Cannonball Read 14

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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About Merryn

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Merryn's Reviews:

> FAQ Home
> Articles by: Merryn

Australian outback tall tales

Larrimah by Caroline Graham and Kylie Stevenson

August 9, 2022 by Merryn Leave a Comment

Bingo square:  Question – What happened to Paddy Moriarty and Kelly?  What is it about Larrimah that drives the feuding and petty hatreds? “There’s a bottomless well of trouble in this town and it’s hard to know which parts we have a right to haul to the surface.” Larrimah is an expansion on the Lost in Larrimah podcast created by the journalist authors.  Ostensibly a ‘true crime’ story about a missing man (and dog) the podcast digs into the complex relationships between the mostly elderly inhabitants of the […]

Filed Under: Non-Fiction Tagged With: Caroline Graham and Kylie Stevenson, cbr14, cbr14bingo

Merryn's CBR14 Review No:4 · Genres: Non-Fiction · Tags: Caroline Graham and Kylie Stevenson, cbr14, cbr14bingo ·
· 0 Comments

“My heart is a hand reaching”

Devotion by Hannah Kent

January 22, 2022 by Merryn Leave a Comment

Devotion is a gloriously beautiful, heartbreaking story of impossible, indestructible love. Hanne is a girl becoming a woman in a community of Lutheran extremists in 19th century Prussia.  She has never doubted her family’s faith, but feels a deep spiritual and synaesthetic connection to the natural world, hearing an underlying hum of music. “Baptise me in rainfall and crown me in sunrise.” “I could hear the sunshine ringing like a blow to the ear.” Hanne’s oddness is a barrier to friendship with the other girls of […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: cbr14, Hannah Kent, historical fiction

Merryn's CBR14 Review No:3 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: cbr14, Hannah Kent, historical fiction ·
· 0 Comments

Slight prequel to Cormac Reilly series

The Sisters by Dervla McTiernan

January 7, 2022 by Merryn Leave a Comment

This prequel to Dervla McTiernan’s Cormac Reilly series takes us back to the beginning of Carrie Ryan’s career, when she was a keen young constable striving to break into the detective boys’ club.  Carrie is diligent, with excellent investigative instincts and people skills, but she is beginning to realise that this may be less useful in building a career than being accepted as one of the lads. Carrie shares a small studio apartment with her sister Aifric, a junior barrister who has yet to build […]

Filed Under: Audiobooks, Fiction Tagged With: cbr14, crime, dervla mctiernan

Merryn's CBR14 Review No:2 · Genres: Audiobooks, Fiction · Tags: cbr14, crime, dervla mctiernan ·
· 0 Comments

Who wouldn’t want to be saved from this world of pain?

Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas

January 1, 2022 by Merryn Leave a Comment

Damascus is the story of Saul of Tarsus, Saint Paul, the man who took the message of Yeshua the saviour to the Strangers.  It is also the story of a cult struggling to become a religion, outliving its founders, pulled in different directions by followers who have built their hope of salvation on their own suffering , struggling to hold onto their belief in the kingdom to come, that surely should be here by now.  “He is risen.  .. Truly, he is risen. … He is […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Biblical, cbr14, Christos tsiolkas, historical fiction

Merryn's CBR14 Review No:1 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Biblical, cbr14, Christos tsiolkas, historical fiction ·
· 0 Comments

Space opera binge – “Nothing touched by empire remains itself”

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

December 30, 2021 by Merryn 3 Comments

              ** Some spoilers for the plot of Ancillary Justice in the review of later books in the series ** Space opera can definitely be big, loud and dumb and that can be fun and exciting.  But I love my space opera to be populated by complex, conflicted people (and other beings) living in intricate worlds with a deep culture and history.  Add beautiful writing, and big questions about identity and ethics, and I am in heaven. So I […]

Filed Under: Fiction, Science Fiction Tagged With: ann leckie, arkady martine, CBR13, sci-fi, space opera

Merryn's CBR13 Review No:30 · Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction · Tags: ann leckie, arkady martine, CBR13, sci-fi, space opera ·
· 3 Comments

“History, rolled, reshaped, undone and mauled”

Carpentaria by Alexis Wright

October 20, 2021 by Merryn Leave a Comment

CBRBingo: Uncannon (And card full!) Carpentaria is a powerful novel by Waanyi woman, Alexis Wright, set in the fictional town of Desperance on Australia’s remote tropical Gulf of Carpentaria.  It’s a challenging read, with densely beautiful passages of description and distant omniscient narrative that takes sudden dives down into the dirt of this troubled town and its messy inhabitants.  It took me a while to find its rhythm, but then I was hooked. This is a story about a family.  Norm Phantom, who “the Pricklebush […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: alexis wright, CBR13, cbr13bingo

Merryn's CBR13 Review No:25 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: alexis wright, CBR13, cbr13bingo ·
· 0 Comments
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