Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip…

Ship of Magic: The Liveship Traders Trilogy Book 1 by Robin Hobb

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I’ve discovered that one of the advantages of reading an e-book instead of a hard copy book is that often, when I download an e-book, I have no idea how many pages long it is. Having just finished Robin Hobb’s The Farseer Trilogy and loving it, and given the rave reviews I’ve seen other Cannonballers heap upon Hobb’s other series, I immediately downloaded The Liveship Traders Trilogy and dove right into Ship of Magic. If I had known the books in this trilogy clock in […]

A Gothic Classic for a Reason

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

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Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. The opening chapters of Rebecca by Daphne du Marier are a haunting introduction to a place we will come to know quite well by the end of the book. Our unnamed narrator takes us past the lodge house, up the long drive to the old house, all the while reflecting on how nature has begun to take over the grounds and land, and only the most intrepid poacher would dare to trespass. She then thinks on their […]

A magic high stakes funeral

Psychopomp and Circumstance by Eden Royce

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The protagonist of Eden Royce’s Psychopomp and Circumstance, Phaedra St. Margaret is known as Phee, which challenged the way I pronounced ‘Phaedra’ in my head. The St. Margarets are a rich Reconstruction era rich Black family. They are made of overbearing mother, passive father, and wilful daughter – Phee – who unwillingly goes to Get a Husband bustle dress dance parties. At the old age of 21, Phee is ready to stop going to these parties, stop getting courted, and go do her own thing, […]

Alice in a wonderland

Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah

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I thought I’d been listening to Kristin Hannah’s latest novel, Magic Hour, but now that I’m writing the review, I just realized it was written back in 2006–so, almost twenty years ago and definitely not her latest novel. I’m a little late to this party. I’ve read a number of Hannah’s novels. Some of them I’ve really liked, and others I’ve found too contrived and I got annoyed. I was immediately drawn into this one, though, and I’m glad I read it. A young, malnourished girl wanders into […]

So Apartheid South Africa Was Way More Complicated than Black vs White

Let the Dead Lie by Malla Nunn

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So we are back in the newly segregated apartheid version of South Africa, as formed in the 1950s.  Detective Emmanuel Cooper has had to revert from his former status as WWII vet and (most importantly) white person, to mixed race instead.  But Major van Niekerk (white Afrikaner) has a need for him and his partner and friend, the Zulu Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala, tracker extraordinaire.  A poor young white boy, Jolly Marks, had been found in the port town of Durban, South Africa, near the […]

Atmospheric, but Not Much Else

Graveyard Shift by M. L. Rio

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This was my first M. L. Rio book, and it seemed like it would be so interesting: A group of late shift workers who meet up in a semi-planned way for smoke breaks in a dilapidated cemetery. An unexpected open grave. A mystery that unfolds over the course of a single night. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work for me. It’s hard to pin down the genre. It’s a horror book, but without much horror; a thriller, but without much thrill; a mystery, but one that’s […]



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