Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Fever Dream on the Northern Atlantic

The Last One by Will Dean

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Her trip on the luxury ocean liner RMS Atlantica is supposed to be the vacation of a lifetime, but when Caz wakes up to find that every other person on the ship seems to have vanished, it becomes a waking nightmare instead. It’s a good thing I went on my first cruise before I read this book. Partly because it makes it easier to visualize the setting, and partly I probably would have been more anxious about wandering around its deserted decks or corridors late […]

Halleluja

Revival by Stephen King

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Being a faithful Constant Reader, I was surprised to come across a King novel that was unknown to me. Originally published in 2014, it fell within a brief period of my life where I didn’t read. The horror! So I picked this paperback up on Better World Books after knowing very little about it, other than it is said to have a truly epic and terrifying ending. Revival follows the life of Jamie, a kid growing up in Maine who faithfully attends the local Methodist […]

Fond of Zombies, Are You? What about Zombies AND Pirates?

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

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Well now!  Steampunk with zombies and pirates, and a certain amount of historical fact to boot?  Welcome to turn of the century Seattle. IRL, Seattle suffered a devastating fire in the late 1890s which tore through the lumber constructed Pioneer Square, its original downtown.  There was also the issue of frequent rain-induced flooding, due to the steep coastal shoreline.  So the civic leaders swapped out timber construction for masonry, and rebuilt, streets and all, on the top of the original buildings.  The lower levels acted […]

“Black History is Black Horror”

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

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Tananarive Due is one of the preeminent voices in Black Horror. The above quote is from her. She authored my favorite haunted house book, The Good House, so she is definitely on my auto read list when she puts out a new book. This latest offering did not disappoint. This book is part horror and part historical fiction which takes place in the Jim Crow South. As you might imagine it’s not an easy read, but it’s extremely worth your time and attention. Robbie Stevens […]

Miss for me, hit for you?

Where Black Stars Rise by Nadia Shammas

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CBR16SweetChallenge #Exciting (excited to read, excited to share with others becuase this needs to be read/known about) The concept of mental health and representation of a not usually talked about community had great potential. However, the execution of Where Black Stars Rise did not work for me. Things were too abstract and messy for my eyes to focus and my “reader eye” lost the flow of things. I was not always sure where I was, who was who and what was what. For the right […]

“He withdrew the knife slowly, as if fearful of causing Marian Savage pain.”

The Elementals by Michael McDowell

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This is another Valancourt reissue Christmas gift to me and has a pull quote from Stephen King on the cover, which made me interested to read it. Poppy Z. Brite says on the back of the book that this is “surely one of the most terrifying novels ever written,” so I was ready to be scared. However, I didn’t honestly find it that scary and I felt like the racial politics distracted me from fully feeling immersed in the text. The Elementals is a Southern […]



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