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:

The Big Daddy of WW2 Spy Fiction

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

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Men tell stories. Women get on with it. For us it was a shadow war. There were no parades for us when it was over, no medals or mentions in history books. We did what we had to during the war, and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over. It seems like every other historical fiction book being released these days is about women who were spies and saboteurs during the occupation of France in World War Two. […]

She of the Diamante Garters and Pearl-Handled Pistol

The Lady with the Gun Asks the Questions by Kelly Greenwood

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In this collection of detective stories, Phryne Fisher recovers missing jewelry and missing people, thwarts blackmailers, and cracks codes, all while remaining as cool and unflappable as ever. I adore the Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. The author wrote a short note at the beginning of the book about how Miss Fisher came to be – she wanted to write a sort of female James Bond, with the glamour and the adventure and the romance, except better than James Bond because her books are not sexist […]

So Who Stole the Gate?

Murder in the Neighborhood by Ellen J Green

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Told through the eyes of Raymond, a young boy, and Freda, his mother, this is the story of Howard Unruh, who on a sunny day in September 1949 committed a mass shooting in his neighborhood and killed thirteen people. Funnily enough I had recently listened to the Last Podcast on the Left series on this crime (which, you will know if you also listen, puts me rather far behind in the archives). The podcast focused more on Unruh – his early life, his military career, […]

Greek Honeymoon

The Child of Judas by Violet Winspear

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Fenny is in love with her cousin’s fiancé, but he’s barely ever noticed her. Yet when Penela leaves him at the altar, Fenny steps in, tricking him by pretending to be her cousin at the wedding- and Lion is quite unhappy when he finds out, after they are already wed. This was a pretty crazysauce premise. Fenny has a bad case of coup de foudre and seizes the chance to become Lion’s wife, even though she knows how bad it is to trick him like […]

Poppies, Ruby Rings and Hijackings

Dangerous Stranger by Lucy Gillen

The High Valley by Anne Mather

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Dangerous Stranger – 3.5 stars Melodie, home to her grandfather’s farm to look after him, becomes engaged to Jed thinking that it will be a safe and certain thing. However, sparks keep flying whenever she meets Keith, her infuriating neighbor. I bought a big lot of old Harlequin romances recently – after all, I do prefer my romance to have been published between the sixties and the nineties. This is my first foray into the box, and it wasn’t a bad one at all. Despite […]

What Do We Do When Doomsday Doesn’t Come?

The Doomsday Mother: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and the End of an American Family by John Glatt

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When Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell meet, they have long held alternate beliefs about souls and the coming of the end times. But together, they advance down the path of delusion, culminating in the murder of Lori’s children Tylee and JJ. I knew of this case from fairly recent developments, when the bodies of the children were found last year, but through this book I learned that the murders had been decades in the making. The author follows Lori and Chad from their childhoods, tracing […]



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