Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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“For a quart of ale is a dish for a king”- William Shakespeare

Sleight of Hand: An Alewives of Colmar Mystery (#2) by Elizabeth R. Andersen

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It is now 1354, and in the Alsatian village of Colmar Efi, Appel, and Grita’s ale business is going extremely prosperously: that is until Efi founds a hand in their ale cauldron; a hand without a body. A hand that apparently belongs to someone from Vogelgrun, a village quite a distance from Colmar. As the three alewives fight to keep suspicion from falling on them (and possibly dooming their business), they have questions to answer: how did the hand wind up here? Where is the […]

“Just because a lady shared a deep, smoldering kiss with a gentleman didn’t mean that gentleman need be privy to all that lady’s business.”

Rules for Ruin by Mimi Matthews

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Monthly Keyword 26: Ruin Official plot summary (because I read this in February): On the outskirts of London sits a seemingly innocuous institution with a secretive aim—train young women to distract, disrupt, and discredit the patriarchy. Outraged by a powerful politician’s systematic attack on women’s rights, the Academy summons its brightest—and most bitter—pupil to infiltrate the odious man’s inner circle. A deal is bring down the viscount, and Miss Euphemia Flite will finally earn her freedom. But betting shop owner Gabriel Royce has other plans. […]

This is what happens when we break book club rules

West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge

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I read West With Giraffes (2021) by Lynda Rutledge because it was chosen by my book club. After reading some pretty bad books, we’ve made up a loose rule that you need to have read the book before nominating it for book club. Well, it didn’t happen this time. The husband of one of our book clubbers said it would be a good book for us. I think the majority of us would agree that it was not. I think I was most frustrated at what it […]

I couldn’t put it down

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

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Many Cannonballers have already reviewed Homegoing, and I doubt I’m going to add any profound insights with my own review. Long story short, I thought this book was amazing. I wish I’d read it much sooner. Homegoing is a family saga, starting with two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, in 18th-century Ghana who don’t know the other exists. Each chapter alternates between their descendants. Effia is married off to a white man from England and lives a fairly luxurious life in a fort, while unbeknownst to her, her […]

Definitely a debut novel

The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson

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The story: Tom Hawkins, the son of a gentleman, is sent to debtors’ prison, Marshalsea, in 1700s London. While there, he learns about the murder of another prisoner, Captain Roberts–and that the main suspect is his cellmate, Samuel Fleet. Fleet is kind of a menacing weirdo, and Tom begins to worry that he might be next. He realizes he needs to solve the murder before he meets a similar fate to Captain Roberts. Why I read it: A few months ago, I read The Raven […]

“The Church, like the monarchy, was a valuable bastion of defense against the dangerous alliance of atheistical philosophy with political radicalism. The Bible taught the poorer orders that their lowly path had been allotted to them by the hand of God, and the Church was there to make quite certain they understood that.”

When Gods Die: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery (Book #2) by C.S. Harris

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When the young wife of an aging marquis is found stabbed to death in the Prince Regent’s arms, the matter must be solved discreetly. Sebastian St. Cyr, sole surviving son of Count Devlin has no idea why he has been asked to investigate; he doesn’t really know the Prince Regent, and he said after the last invesstigation he had no desire to solve another. That is before he spies the necklace around the corpse’s throat; a necklace said to have been given to a Druid […]



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