Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Home-Grown Monsters

Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark

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Who says all the fantasies with sword- wielding heroes and heroines have to be in Middle-earth, Westeros, or even our dreams of Africa past—what the Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen reminisced as “copper sun or scarlet sea”?…Fantasy stories often feature characters in medieval settings taking on monsters. I figured a young Black woman in 1920s Georgia could be that character too. Even gave her her own sword. The monsters she has to fight are plucked right out of our own history—perhaps made more terrifying because […]

Guilty as Charged

We Are All Guilty Here (North Falls #1) by Karin Slaughter

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Emmy Clifton works as a cop for a small town police force. At the start of the novel, she’s at the town’s fourth of July celebrations. She picks a fight with her no-good husband, then brushes off Madison, her friend’s teenage daughter. And then Madison disappears along with her friend Cheyenne. All that is found are the girls’ discarded bikes, and a large puddle of blood.  Slaughter rose to fame with her Grant County series, and those books will always have a special place in […]

Drug Store Showdown

The Time Has Come by Will Leitch

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It’s been a wild ride watching Will Leitch grow as a writer. I’ve been reading him since his early Deadspin days and followed the growth of his career. Like a lot of writers who had success young, he had a choice of whether or not to be trapped forever in the enjoyable-but-inevitably-forgettable writing mindset of stale beer and bong hits. Or he could grow and find new avenues. And found them, he did as he moved on to popular magazines, podcasting, a TV show (cut […]

I Hate Sara Linton, Part Infinity

Genesis by Karin Slaughter

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On a dark, quiet night in the Georgian countryside, just outside of Atlanta, an older couple drives in silence, both lost in thought, when suddenly a nude woman runs into their car. Her injuries are horrific and can’t be explained by the car crash alone. But what is she doing alone in the forest at night? And why isn’t she wearing any clothes?  Genesis is the third book in Karin Slaughter’s Will Trent series. It’s also where she re-introduces characters from her Grant County series […]

Housewives, They Are Desperate…

One of Us is Dead by Jeneva Rose

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Read as part of CBR14 Bingo: recommended. This book was recommended by author May Cobb, whose “My Summer Darlings” is one of the best things I read this year. I was looking for a female-focused thriller with a similar lack of inhibition.  Ok, right off the bat, this book is bonkers. If you looking at the premise and expecting any degree of verisimilitude, give this a hard pass. But it’s the willingness to lean into its bonkers-ness (?), to go over the top and just […]

Merry Christmas!

The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem

The Girl With the Long Green Heart by Lawrence Block

Cold Shot to the Heart by Wallace Stroby

Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women's Football League by Britni de la Cretaz and Lyndsey D'Arcangelo

All Her Little Secrets by Wanda M. Morris

Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortune and Misfortune of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty by Jonathan Pearson

The Blonde on the Street Corner by David Goodis

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Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! Having been busy with Christmas prep, avoiding Delta and Omicron, and other various things, I haven’t had the time to write long, 250+ reviews for these books. I figured I’d just cram them all here since I know I won’t finish Robert Caro’s Master of the Senate before New Year’s Eve. The Fortress of Solitude *** This clears the 3-star threshold but just barely. I appreciate what Lethem is trying to do here and I usually enjoy his work. But this was a […]



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