Cannonball Read 13

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Your House Will Pay…And Keep Paying

Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha

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In college I was assigned to read Anna Deveare Smith’s Twilight Los Angeles (1992). To say it is a book that has stuck with me would be an understatement. Steph Cha’s Your House Will Pay (2019) reads as a companion piece, or perhaps a sequel, toggling between the early 1990s and the late 2010s to examine what happens when a racially-charged crime goes unpunished. The protagonists are Shawn Matthews, a Black man whose sister‘s murder in the 90s by a Korean shop worker became a rallying cry for racial […]

Let It Burn…Wanna Let It Burn…

Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha

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Steph Cha has a hell of a tightrope to walk with this one. A fictional retelling of the murder of Latasha Harlins, she breaks down the impact of it between both families impacted: the black family that mourned her and the Korean family that produced her killer. Writing black characters, specifically in a context such as this, is a tall task for a non-black writer. But Cha is successful. She navigates this with a less-is-more approach, focusing on how grief and racial trauma impact both […]

Their Own Voices

Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha

A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum

On the Come Up by Angie Thomas

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If anyone needs a book for the Own Voices Bingo square next year, these would all make excellent choices! (4 stars) Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha I was certain I’d added this to my TBR after reading a Cannonball review on it, but I can’t find one so maybe not. Maybe it came from Goodreads best of list for 2019? Regardless, it’s a relatively new book but I’m betting we’ll start seeing it everywhere. Your House Will Pay starts out in L.A. in the […]

A Fusion of Noir and Hardboiled

Beware Beware by Steph Cha

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I read Steph Cha’s first novel a few months ago and in that time, I’ve discovered her work outside of this series is as important as the series itself. She’s listed as the “noir” editor for the LA Review of Books and it appears she writes for the LA Times on a weekly basis. Her column in the Times which covered Linda Fairstein’s unfortunate history as a prosecutor in the Central Park Five case* (and her continuously unrepentant attitude for how the case was handled) helped inspire the Mystery Writers […]

Forget It, Juniper, It’s Racism

Follow Her Home by Steph Cha

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Read for CBR 10 Bingo: Underrepresented. Steph Cha is a Korean-American mystery writer in a field dominated by white people (mostly men). I’m usually graceful when I review first time novelists, so while there was a lot that annoyed me about Steph Cha’s debut, I generally enjoyed it and am going to lean mostly on the positives. I love hard boiled/noir fiction. Apparently, so does Steph Cha and her main character (and author ancillary) Junipero Song. The book is littered with references to Chandler, Macdonald […]



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