Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“He withdrew the knife slowly, as if fearful of causing Marian Savage pain.”

The Elementals by Michael McDowell

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This is another Valancourt reissue Christmas gift to me and has a pull quote from Stephen King on the cover, which made me interested to read it. Poppy Z. Brite says on the back of the book that this is “surely one of the most terrifying novels ever written,” so I was ready to be scared. However, I didn’t honestly find it that scary and I felt like the racial politics distracted me from fully feeling immersed in the text. The Elementals is a Southern […]

“With this book, I wanted to pit a man freed from all responsibilities but his appetites against women whose lives are shaped by their endless responsibilities. I wanted to pit Dracula against my mom. As you’ll see, it’s not a fair fight.”

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

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Despite very recently giving five stars to the latest Grady Hendrix weirdo horror book (review HERE), I was surprised by how much I liked this. As I’ve been exploring the horror genre over the past year, I’ve learned that my tastes usually run towards the lighter end of the horror spectrum, and that I don’t do well with gore and violence just for gore and violence’s sake*. I need that sort of thing to have a purpose, and I need it to not make me […]

Even New Houses Can Be Haunted

The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons

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This is the only horror novel Anne Rivers Siddons ever wrote, and the only book of hers I’ve ever read, so I feel like we were on some sort of haunted parallel footing here. This is a very well done haunted house story written in a lyrical style, but with a lot of brutal, horrible scenes. The contrast between the nice, aesthetic portions of the book and the growing realization that a nasty little scene is right around the next page makes for a tension-filled […]

Revelator: Sometimes God is One of Us

Revelator: A Novel by Daryl Gregory

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To risk starting out on an annoyingly pretentious foot, Daryl Gregory is an author I liked before he was cool. I’d been enjoying his work before he broke out into the front tables of bookstores with Spoonbenders, and I feel an affection for his writing and the interesting things he does within the horror/fantasy field. I find him to be a writer like Robert Charles Wilson, a sure-footed storyteller whose name on the cover of a genre novel guarantees an interesting and fast moving read. […]

Save your time, avoid this book.

Saving Grace by Debbie Babitt

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I’m not going to bury the lede, I deeply dislike this book. There is not one likable character, nor one that exhibits more than one dimension of personality. The story alternates between frustrating and non-sensical and the finale twists are eye-rolling. This is a bad, Z-grade attempt to emulate Gillian Flynn, Tana French, and Paula Hawkins without understanding what makes those three so good. Mary Grace Dobbs is the newly sworn-in sheriff of her hometown of Redemption, Arkansas in 2019. She got the job after […]

I’ve read scarier ghost stories for kids

The Family Plot by Cherie Priest

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Mrs. Winthrop is determined to get rid of her home. It is an old, Southern Tennessee beaut of a home filled with original wood stairs and rails, original furniture from when it was built way-back-when, filled with old family belongings that to the Music City Salvage team will be worth a fortune. After the patriarch of the family-run business purchases the home he sends in his team to gather the scrap: daughter Dahlia, drunk nephew Bobby, Bobby’s son Gabe, and unrelated worker Brad. They show […]



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