Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

“People always say that your wedding day is the happiest day of your life, but honestly, people should try solving murders more often.”

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto

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CBR18 Bingo: Joker – Vera is a wild card in the investigation around Malcolm’s murder, and shakes up the lives of the suspects out of the blue. After a dead man is found in Vera Wong’s teahouse, being rather unimpressed by the police’s efforts, Vera decides to investigate the death herself. Unfortunately, she finds herself liking all her murder suspects a little too much. A word to the wise: Don’t read this book while hungry. Vera cooks up veritable feasts throughout the book, and the […]

“Worthwhile literature; a book that deals with some social or moral issue in an earnest, plodding, and pessimistic manner. What Aida, who was also a member, called “reading to slit your wrists by”.

Probable Caws: A Meg Langslow Mystery (#39) by Donna Andrews

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While this may not have been the best Meg book, just like Seanan McGuire or Terry Pratchett, Donna Andrews’ “not-so-goods” are better than some people’s “top-tier A-level”. Has to be one off the more interesting murderer reveals I’ve read in a very long time. In this, the 39th book in the series (which will make no sense unless you’ve read the other 38), Meg has finally found time to get some blacksmithing done; she has a candelabra to make for her mother’s interior design firm, […]

How to lose my interest in this series

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin

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CBR18 BINGO: One, because it’s first in a series. Also, it’s the only one of the series I plan to read. In 1965, teenager Frances Adams visits a fortune teller who makes an ominous prediction about Frances being murdered. The prediction includes the typical 1-800-PSYCHIC ambiguity that can easily be self-fulfilling, like the dangers of “holding a queen in the palm of one hand,” or the suggestion that a “bird” will betray her. Frances spends the next 60 years in an extreme state of paranoia, […]

Here There Be Dragons (it’s Steve)

The Faraway Inn by Sarah Beth Durst

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At this point I think it’s just safe to assume that all bed and breakfasts have some weird magical shenanigans going on. I’ve got my eyes on you Vermont, so quaint and charming. Sixteen year old Calisa is heading to Vermont for the summer to help out at her aunt’s bed and breakfast. She’s nursing her first real heartbreak and hoping a change of scenery will help heal that wound. But what she finds when she gets there is not the cozy inn she barely […]

Cozy mystery, Singapore style

Aunty Lee's Delights (Singaporean Mystery #1) by Ovidia Yu

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I was in Singapore for a week so I decided to look up Singaporean books to expand my understanding a little bit. It needed to be something I could read on an airplane, and it needed to be very Singapore. I landed on Aunty Lee’s Delights after seeing Ovidia Yu’s name come up in several “Must-Read: Singapore” lists.  Aunty Lee is an established lady of a certain age and class in Singapore. She’s also a bit — well, maybe more than a bit — of […]

“Bardun Jacques would’ve reshaped the landscape around him using the sheer force of profanity, which, Aelis reasoned, might actually have been an eighth College in his hands.”

The Warden (The Warden #1) by Daniel M. Ford

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I have read a couple of books lately where the back of the book synopsis does not completely (or accurately describe what the book actually contains; sometimes it’s by a little, sometimes it’s by a lot. The Warden, thankfully, is one of those books where it’s only by a little. The basic plot is: Aelis de Lenti, daughter of a noble house and recent graduate of the esteemed Magisters’ Lyceum (read: bisexual spoiled little rich girl who likes only the finer things in life and […]



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