Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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I love reading!

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Perfume, Chocolate, and Spies

The Scent of Secrets by Jane Thynne

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I have a dirty little secret that I suppose I’m confessing to the world: I like booksellers more than librarians. Librarians are usually concerned primarily with the administration of their office. Understandably so! I’d just as soon know what I’m looking for in a library so I don’t have to inquire for a librarian’s help. Usually, if I’m going to one, it’s because I want to get a specific something. Rarely do I browse in the library. Bookstores, as I’ve whittled down my wishlist over […]

Ghost in the Machine

U Up? by Cate Disabato

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In the end, this one receives the thinnest of four stars. I’m nudging it over the line because I think it has a lot going for it, even with the protagonist driving me absolutely bonkers for the last 20-30 pages. I guess I should start with the positives: I like Catie Disabato’s writing. She has a gift for creating real, believable characters, even the ghost ones. Her vision of how witchcraft works in this world: that mediums have the power to see ghosts, with certain […]

Mar(e)io of Rocksburg (Easttown)

The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes by K.C. Constantine

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Like many this past month, I watched and enjoyed HBO’s Mare of Easttown. I especially liked the first tier suburban Philly setting, the commitment to local culture, and the character-focused thrust of storytelling, even as there was a murder mystery to be solved. There was empathy for people and their situations in life, all of it centered around the titular Mare, the town detective. I wanted to read a book with similar traits. Long Bright River is the easiest and obvious answer but I read (and enjoyed) that one […]

Extra Reading

Who Is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews

Players by Don DeLillo

A Stained White Radiance by James Lee Burke

Louise Hathcock: Queen of the State Line Mob by Robert Broughton

Lemons Never Lie by Richard Stark

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I’m trying to document all of the books I read on here to better hit my cannonball numbers. These are ones I’ve been meaning to upload into combined reviews but haven’t. Some are good, some are eh, but most of them just didn’t merit a lot of words from me at the time I finished them for various reasons. Who Is Maud Dixon? *** For a similar identity-based thriller I read last year, a reviewer derisively pegged it as The Talented Mr. Rip-off. I didn’t […]

Conspiracy of Fools

Wedding Station by David Downing

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I don’t know what to make of David Downing’s Station series. On the one hand, I frequently read historical fiction that explores the pitfalls of life in Nazi Germany. Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series is the best example but there are others in the popular “Nazi Noir” subgenere and Downing’s series is one of them. Downing gets the atmosphere of prewar Berlin down in an effective, readable way. I visited Berlin before and while it’s far removed from its Nazi past, the environment of low […]



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