Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Eliza and James, sitting in a tree, M-U-R-D-E-R-I-N-G

How to Kill Your Rival by Effie Campbell

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3.5 stars Thank you to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for this ARC. This has not influenced my review in any way. This book is on sale now. Eliza Hamilton (yup, that is her name; not sure if the author is a fan of the musical or if the name is a coincidence) is the heir apparent to the Death Council, a secret organisation full of hired killers. While her father is battling cancer, she is to lead in his place, but most of the other […]

Are all fictional detectives neurodivergent?

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

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4.5 stars Dark Corner selection: April 2026 Nowhere Book Bingo 26: Award Winner (Hugo and World Fantasy Award 2025) CBR18 Bingo: Map (there’s a map at the start, showing the various walls to keep out the Levianthans) Official plot synopsis (since I’m reviewing a book I finished in APRIL): <i>In Daretana’s most opulent mansion, a high Imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree spontaneously erupted from his body. Even in this canton at the borders of the Empire, where contagions abound and […]

C I Yikes

Libra by Don DeLillo

Poisoner In Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control by Stephen Kinzer

The Ghost by Robert Harris

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Recently, I read three different books featuring CIA chicanery (two were fictional). This was unintentional but I figured since the themes were similar, I’d just batch review them rather than do individual ones. Libra***** This was a re-read. I liked it the first time. I loved it now that I: a. had a better since of the Oswald timeline after reading Posner’s Case Closed and b. could appreciate the meta-narrative structure in a way I couldn’t before. This is the only DeLillo book I can really […]

“I do not believe I could ever be frightened of someone who cannot stir out of doors if his cloak has a wrinkle.”

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett

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4.5 stars Spoiler warning! There will be some spoilers in this review for the first book in the series, so if you’re not caught up, stop what you’re doing and go read Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries immediately. This review will be here when you return. Emily Wilde is back at her university in Cambridge, pleased with the success of her Faerie Encyclopedia. The proposal from her best friend Wendell Bambleby is still something she needs to consider, but after having her suspicions confirmed, that […]

CBR15 Bingo: Guide (Double bingo)

A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons by Kate Khavari

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3.5 stars CBR15 Bingo: Guide (it’s right there in the title) Official book description, because I’m still reviewing books I read in JULY): London, 1923. Newly minted research assistant Saffron Everleigh attends a dinner party for the University College of London. While she expects to engage in conversations about the university’s large expedition to the Amazon, she doesn’t expect Mrs. Henry, one of the professors’ wives to drop to the floor, poisoned by an unknown toxin. Dr. Maxwell, Saffron’s mentor, is the main suspect, having […]

So many characters die in this book!

For Your Own Good by Samantha Downing

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This is one of those books that I randomly saw on the list of available mystery / suspense / thriller audiobooks list at my library.  I usually just search for audiobooks that are in English, “Available now”, and fall into the horror, mystery, suspense, or thriller categories.  Those are my preferred genres of books.  I’ll also throw in some science fiction, but that’s neither here nor there.  Sometimes I feel like I get on a streak of crappy or boring books with this random approach […]



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