Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Pooja

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Ardent reader of pretty much anything, including the backs of shampoo bottles. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Pooja's Quick Questions interview.)

Pooja's Reviews:

Dark and Light and Lots of Greys

Spontaneous Human Combustion by Richard Thomas

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In this collection, Thomas presents fourteen short works of speculative fiction which blend science fiction, fantasy, and horror together in intriguing ways. It’s hard to write this review because of the diversity of the tales. The stories touch upon a plethora of genres and themes, including familial relationships, transformation, and atonement. A common device the author uses is cyclical time loops, which often lends a dream-like quality to the story that is enhanced by his deft prose. One thing I really liked about the collection […]

Faith and Deprivation on the Channel Islands

An Island At War by Deborah Carr

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Estelle has sent her younger sister Rosie away from their home just in time, for days later the Germans occupy the Channel Islands. Now both sisters must survive their respective environments as best as they can. I picked up this book despite the tiring similarity of many WW2 historicals because it had an unusual setting – the Channel Islands, which were occupied by Germans for much of the war. I had hoped that this unique experience would lend itself to a more memorable tale. Unfortunately, […]

The Spanish Dancer

Dare to Love by Jennifer Wilde

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Mary Ellen is a girl from Cornwall, deserted by her lover. Elena Lopez is a dancer, glamorous and wild, the mistress of musicians and kings. Dare to Love tells the story of her journey from one to the other. Jennifer Wilde is the pseudonym of T.E. Huff, who wrote under this name during the 1980s. Though I’ve some Wilde books on my TBR, this is the first I’ve read, and I think the one that was most ripped from history, for Elena is clearly based on Lola […]

Suspension of Disbelief

The Spy Switch by Karen Whiddon

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Jennifer Glass has led an ordinary life so far, but when she is taken for her federal agent long-lost twin sister by an arms dealer, she is swept into the world of undercover investigation. As you can tell from the blurb, there is rather a lot of suspension of disbelief needed in this work – that Jennifer can play the role of Lania, that she is even so vital to the operation that the hero Micah would bring her in on it – though the […]

Catharsis

The Castleton Massacre: Survivors’ Stories of the Killins Femicide by Sharon Anne Cook and Margaret Carson

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In 1963, a former minister, long separated from his wife, went on a rampage and murdered four people, two of whom were pregnant. Now one of the survivors of the massacre and her cousin have put together the story of what happened. I have never heard of this case before, but picked up this book because of the identities of the authors – one is the niece of the murderer, and one the daughter of one of the victims, but they were raised together and […]

The Schoolhouse Blizzard

Maddy and the Monstrous Storm by Julie Gilbert

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Maddy  is new to the prairie, but when she and her classmates are trapped in their schoolhouse by a ferocious blizzard, she must lead them all to safety. I’d first heard of the Schoolhouse Blizzard a year or two ago, when I read Melanie Benjamin’s The Children’s Blizzard, which similarly followed a schoolteacher and a group of schoolchildren who were trapped by the snow and had to fight to survive. This book covers the same topic and themes, but in a way that is more accessible […]



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