Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Death (and other Nonsense) on the Nile

Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

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My mom and I shared a love of Ancient Egypt, mythology and archaeology. She was a big fan of Elizabeth Peters mysteries, and I have had a few of the paperbacks from her mystery novel collection buried in my to-read piles for years. I finally decided to dig them out and give Peters a try. The first novel in the series, Crocodile on the Sandbank, introduces readers to her Victorian-era heroine, Amelia Peabody. Amelia is a no-nonsense, feisty woman who has also inherited an interest […]

“I call it relief, though it was only the relief that a snap brings to a strain or the burst of a thunderstorm to a day of suffocation. It was at least change, and it came with a rush.”

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

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Even though after reading Henry James in school several times and then declaring him my nemesis, for he is the master triumphant of the never-ending sentence, and saying I would never read from him again, I could not then resist the pull of an audiobook narrated by Emma Thompson, and indeed I am glad I did not do so. Phewf, done with that nonsense. That is what it is like to read Henry James. The first paragraph in The Wings of the Dove nearly killed […]

“I’m tired of being the villain in the story. I never meant to be, and I don’t want to do it any more.”

Jackdaw by K.J. Charles

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My favorite of the Magpie books. I was surprised by this! The premise turned me off a little, which is why it took me so long to pick up. I’m not really a fan of “redeeming the bad guy” stories, but of course Charles pulls it off. And, as it turns out, Jonah wasn’t really a bad guy for what he did in the original trilogy. He was being coerced, very strongly. Our narrator isn’t Jonah Pastern, though, it’s ex-policeman Ben Spenser, who was left […]

Holy crap. This was not good.

Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover

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This book was recommended to me by nobody. My BFF did recommend Colleen Hoover, but I think this may be one of her earlier books. Holy crap I did not like it. First of all, I listened to the audiobook, and the male narrator (Deacon Lee) had a voice or manner of speaking that kinda made my skin crawl? I’m not sure exactly what it was, but I did not like when he talked. Unfortunately, he talked for about half of the book. Which I […]

Who would’ve thought a book about birds would be so deep?

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy

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I can’t remember if I randomly found this book because I liked the author, or because I liked the narrator. Either way, I liked the narrator! This was another book that was so very long, and I didn’t really think it needed to be so long. It’s about a woman named Franny Stone. She’s obsessed with the last flock of Arctic terns, and following them on their migratory journey. She tries to talk every ship captain she meets into letting her hitch a ride on […]

Lots and lots and lots and lots of tennis. But also maybe some murder?

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

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I asked my sister if she read this book, because we both love Liane Moriarty. Her answer was “Ugh, the tennis one?”. Yes dear readers, this is the tennis one. If there are 10,000 words in this book (it’s long, so I’m sure there are way more), 7,500 of them are related to tennis. It didn’t really bother me, but apparently it bothered my sister! It’s funny, and I know I’ve said this before, but Liane Moriarty is the only author I seem to enjoy […]



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