Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Talking about my generation

Kills Well With Others: A Novel by Deanna Raybourn

by Leave a Comment

In the sequel to Killers of a Certain Age, Deanna Raybourn takes us on another thrill ride with four retired assassins and a couple of their significant others. Billie, Helen, Natalie and Mary Alice have been working together since the late 1970s for a secret organization called the Museum. Originally, the Museum was meant to track down Nazis and the works of art that they had stolen and smuggled out of Europe. Nowadays, the Museum, under the direction of a very competent young woman named […]

With friends like these…

In My Dreams I Hold A Knife: A Novel by Ashley Winstead

by Leave a Comment

If you like murder mysteries and want a quick read, this book could fit the bill. I found it hard to put down, even though (maybe because?) the characters are all pretty terrible people. Main character and narrator Jessica Miller is looking forward to her ten year college reunion, but when she returns to Duquette, some old ghosts get stirred up and the unsolved murder of her best friend and roommate will dominate the weekend’s activities. Could one of her friends, the infamous East House […]

This feels like the second book of a trilogy but it isn’t

A Forest, Darkly: A Novel by A.G. Slatter

by Leave a Comment

A Forest, Darkly is both a fantasy and a mystery. The Great Forest, where the action takes place, is a frontier where civilization seems to be slowly encroaching. Old magic and creatures are still very much alive here, and the presence of a witch has been tolerated by villagers for generations, but the world is changing. The village has grown since main character Mehrab, resident witch, arrived 20 years ago, and lately, something dark and insidious seems to be stalking the forest. This would be […]

Mostly Amusing, Sometimes Confusing

Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead, The Loyal Opposition Trilogy Book 1 by K.J. Parker

by Leave a Comment

As a product of the Catholic school system from second grade through university, I have sat through A LOT of religion and theology classes. Heresies, schisms, saints, martyrs, whatever, I feel pretty well versed in church history. While KJ Parker’s Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead is a fantasy novel, it leans hard into Christian church history and theology, setting up some good old fashioned good versus evil scenarios, but it’s not always clear who is good or evil. That’s intentional, but while Parker […]

When the walls come tumbling down

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother): A Novel by Rabih Alameddine

by 1 Comment

This is a surprising and wonderful novel, managing to bring some light and humor to a grim setting. The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) is indeed about main character Raja and his mother Zalfa, but it is also about the modern history of Beirut and its people. Back in the 1980s when I was in high school and college, Beirut was constantly on the news due to the violence and chaos that seemed to be a part of normal life […]

This is a story about friendship but guard your heart

The List of Suspicious Things: A Novel by Jennie Godfrey

by Leave a Comment

This debut novel by Jennie Godfrey was inspired by her childhood in Yorkshire in the 1970s when a murderer stalking women came to be known as the Yorkshire Ripper. Godfrey’s father had actually been an acquaintance of the man later arrested for the murders. In The List of Suspicious Things, main character Miv is a 12-year-old Yorkshire girl who decides that she is going to conduct her own investigation into the identity of the Ripper. Through Miv, her family, friends and neighbors, Godfrey reveals to […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo