Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search this Site

“She might be less than what she had once been, but she was still worth a hell of a lot.”

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

by 2 Comments

The older I get, the more out of touch I feel with the twenty-something heroines in certain books. The romance genre especially has a lot of really young heroines, and my 45-yr-old self has a hard time, sometimes, not rolling her eyes at just how young they actually are/act, or how implausibly far away 27 feels at this point. Which is not to say that I am ready to read only the quiet, cozy mysteries that seem most populated by people older  – and still […]

Golden Girls with Guns

Killers of a Certain Age: A Novel by Deanna Raybourn

by 1 Comment

Back in 2010 a Bruce Willis movie called Red (Retired, Extremely Dangerous) came out. I don’t especially love action movies but this one was great — a comedy action movie with a load of outstanding actors in it, including John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, and Helen Mirren. They all play retired secret agents whom Willis convinces to come out of retirement when he finds himself targeted by mysterious forces. Helen Mirren was my favorite as a bad ass weapons expert who has been running a genteel […]

A great time was had.

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

by 3 Comments

A great time was had. People were slain, revenge was had, plots were foiled, and women of a certain age came out of retirement to clear their names and kick some ass. There’s also a cat named Kevin in here, and I just think that’s important. I don’t actually think I have too much to say about this one. There wasn’t much deep about it, it’s just a good book, a thriller but more on the cozy end than not. A cozy thriller! Who knew […]

“Forty years on one of the most elite assassin squads on earth and it finished like this, with a free cruise and a bouncy letter from a girl who signed her letters with hashtags.”

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

by 1 Comment

In ten words or less: Retired female assassins: promising premise, fumbles in execution. Retired female assassins are staring down the barrel of retirement when they’d rather still be staring down the barrel of a gun. They miss the action, but they’ve earned their rest and a cruise seems like, well, like something to do with plenty of time on their hands. The contract on the hitman trope is popular in books and in movies. However, Raybourn has taken us away from male characters and even […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo