Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“My dear chap, this is a bookshop. There’s never anywhere better to be.”

Slippery Creatures by K.J. Charles

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CBR14 Bingo: Snake (SPOILER: being a thoroughly disreputable sort, Kim also turns out to betray Will at least once during the story) Will Darling has inherited his late uncle’s bookshop and is grateful for the fact. After serving in World War I, most of his skills involve killing swiftly and efficiently, not really a commodity on the post-war job markets back in England. Now he just needs to get some idea of all the books actually in the shop and get on with being a […]

Chocolate, Cross-dressing, Murder, and More!

The Spanish Daughter by Lorena Hughes

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Puri and her husband Cristóbal are on their way to Ecuador, where Puri is to claim a chocolate plantation that has been left to her, when her husband is murdered by the assassin sent for her. Determined to avenge him, Puri assumes Cristóbal’s identity and goes to the plantation, where a trio of secret siblings is but the first of the surprises… I was immediately intrigued by this book, because I’d never read anything with such a plot. Yet despite the intricacy of the premise, […]

Don’t mess with Louise Lloyd

Dead Dead Girls (Harlem Renaissance Mystery #1) by Nekesa Afia

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Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia has a beautifully illustrated cover that caught my eye. I (wrongly) assumed this was a cozy mystery set in the Harlem Renaissance. But it’s a historical mystery about a serial killer murdering Black girls who work or visit speakeasies. The book follows Harlem resident Louise Lloyd who is unintentionally famous for surviving a kidnapping as a teenager. Known as Harlem’s Hero, she rescued her fellow captives. In the present time of the book, she wants to move past all […]

Wait for it, wait for it. . .

Good Behavior by Molly Keane

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As we meet Aroon St. Charles, she has just served a lovely luncheon of delicate rabbit’s broth to her very elderly mother.  Alas, the elder Mrs. St. Charles can’t abide even the scent of the stuff, and promptly keels over and dies.  Not to let such a delicious treat go to waste, Aroon finishes it off.  Well, now, that seems a little cold-blooded, no?  Ah, but richly deserved. Aroon was been born into the impoverished Irish gentry.  They are down to slowly selling off the […]

Double Cannonballing with a good series-ender.

Subtle Blood (The Will Darling Adventures, #3) by K.J. Charles

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**30 Books in 30 Days** Book 23/30 To be honest, I think if (when) I read all three books in this series back to back in the future, I will bump up both books two and three from four to five stars. It has been top notch in all areas: romance, class examinations, mysteries, historical fiction set in the 1920s, books about friendship, books about secret agents and spies, suspense novels. Seriously, just in all the things this series sets out to do, it succeeds […]

Not as fluffy as the tv show but still a fun ride

Cocaine Blue by Kerry Greenwood

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Needing some light entertainment, I decided to rewatch Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. It’s a delightful show and the rewatch made me curious about the books.  Phryne, carrying the cocktail, decanted it unobtrusively into a potted palm against which she had no personal grudge, and hoped that it would not give her away by dying too rapidly. Content warning: the book, and my review, mention sexual assault.  Cocaine Blues is the first book in the series. Miss Phryne Fisher is a wealthy socialite in 1920s England. […]



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