Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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this book has been kicking around for 30ish years and I just picked it up NOW?!

Possession by A.S. Byatt

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…and it’s been sitting in my own collection for a good decade or so? How did I keep stepping around this one? This book was written for me- or at least the me of ten years ago. DEFINITLEY the me of twenty years ago. 14-year-old-me would have swooned myself into an early grave with this one! A youngish academic is sinking further and further into classic British gloom. He’s in a dead relationship, putting in time in a dead-end job, researching crumbs on a long-dead […]

Pacific Dreams

Five Decembers by James Kestrel

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I received an Advance Reading Copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Those who know me know that I’m a big fan of the Hard Case Crime label. I collect the novels and make a commitment to read at least one a month. Publisher Charles Ardai has made a point to reach out extensively to the HCC fan community; passing out ARCs and bonus copies before they go on sale. A few months ago, some of us got an […]

I can’t fully get on board the Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

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Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad won both the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction, and part of me is sheepish that I can’t get behind that level of admiration. While the novel is powerful and at times poignant, I had a fundamental issue with its execution. The novel focuses on Cora, a young slave on a Georgia cotton plantation whose mother was infamous for having been the only slave to ever escape that estate. Cora is an outcast even […]

A potential answer to a real-life mystery. YMMV!

The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict

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Overall, I enjoyed this one, but I will admit that I was also disappointed by it. I love Agatha Christie, both as a writer and as a historical figure, and her infamous real life disappearance of course fascinates me (as it has many people before me). She never spoke publicly about the eleven days she was missing afterwards, not even in her autobiography, so it’s a mystery history will never solve. It was extremely intriguing, to say the least, that Marie Benedict wanted to offer […]

“I think many a trouble begins with love, and it’s important to remember that when life feels like the shit scraped off Death’s boot sole.”

The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye

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I feel like only Lyndsay Faye could not only make me actually sit through reading a story about the mafia, but enjoy it. (Thankfully, the mafia portions are really only about 1/3 of the novel.) I just, I really hate stories about organized crime. I don’t know why. Really, this story isn’t about the mafia. It’s about Alice “Nobody” James, who is on the run from the mafia, yes, but is taken in by the residents of the Paragon Hotel in Portland, Oregon when a […]



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