Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Well, It Helped the Airplane Ride

The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager

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Bingo: Summer. This book takes place at a summer getaway by a lake. I am terrified of flying. Having to fly to New York from my home in San Francisco, I brought along a stuffed pug (plush, not taxidermic) and The House Across the Lake to distract myself. The pug did its job as did the book, as ludicrous as it was. Casey is an alcoholic actress whose drinking caused a scandal. She took to drink after her husband Len drowned in Lake Greene. Now […]

Revenge on a Train

With A Vengeance by Riley Sager

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Before embarking on a journey of revenge, dig a lot of graves. More graves than you expect to need and then maybe one more for good luck. You just never know how many you might need to achieve it. Stay flexible. Anna Matheson lost her entire family due to the actions of six people. She’s spent the last twelve years plotting their downfall, culminating in a twelve hour train ride from Philadelphia to Chicago. She’ll confront them with their crimes and then hand them to […]

Gothic mystery novel at it’s most just finest

The Only One Left by Riley Sager

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While on a trip to Montreal, I had a back up book in the suitcase, but the mood just wasn’t right for The Haunting of Hill House – hot, humid holidays do not call for scary, dense, chilly horror novels. So, while wandering through Old Montreal, we found a multi-lingual bookstore a few minutes before closing. Feeling rushed, I picked one of the staff recommendations, a mystery novel with a very bright cover. I had never heard of Riley Sager before but I do seem […]

This Sh*t Is Bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S

Final Girls by Riley Sager

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A young woman stumbles out of the woods in a red dress, screaming loudly that someone is chasing her. A nearby police officer finds her and shoots the crazed killer, a psychopath who has escaped from a nearby mental hospital. Years later, Quincy is known as a ‘final girl’: the only survivor of a bloody massacre. There are other Final Girls and when one of them dies, another comes to find Quincy. Quincy, at first, is happy to have Sam with her: Sam knows what […]

I Have No Idea Where We Are Going and I Ain’t Mad

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

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cbr16bingo dreams Well, now.  This took quite a few unexpected turns! It starts off as your bog-standard evil house with a few skeletons (cough) in its closets.  Nobody seems to want Baneberry Hall, tucked away in the remote bits of Vermont.  But a young couple, Ewan and Jess, thinks it’s a treat and the price is certainly right.  They move right in with their five year old daughter, Maggie.  They are only there twenty days before they flee in the middle of the night. Ewan […]

A Road Trip With the Stupidest Girl Alive

Survive the Night by Riley Sager

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Ok, I’m starting to get the complaints about Riley Sager. When I read Final Girls and The Last Time I Lied I enjoyed them and didn’t really understand the negativity around Sager as an author. But with Survive the Night I think I get it. I thought I’d really like it, but honestly it was just meh. I’m beginning to see why people whose opinions I trust don’t think highly of Sager’s work. Let’s start with the premise. Charlie is dropping out of college after […]



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