Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Ignore This Siren’s Song

The Siren by Katherine St. John

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In “The Siren,” the handsome, famous, wealthy, charismatic, sexy Cole Powers is shooting a film on a small Caribbean island. The writer-director is Cole’s estranged son, Jackson. And the movie also stars Cole’s ex-wife, the actress Stella Rivers. Along for the ride is producer Taylor Wasserman (also estranged from her father), influencer Madison Kasabian, and Stella’s assistant, the very realistically named Felicity Fox. And half of them want to kill one of the others. I chose this book because although I usually prefer sci-fi and […]

Back to Yale, back to Yale, to prove to dad that I won’t fail (sung in Billy Madison “back to school” tune)

Ninth House (Alex Stern #1) by Leigh Bardugo

Hell Bent (Alex Stern #2) by Leigh Bardugo

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I don’t know you guys are going to believe this, but I made up that title. It’s not a real song. I was just thinking of “Back to Yale”, since this book is set at Yale, and my brain did the rest! As my boss said today, “your words aren’t wordsing”, so we’ll see how this goes! I read Ninth House almost exactly three years ago. I think I even reviewed it here for whatever CBR we were on in January 2023. I really liked […]

“What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art.”-Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Stan and Gus: Art, Ardor, and the Friendship That Built the Gilded Age by Henry Wiencek

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When  I first read about this book in The NY Times Book Review, I knew I had to have it. Having grown up on a steady diet of  hearing about “Ragtime” and “The Girl on the Velvet Swing”, or how about how Clover Adams’s Memorial was on my mother’s must-see list, any book that covered any and all of that was something I needed to read. Thankfully, this did not disappoint. Stan and Gus covers the working (and potentially sexual) relationship of Standford White and […]

“I’m afraid I don’t know WTF. I only discovered LOL from Joyce last week” (Double Bingo)

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

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CBR17 Bingo: White (a book with a white cover) In a charming retirement village somewhere in the south of England, four elderly individuals solve cold cases for fun. Retired nurse, Joyce, is the last to be inducted into “The Thursday Murder Club”, as they are in need of some of her medical expertise in trying to solve their most recent case. Led by the formidable Elizabeth, who used to be a spy, aided and abetted by Ibrahim, a retired psychologist and Ron, a former trade union […]

“God cannot help when natural stupidity is driving the cart.”

The Alewives: A plague-era tale of murder, friendship, and fine ale (The Alewives of Colmar #1) by Elizabeth R. Andersen

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Colmar, 1353 CE Gritta, Appel, and Efi managed to survive the massive death toll of the Black Death, only to realize that day-to-day problems don’t end just because of a major epidemic (#relatable). Children still need feeding, husbands will still drink away all the money, and people die from more than the plague. With limited options (I mean, a woman can’t even “entertain” the local menfolk without getting shade from the local monastery) and lots of obstacles, they band together to become alewives – brewing […]

Not all men, but certainly a lot of them. Especially rich, white ones.

The Change by Kirsten Miller

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4.5 stars Buzzwords Cover Challenge 25: Pattern CBR17 Bingo: Red (A book with a red cover) Official plot summary: In the Long Island oceanfront community of Mattauk, three different women discover that midlife changes bring a whole new type of empowerment… After Nessa James’s husband dies and her twin daughters leave for college, she’s left all alone in a trim white house not far from the ocean. In the quiet of her late forties, the former nurse begins to hear voices. It doesn’t take long […]



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