Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Lord save me from a sad sack narrator.

Magic For Liars by Sarah Gailey

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The premise here is: What if your sibling went to magic school and you’re a muggle? And what if you’re a private detective hired to solve a murder at a magic school? Both of these are intriguing separately. Together, I could not resist this book. Unfortunately, I did not like it nearly as much as I wanted to. Parts of it were stellar, and parts of it absolutely did not work for me. Our narrator is Ivy Gamble, a struggling private detective whose twin sister […]

Love triangles, magic, and murder

Grave Visions by Kalayna Price

Grave Ransom by Kalayna Price

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It’s official. I’m totally hooked on Kalayna Price’s Alex Craft series. This was a given after I reviewed books 1-3. The follow-ups, Grave Visions, and Grave Ransom did not disappoint. Alex Craft is a grave witch. Her magic skill allows her to interact with the plane of the dead. She can see talk to ghosts and shades, which are manifestations of a dead person’s memory. Talking to the dead is quite handy if they’ve been murdered. Alex opens a private detective firm with her best friend […]

The Game’s Afoot (Bingo)

A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

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3.5 stars #CBR11 Book Club: Classics Spoiler Warning! There WILL be mild spoilers for the plot of this story (which is from 1887, so you know, if you wanted to know the details, you’ve had enough time to look them up or just read the damn story). This is also the Cannonball Book Club selection for August, so I’m going to assume that most people who are interested in participating will read the book before then. If, however, you have NOT read the book yet, maybe […]

Alex Craft, Witch Detective

Grave Witch by Kalayna Price

Grave Dance by Kalayna Price

Grave Memory by Kalayna Price

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As soon as I saw Grave Witch by Kalayna Price in The Ripped Bodice bookstore, I knew I’d probably love it. The series is about Alex Craft, a grave witch who consults with the Nekros police. Her grave magic allows her to raise shades. Not to be confused with ghosts, shades take the form of the body just before it died and contain the soul’s memory. This is a pretty handy skill to have the victim’s shade testify in their own murder case. Grieving relatives hire […]

A fun, but forgettable detective romp

What the Lady Wants by Jennifer Crusie

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From Goodreads: Mitch Peabody was learning pretty fast that the life of a private detective was nothing like the movies. He’d envisioned a world of tough-talking detectives and smart-mouthed, stunning dames. Instead he saw case after case of cheating husbands, suspicious wives and unsuspecting mistresses until she walked through the door. Right down to her stilettos, Mae Sullivan was a knockout with a lethal body–and a lethal family to go with it.  There was something not quite on the up-and-up about her, but she came […]

#CBR10Bingo: Award Winner – Malin reads another book she’s owned for many years (Bingo #8)

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#CBR10Bingo: Award Winner (LA Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller 2013 and an Anthony Award for Best Audio Book in 2014) Supermodel Lula Landry topples from her third floor balcony and cracks her head open on the snow-covered pavement far below. Strangely, the paparazzi that were surrounding her apartment building earlier in the evening were nowhere to be seen when it happened. After careful investigation, the police rule the death a suicide, although the tabloids have all manner of conspiracy theories, the most popular being that she […]



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