Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Love the family history, hate the ableism

Spilling the Tea by Brenda Jackson

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I’ve never read Brenda Jackson, though she’s been on my radar as a Black romance author and a well-loved author by many, and this sounded like exactly the kind of book I would enjoy with lots of family history and secrets. I did really enjoy the story and the family elements, and a part of me wants to go through the backlist for more about the Madaris family, but I also feel like I’m not the right audience for these books (and I’m sure a […]

Alas, No Pagan Rituals Involved. But Still a Fun Read.

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

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OK, gotta admit, this was not the genre I was expecting when I started reading.  Upstate New York Gothic is my third favorite type of Gothic (after OG British Gothic and Mexican Gothic), but it took me a minute to realize that this was not that.  Lack of girl school on the lake, to start with.  So what we are actually looking at is a missing child, actually two of them, story. The Van Laars are a wealthy banking family who own a large bit […]

Never Were There Such Devoted Sisters

Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

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One year after the tragic death of their sister Nicky, the three remaining Blue siblings, lawyer Avery, boxer Bonnie, and fashion model Lucky, find themselves severely adrift in their lives and careers. Forced by their mother to finally deal with cleaning out Nicky’s things from her apartment, they come together for the first time since the funeral, only for resentments old and new to surface. Raised by a distant, unloving mother and a drunkard father, the Blue sisters could be said to have trauma-bonded in […]

Neighbors can be a nuisance, especially when they start murdering each other

Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz

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Neighbors. If they aren’t blasting their radio at 4 a.m. or blocking your driveway, they’re cutting down trees or letting their kids ride their skateboards over your flowerbed. Disagreements between neighbors don’t usually lead to murder, though, unless you live in Florida or are a character in the fifth installment of the Hawthorne & Horowitz mystery series by Anthony Horowitz. Close to Death centers on a gated neighborhood called Riverview Close, comprising just six homes. Five of the households get along splendidly, but the newest […]

A Flavia de Luce word jumble: puppets, weed, a 1950s pregnancy test, and pigeon droppings that save lives

The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley

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Years ago, when I was going through a reading drought because life was getting in the way, I desperately needed an escape and Alan Bradley’s first Flavia de Luce mystery nudged a little bit of lightness back into my life (I even wrote a review, which is quite out of character for me). Our recent CBR chat about mysteries reminded me how much I enjoyed sinking into Flavia’s wanderings about Bishop’s Lacey, the rural English town she lives in, so I decided it was time […]

Orris and Timble are back for round 2

Orris and Timble: Lost and Found: (A Sweet and Funny Early Chapter Book About Friendship, Trust, and Finding Your Way) by Kate DiCamillo

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Orris and Timble: Lost and Found: (A Sweet and Funny Early Chapter Book About Friendship, Trust, and Finding Your Way) by Kate DiCamillo and illustrator Carmen Mok is a sequel of Orris and Timble: The Beginning. It has many elements and pieces from book one, though we see more of Timble’s journey this time. However, when I started it I thought I was reading book one again. This took me out of the moment for a while. And, in fact, had to back track while […]



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