Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“‘That man’s lying.’ With that, he opened his suitcase and took out a blank telegram. After a few moments, he began to write. KATSUKO DEAD. SEND KINDAICHI.”

The Honjin Murders (Detective Kosuke Kindaichi, #1) by Seishi Yokomizo

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A clever, meta little Japanese murder mystery, first published in 1946, by a man who was apparently a huge fan of the western Golden Age mystery. This is the first book in the Kosuke Kindaichi series that he wrote dozens of novels for. Kindaichi-san is very unlike his British counterparts, Poirot, Wimsey, or even Marple. He’s very young, and a bit of a slob, but he has a mind for mysteries. Here, he is brought to the scene of a wedding where the bride and […]

Henry James would not have understood what a smart house is.

The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

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I read the first third of this in my paperback copy, then switched over to the audio to see if I could jump start my interest in it again. It worked! For a while, at least. It helped me get through the book, anyway. I liked the audio version better. I was super into this book at first, but as soon as the main character reached the house in the country, something about it lost me. It probably also didn’t help that I was traveling […]

“The things my brother and I don’t say could pave over the Atlantic Ocean.”

Seven For a Secret (Timothy Wilde, #2) by Lyndsay Faye

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See, this is why I was asking how many five-star reviews in a month is too many, because I kind of want to give this one five stars, too! Great mystery, great character work (brothers! <3 <3), great second book in a trilogy (a rare thing!), impeccable historical fiction. This is the main book I read while on vacation last week, and because I was distracted by friends and food and reality TV (they made me watch Love is Blind!!! ilikedit), I read it over […]

“Historians, I think, should be keepers of truth. We must tell things as they are – honestly, and without subversion. That is the greatest good one can do.”

City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1) by Robert Jackson Bennett

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Rating four stars (4.5, really) on the side of caution with full knowledge that I could come back here very soon and bump this up to five stars. How many five-star reviews is too many to give out in one month? Anyway, this book was great! This is only the second series I’ve read by Robert Jackson Bennett, but I feel like it might have bumped him up to my favorite authors list. I five-starred both published books in his latest series, so I had […]

A juicy gossipy fiction about old Hollywood

Scandal in Babylon by Barbara Hambly

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This book was entertaining.  Set in 1924 in Hollywood, amidst the glitz and glamour of old Tinseltown in it’s glory days, we are plunged into the story fairly quickly.  Emma Blackstone has come to the U.S. to be an assistant of sorts to her famous sister-in-law Kitty Flint, star of the movie being filmed.  Emma lost her husband in the war, and was in need of somewhere to live when Kitty swooped in to help.  Now Emma finds herself on a movie set, keeping an […]

“You cannot be betrayed by someone you do not trust.”

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

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This cover is gorgeous!  It may have sucked me into checking this out, but I stayed for the story.  This is one of those books that jumps from present time back to a point in history.  I’ve read several of these; it’s a popular theme that usually involves distant relatives.  However, in this case, it’s a young woman, Caroline Parcewell, in present day who finds out her husband has cheated on her, and she takes off to London on what was supposed to be the […]



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