Cannonball Read 14

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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About Dinah Lord

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Since I let my book blog expire, I want to be more mindful about the books I read again, and maybe get over my hangups about reading romance, by reviewing them. UK-based, she/her.

Dinah Lord's Reviews:

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Philanthropy is not the same as charity, or, how the Sacklers gaslighted a nation

Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe

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Living in the UK, there are certain things about the USA which are very alien to me – non-socialized medicine,  for example. I was also unaware of the opioid crisis in the States which has led to thousands of deaths from overdoses and the misery of addiction. Much of this can be laid firmly at the door of Purdue Pharmaceutical, inventor and manufacturer of a proprietary version of oxycodone (an opioid narcotic used for pain relief, which is more powerful than morphine), OxyContin. Other drug […]

Interesting plot rather let down by stock characters

Whiskey Beach by Nora Roberts

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About a year or so ago, I bought a few of Nora Roberts’ romantic thrillers, but only found this one this week after getting Katee Robert’s Dark Olympus titles through Apple Books (normally I read ebooks via Kindle). The Nora Roberts formula seems to be: throw two characters with traumatic or difficult pasts together in a small town setting, and have them resolve some of their past issues through dealing with a current threat. In previous titles, it’s been the nominal hero disregarding the heroine’s […]

And the people bowed and prayed

Neon Gods by Katee Robert

Electric Idol by Katee Robert

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Katee Robert was a name unknown to me until I read nart’s review of Neon Gods, and her review (and those of other Cannonballers) made me intrigued by the premise – modern-day retellings of Greek myths where the gods of Olympus are actually mortal rulers of the city of Olympus, in an unknown country only loosely connected to our real world. It’s an interesting setting, and allows Robert to make up her own rules about how things work and why. As other reviewers have pointed […]

Two people with a hero complex off to save the school

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik

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This is the second book in the Scholomance trilogy: the first, A Deadly Education, told El’s story in the last three weeks of her junior year at the school of magic, the Scholomance, and how her efforts and those of her friends have, she hopes, helped most of the seniors graduate without significant casualties. This second book covers El’s senior year, starting off with what El considers the worst possible assignment: her study hall as the sole senior in a classroom of young, inexperienced freshmen. […]

All right, I was a witch. Does it matter?

Circe by Madeline Miller

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The witch, Circe, turns up in the Odyssey, famous for turning half of Odysseus’ men into pigs, before changing them back again and giving Odysseus aid in his ever longer journey home from Troy. Circe, her island, and her interactions with Odysseus take up a single chapter of the Odyssey, and from this Miller weaves a much more satisfying tale in this 2018 novel. Circe is the eldest and least-regarded of four children of the Titan Helios and sea nymph Perse. She grows up as […]

A road trip with a difference

Becoming Dinah by Kit de Waal

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Seventeen-year old Dinah has spent almost all her life on a religious commune somewhere in Northumberland (in northern England), being educated at home with the other children. Only recently has she gone to a ‘proper’ school, and her feelings of culture shock and confusion are convincingly drawn. When we first meet her, something awful has happened (which de Waal delays telling us about), and Dinah is taking advantage of her mother’s absence on a Women’s Retreat to reinvent herself as ‘Ishmael’, cutting off her long […]



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