Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


The Firm But With Ladies

Please Join Us by Catherine McKenzie

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I was kind of young when The Firm came out with Tom Cruise as the main character but I vaguely remember a secret organization of high powered men pulling strings and using their influence to get what they wanted and uses blackmail as a tactic when members aren’t behaving in the ways they should.  Please Join Us has pretty much the exact same plot. When our main character Nicole finds out that she hasn’t had enough billable hours and that her firm seems to be moving […]

A mystery, a thriller, and two collections

The Sentence is Death (Hawthorne #2) by Anthony Horowitz

I'll Never Tell by Catherine McKenzie

Full Throttle by Joe Hill

Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg

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(4 stars) The Sentence is Death (Hawthorne #2) by Anthony Horowitz I really like Anthony Horowitz. His mystery novels are such incredible homages to the larger concept of A Mystery Novel. He manages to poke fun at the genre while simultaneously improving it with his writing. The Sentence is Death, his second novel in a series about a curmudgeonly ex-police officer named Hawthorne, was fantastic. Once again, a fictional version of Horowitz (Anthony) acts as the main character and narrator, and the entire novel is […]

A novella that doesn’t quite meet the mark

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(This post originally appeared in Persephone Magazine.) Written as a sequel to 2012’s Spin, Catherine McKenzie’s new novella, Spun, checks in with supporting character Amber Sheppard, two years after the last book finished. It’s a story about grief, addiction, and celebrity culture, but I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as its predecessor. Spin told the tale of Kate Sandford, sent to rehab to spy on It-Girl Amber Sheppard for a gossip rag, all while Kate comes to terms with her alcoholism. While light in tone […]



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