Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“If you think you didn’t save me too, you couldn’t be more wrong.”

Where You're Planted by Melanie Sweeney

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This is a sneaky, emotional book about what community is and what it means to people.   I don’t remember exactly what made me put this on my to read list back in April, but one of the reviewers I follow reviewed it as an ARC in March and described its vibe as “echoes of Nora Roberts with a flair of Anita Kelly + Kate Clayborn that really made me smile and tugged at my heart”. Okay, La Nora has had diminishing returns over the […]

I kept imagining Father Brown’s bicycle just around the corner.

Welcome to Murder Week by Karen Dukess

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In January I shelved this as a to-read book, and I have no idea why I did that. Did I see it on a list of anticipated publications in 2025? Did I see someone else mark it as to read and read the blurb and decide it was for me? And why did I also put it on my library request list ahead of its publication? I have no idea. I feel like so many books show up in my life and I either know […]

“He is a person, complicated and confused. Just like you.”

Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin

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Ayesha at Last is a retelling the story of Pride and Prejudice featuring the titular Ayesha, a Muslim woman in her late twenties who has put aside her dreams of poetry and just finished a career change to become a teacher, financed by her wealthy uncle who has been financially supportive of her family since her father’s death including moving them to Canada and giving them the house they share with her grandparents. She is single and being passed on the proverbial marriage mart by […]

How Many Lies, How Many Truths

The Truth According to Ember by Danica Nava

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The Truth According to Ember ended up on my reading list because of social media. When the ARC was released author and reviewer folks who I follow were promoting it because they liked what they were reading, but also it is a romance by and about Native people published by a mainstream publishing house (in this case, Berkley). While I didn’t receive an ARC, I was interested enough to keep an eye out for publication, and once that happened, I immediately placed myself on the […]

“The companionable silence they shared stuck to his bones and made him feel comfortable in his own skin. A feeling that was hard to let go of.”

Mickey Chambers Shakes It Up by Charish Reid

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I practically devoured this book, I loved it.   Charish Reid has a real knack for writing stories featuring people of color in higher education and their love stories. This book is another in that milieu, and it comes down hard on the University industrial complex which runs on the exploitation of its work force, especially its adjunct staff. The titular Mickey Chambers is one such adjunct, and we open the book with her finding out that she will only have one course for the […]

“Remember that a fine education can be found in places other than the usual.”

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

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I’m nearly a decade late to The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin. It has been on my to read list since 2016 and got pushed to the top tier of the pile last year for the Read Harder challenge (as it does take place in a big way in a bookstore). Then I never got to it but seeing that there was a movie adaptation out I decided to get my proverbial act together and dig into the story.   The book tells […]



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