Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The country house party from Hell.

Proper English (England, #0) by K.J. Charles

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This wasn’t nearly as good as Think of England, one of my top five books from 2019, but it was still top quality, as I’ve come to expect from my K.J. Charles books. Proper English is an indirect prequel to Think of England, as it takes place two years earlier than the previous book, and shows how Fen and Pat met (they are together at the time Think of England is grappling with its own disastrous house party). But you really don’t need to read […]

An open letter to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse

Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse

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Mr. Abdul-Jabbar and Ms. Waterhouse, Thank you for hearing my plea for more volumes in your wonderful Mycroft Holmes series. As I noted in my review of the first two novels, these books bring me such pure joy that as soon as I put one down, I regret having read so quickly. On top of that, this latest novel had me thinking that surely someone must be contemplating a movie or television series so I can enjoy the stories again in another dimension. To that […]

Reading isn’t always a good idea while wearing eyeliner

Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

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When she was 15, Laurel Mack’s beautiful daughter (and favourite child) Ellie left the house to go to the library and never returned. Written off as a runaway by the police, in the years since Laurel has lost what was left of her family – divorcing her husband as she couldn’t stand how he was able to get on with things, and withdrawing emotionally from her surviving son and daughter due to her inability to deal with her own grief. Getting through her days by […]

A Different Type

When The Thrill Is Gone by Walter Mosley

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Walter Mosley’s Leonid McGill books are different than the standard issue PI fare. They’re different than his own Easy Rawlins ones. They’re hardboiled but they’re also…I don’t know. There’s a lot going on. You go headfirst into this world but Mosley refuses to let you see it all. The way he reveals things and keeps you guessing. These books are so transgressive against the typical PI fare. I think that’s because Leonid McGill isn’t really a private eye. I mean, I guess he is in […]

Perry Mason fans out there? C’mon, I know you’re out there. Da da daaa, da DONT.

The Case of thr Buried Clock by Erlr Stanley Gardner

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  Well my friends, we are back in the cozy world of Perry Mason, who always wins (OK, maybe there is that one time on TV, but haven’t read it yet). And for me, a So. Cal. native, one of the chief charms of this series is a world I vaguely remember. So this is written in 1943, and I was not around yet, but my mom was. She was 15, just moved from Brooklyn to San Pedro, and in her junior year of high […]

The Secret, Book, and Scone Society is a good mystery but maybe not for me

The Secret, Book, and Scone Society by Ellery Adams

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The Secret, Book, and Scone Society is a cozy mystery about four women trying to solve a murder in the small town of Miracle Springs, North Carolina. The water from Miracle Springs is reported to have healing powers so people flock to the town. The main character, Nora Pennington, owns the local bookstore and is a “bibliotherapist”. As a bibliotherapist, Nora listens to her customers’ troubles and then prescribes a series of books. If the books are read in the prescribed order, they should help […]



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