Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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A Flavia de Luce word jumble: puppets, weed, a 1950s pregnancy test, and pigeon droppings that save lives

The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley

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Years ago, when I was going through a reading drought because life was getting in the way, I desperately needed an escape and Alan Bradley’s first Flavia de Luce mystery nudged a little bit of lightness back into my life (I even wrote a review, which is quite out of character for me). Our recent CBR chat about mysteries reminded me how much I enjoyed sinking into Flavia’s wanderings about Bishop’s Lacey, the rural English town she lives in, so I decided it was time […]

I’d like to see the “cozy” come back to this mystery series

What Time the Sexton's Spade Doth Rust by Alan Bradley

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“I know I’m not the girl I once was, but I’m not really sure yet who I am,” Flavia de Luce bemoans at about the midpoint of What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust. While she’s still quite young (I don’t think she’s progressed past 12 in this latest installment), she does carry the weight of adulthood on her shoulders at times. Technically she’s not alone in the world–she has her dear friend-of-the-family-part-time-servant Dogger, grandmotherly housekeeper Mrs. Mullet, bookish sister Daffy (Feely still being away […]

Flavia de Luce, a menace to murderers

Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd by Alan Brandley

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Poor Flavia. As if being banished to Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy in Canada at the end of The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches and then being banished back home again at the end of As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust weren’t bad enough, her return to Buckshaw is hardly the homecoming she imagined. She’s picked up at the dock with zero fanfare, her father is in the hospital with pneumonia, and her pet chicken, Esmerelda, is deceased. Things are hardly tickety-boo in Flavia’s world. Fortunately, […]

An 11-year-old chemistry enthusiast explores potions, pies and philately

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

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In March, Myanmar was descending into near-daily violence under a junta about a month in after the military ousted democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi from power in a lightning-quick coup. Sixteen-hour days were common for our newsroom in Bangkok as we tried to navigate safety concerns for our reporting staff in Yangon, while dealing with a really intense news cycle. Any time off I had, I just couldn’t do anything “serious” — I stopped watching dramas and switched to 20-minute comedies. I re-downloaded a […]

Adorable child or annoying brat? You decide!

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley

A Red Herring without Mustard by Alan Bradley

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Someone on the Cannonball Read book chat asked recently for recommendations for when you just can’t focus due to various life stressors. Having gone through a similar phase myself, I recommended cozy mysteries as the genre I find easy to read when I can’t concentrate on much else. I picked up The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie when I was in Pennsylvania on a family emergency, and I decided to go ahead and read the next couple in the series (#2 The Weed […]

If Jessica Fletcher was British and 11 (Bingo – Red)

The Golden Tresses of the Dead by Alan Bradley

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The tenth in the series, I find Flavia de Luce just as delightful now as I did in the beginning. Still precocious, curious, and clever (the way she talks about her bicycle always makes me smile) she’s grown up a bit and experienced real loss, but she is just as vibrant to me as she ever was. Okay y’all. We are calling this red. It’s not a hard red, more of a pinky/salmon/Ross’s shirt on friends sort of shade, but the powers that be in […]



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