Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Feeling lost after loss

The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass

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When you’ve been a children’s librarian for years, it is easy to get burnt out on the material. For me, that also meant I got cocky. Can any kids book really hook me anymore as a bitter adult who has READ IT ALL? Are there any GOOD STORIES LEFT? Yes, of course, to both of those things. THE LOST LIBRARY by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass proved just that. The last day of fifth grade is approaching, and Evan is pretty nervous about moving up […]

Stag Party

The Hunter's Daughter by Nicola Solvinic

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Read as part of CBR16Bingo: dun-dun. This is a mystery novel, also a backstory about the daughter of a serial killer, so there’s a lot of dun-dun to it.  Those who read my reviews know I’m not a fan of serial killer stories, particularly diabolical serial killer stories. It’s not just that Silence of the Lambs broke the mode, though that is part of it. It’s more because serial killer stories are so…F-WORD…boring! Oh look at me! I’m such a tortured soul because of trauma! And since […]

“Not everyone in our acquaintance needs to be murdered, Veronica. In fact, some people find it preferable to make friends with normal folk.”

A Grave Robbery by Deanna Raybourn

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This is book 9 in an ongoing series, and as such, not the best place to start. Start with A Curious Beginning. Official plot summary (because it’s been too long since I read the book): Lord Rosemorran has purchased a wax figure of a beautiful reclining woman and asks Stoker to incorporate a clockwork mechanism to give the Rosemorran Collection its own Sleeping Beauty in the style of Madame Tussaud’s. But when Stoker goes to cut the mannequin open to insert the mechanism, he makes […]

“We all had tattoos, scars, secrets, and losses. We all wanted to be forgiven.”

Scorched Grace (A Sister Holiday Mystery, #1) by Margot Douaihy

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30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 4 Book 10/30 The ending killed my buzz a little on this one, which up until then had been extremely interesting with arresting imagery (not something I normally care about!) and an extremely unique look at modern religion, from the perspective a queer, chain-smoking, tattooed Catholic nun who was a former punk rocker until traumatic events pushed her to seek solace—as her mother did before her—in a sisterhood of fellow nuns. Plus, there is a mystery here, but honestly, […]

Thunder Down Under

Lapse by Sarah Thornton

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Read as part of CBR16Bingo: scandal. The main character is on the run to this small town after a fiasco in her past life and has to deal with a fiasco in her current one.  I grabbed this one maybe because of Ted Lasso? I don’t remember but I feel like I read somewhere that this was pitched as a Ted Lasso-esque coach solving a mystery. That’s not really the case though. Clementine Jones, though she is similarly running from her past, is not the […]

The Unforgiving Desert

Journal of the Dead by Jason Kersten

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CBR16 Bingo – Fiasco: David and Raffi’s trip into Rattlesnake Canyon is an utter fiasco from start to finish. When authorities find Raffi Kodikian barely alive four days after he and his best friend David Coughlin got lost in an desert canyon, they make a grim discovery. Raffi claims to have stabbed David to death in a mercy killing, but the police suspect the truth may be darker. It was awkward on my way out of the library with this book, because another patron, intrigued […]



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