Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


People like Gen came only a few times in life and I’d learned the hard way not to ever waste those moments.

Out of Office by A.H. Cunningham

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A.H. Cunningham’s Afro-Caribbean Black romance, Out of Office, is gorgeous. The settings are lush. The emotions are lush. The story is rich in culture. Cunningham has delivered a thoughtful and spicy contemporary romance that grapples with how to live in a world that demands constant production. Gabriella is an up and comer at a hotel/resort chain based in Miami. Her mother is well known for mentoring Black women on corporate success and she expects Gabriella to rise to the top. Adrián has already had a taste […]

The Story at All Costs

Off the Air by Christina Estes

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When controversial talk show host Larry Lemmon dies under mysterious circumstances, local reporter Jolene pursues the story – and gets in over her head in the case itself. At some point, like most people who enjoy writing, I considered journalism as a career path, though I quickly realized I was nowhere near as persistent and unafraid of failure as the job requires. This book, written by a long-time reporter, only reinforced this. The mystery interested me off the bat – the poisoning of far-right radio […]

A Jewish Gender-flipped Snow White Historical Romance

Wake Me Most Wickedly by Felicia Grossman

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Wake Me Most Wickedly, the second in Felicia Grossman’s gender-flipped fairy tale retelling, but make it a Jewish histrom series, is a darker story than the first, Marry Me by Midnight, which was a gender-flipped Cinderella. It makes sense, Cinderella was forced into a life of servitude by her step mother, but Snow White’s step-mother* tried to kill her repeatedly. Between the repeated attacks on Solomon’s life and Hannah’s life lived on the edge of danger, this was a tense read. I liked it. Solomon Weiss […]

Rescue Mission in the Desert

K-9 Security by Nichole Severn

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When Elena’s younger brother is abducted by the cartel that’s been slowly taking over the town, she must turn to Cash and his canine partner Bear in her crusade to get him back. I’m a sucker for a dog on the cover. And Bear is a working dog, which is a novel idea for someone whose own dog lives for sleeping, eating, and sniffing every blade of grass he comes across on his daily walks. This is an action-packed story, where the main characters take […]

Old Sins Cast Long Shadows

Shadows of Berlin by David R. Gillham

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A decade after World War 2, Rachel Perlman may have moved to New York City and gotten married, but she is still haunted by her experiences as a Jewish girl hiding in plain sight in Berlin and the death of her mother. Despite what the blurb led me to expect, this book is not a World War 2 novel – at least, not exactly. Though Rachel’s experiences in Berlin hang over the entirety of the story, we spend most our time with her grappling with […]

From Creepy Indoor Waterparks to Paranormal Activity-Plagued Cracker Barrels

Nightmare of A Trip by Maureen Kilmer

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When the Somerset family heads out on a road trip from Wisconsin to Florida, mom Leigh expects plenty of bumps along the way – but even she doesn’t expect to be haunted by ghosts after a strange incident at an abandoned house. My family has always been big on road trips, and consequently I have spent days driving down endless roads in both the United States and India. You see plenty of road trips on television and in books, but rarely the family caravan type. […]



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