Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Pretty Woman, if the woman is a penniless single mother rather than a leggy L.A call girl

Dolly All the Time by Annabel Monaghan

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4.5 stars Thank you to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam’s Sons for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book will be out on May 26th. Dolly Brick is a problem solver and has spent most of her life taking care of her family. When her mother left Dolly, her father and her siblings when Dolly was far too young to have to deal with it, she nevertheless ended up basically mothering her younger sister and mentally disabled younger brother. Now she’s a 39-year-old single […]

For the discerning reader who prefers books that are neither too literary nor too commercial

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson

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Recounting one very full and unusual day in the life of a 40-year old governess, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is a charming tale that drops the reader straight into the 1930s, where martinis are flowing and beautiful young ladies have scads of evening gowns and even more beaus. When a mix-up at the employment agency sends Guinevere Pettigrew to the home of the enchanting Delysia LaFosse, the puritanically-raised Miss Pettigrew gets a glimpse into a way of life that she thought only existed […]

The best surprise I’ve had so far this year

Fastest Things on Wings by Terry Masear

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In spite of being a fervent animal lover, I rarely read animal-centric memoirs, and I’m especially avoidant of ones with “rescue” on the front cover. I find these books are generally either too depressing, too saccharine, or they are written by dedicated, well-meaning individuals with questionable writing talent. So when my husband brought Fastest Things on Wings home from one of his Little Free Library jaunts, I eyed it with suspicion. He read it first and assured me there were just a couple of heartbreaking […]

Accept the things you cannot change or change the things you cannot accept?

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

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The Memory Police is an unsettling novel. The descriptions I read in advance made it sound a bit like 1984 or Fahrenheit 451. It is a dystopian novel, and it does involve the authoritarian suppression of knowledge and personal freedom, but while I think of 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 as “political” science fiction, The Memory Police is not exactly that. The most disturbing acts of suppression in The Memory Police come from within the people themselves. The story is set on an island where some […]

“Writing gives you the power to shape your own world when the real one hurts too much”

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

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Dark Corner Selection: March 2026 In a different version of 16th-century Spain, young Luzia Cortado works grudgingly as a scullery maid for the miserable and petty Doña Valentina. Luzia can use what she calls “small magics” to make her life easier. She can mend seams, multiply the groceries, unburn bread or reassemble broken things. She performs these little spells, learned from generations of her Jewish ancestors, by singing quietly. Luzia is a convert; she dutifully goes to Mass and hides any traces of her Jewish […]

Fooled me twice, shame on me

The Shippers by Katherine Center

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2.5 stars Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book will be out on May 19th. Josephine “JoJo” Burton runs away from her own wedding, after her childhood best friend, Cooper Watts, shows up unexpectedly from London just as she’s about to walk down the aisle, and makes her realise that she really doesn’t want to be with her fiancee. The next morning, he’s on a plane back to London. JoJo has never been lucky […]



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