I don't really read mysteries anymore.

I liked my first taste of Cormoran and Robin enough that I am curious to keep going with this series. This book could just as easily have been a "Cannonballer Recommends" choice, there are certainly enough of Rowling/Galbraith's fans among the other Cannonballers. While it can take me a good long while, I usually eventually get round to anything so beloved by others on the group blog. I already own the second book in the series, but doubt I'll get round to reading it until sometime next year. Having grown up watching British set mystery series on telly with my Mum, I'm also curious about the TV adaptations now. Can't watch it until I'm caught up with the books, though, don't want to be spoiled.

Judging a book by its cover: Since this book has been out for a good long while now, it's had a number of covers over the years. My copy is the original British paperback, I'm pretty sure, with a fairly generic city at night cover. There's some fancy buildings, a cast iron fence in the foreground, a hunched man in an overcoat walking away from us (I'm assuming this is Cormoran Strike himself), with a fancy streetlight casting the whole thing in a golden and atmospheric glow. I much prefer this to the more recent "TV series" tie-in covers.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.