Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

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 […]

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve disliked a book this much, but boy howdy, did I dislike this.

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

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This is the second version of this review I’ve written because I did the classic dumb thing where I wrote a huge review in the GR review space and didn’t back it up (AND NEITHER DID GOODREADS EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO NOW). I had about 2,500 words written and I wasn’t done, and I had a lot of thoughts, many of them snarky and sort of mean*. I’m not sure how much what I’m about to write will resemble what I wrote yesterday, […]



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