Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Par For the Course

The Amateur by Chris Bohjalian

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Chris Bohjalian’s The Amateur is a novel centered around a golf course tragedy. While practicing on the driving range at her local country club one day in 1978, teenage golf prodigy Mira Winston hits a ball through an unseen hole in the net just as one of the caddies, her high school classmate Kevin Foster, is walking by. Struck in the head by the projectile, Kevin, who was working to save up money to pay for college, is pronounced dead at the scene. Mira, who had […]

Review of the Alibis Collection

Death Row by Freida McFadden

The Ex-Wives Club by Sally Hepworth

False Note by David Lagercrantz

The Skydivers by Chris Bohjailian

Good Neighbors by Chad Zunker

Small Things by Wanda M. Morris

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4 stars for this one. I thought the first story in the “Alibis Collection” was really strong and honestly the best out of the bunch. I thought that McFadden actually stretched herself in this one in a good way. I didn’t see the twists coming and loved how she tied things up her. “Death Row” follows a woman named Talia Kemper has been on death row for years after being convicted of the murder of her husband. We find Talia remembering things before she was […]

Out in the Wilds

The Lioness by Chris Bohjalian

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Katie Barstow is hosting a safari vacation for her closest friends and family on the Serengeti when things go terribly wrong. Kidnapped by violent criminals and broken up into groups, they must struggle to survive the night. The premise of this book is so exciting – old Hollywood glamor meeting the bleakness of Ernest Hemingway. I’ve not read this author before (though I have his Hour of the Witch) on my TBR, but seeing all the great reviews of this one got me pretty excited. […]

crystalclear read my mind!

The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian

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Way back in the olden days of 2020, the amazing crystalclear sent some inspired picks my way for CBR Book Exchange. Hooray! I kicked off the new year with one of their thoughtful additions to my TBR pile; I had wanted to read Storm Front for some time thanks to the lovely folks here at CBR. The other book, The Light in the Ruins, was a book with which I was unfamiliar. I was immediately excited and impressed after reading the cover copy, as I […]

International Woman of Mystery

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian

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This book is a perfect example of why I don’t often read page-ripping thrillers. It has some great highs and lows, but the former outweighed the latter and that was enough to bump it to 4 stars. I don’t often read thrillers because they don’t have great character development. This one does. I felt invested in Cassandra’s plight, even as she was making terrible decisions. I don’t often read thrillers because they don’t plot themselves well. This one does. Chris Bohjalian spreads out the bread […]

The Past Always Comes to Light

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After a brutal killing in 1950s Florence, Serafina, the only woman in the crime squad, is assigned to the case with her partner, and when a second murder targets the same family, Serafina quickly focuses in on the past and the war as the motive behind the deaths.  The novel flashes back and forth between the investigation, and World War II era Tuscany and the family home of the Rosatis.  Their oldest son is at war in Sicily, the middle child is working in Florence helping to […]



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