Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Scars of war and colonialism

The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

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I’ve been waiting to get my hands on a copy of The Hacienda since January. I expected gothic horror, and what I got was a full-on haunted house story. Set in Mexico just after the Mexican War of Independence, the scars of that war are visible everywhere. Beatriz, our main character, is forced to move in with relatives after her father, a general on the wrong side of the war, is disappeared and their house burned down in the night. Beatriz sees her only hope […]

Ugh, another stinker I had to power through

Ghost Road Blues (Pine Deep #1) by Jonathan Maberry

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After reading the zombie anthology that Jonathan Maberry helped to edit, I wanted to try one of his books.  My library had the first book in his Pine Deep series, so I decided to give it a try. Just woof.  I did NOT like this book.  So many people were just giant assholes and I couldn’t get behind them as characters.  If I don’t like the characters, it’s just not going to happen for me. I guess some people came back to life and just […]

Space is creepy. Ghosts in space are creepier…

Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes

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Holy crap was this creepy.  Just like the last book I reviewed, I recommend listening to the audiobook.  The sense of dread is overwhelming, and I’m not sure you’d be able to create it that much for yourself by just reading. Claire is the team leader of a salvage crew in space.  They’re on their last mission and about to be moved on to different jobs.  Claire doesn’t want to leave, because she has nothing to go home for.  In the first few minutes you’re […]

double dipping with Rivers of London and River Cartwright

Amongst Our Weapons by Ben Aronovitch

Slow Horses by Mick Herron

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Once again, I am unhappy because I am all caught up in the Rivers of London universe. BUT- I thoroughly enjoyed this entry, and I was lucky enough to be able to dive right in to another irreverent British crime series! Amongst Our Weapons, the latest from Ben Aaronovitch, is a return to form. After the strange (but not entirely off-putting) Douglas Adams worship of False Value we have returned to the archaic and architectural weirdness of the rest of the Rivers of London series. It has […]

Mary: An Awakening of Terror

Mary: An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy

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Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.  FYI, this book has a very long trigger warning, and I suggest that you read it and decide if you want to read this book or skip it. Initial thoughts: Not a lot to say except this book dragged on forever. I don’t know where the author was going with things and I just gave up after a while. There’s some interesting ideas here and there, but the […]

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

White Bones (Katie Maguire #1) by Graham Masterton

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Have you ever seen these pictures of a professional illustrator who let her four year old finish her drawings? That’s exactly what this book is like: it starts off well, a little weird but well done, and then in the second half of the book it’s amateur hour. On steroids.  On a remote Irish farm, eleven bodies are discovered: their bones are haphazardly strewn about underneath a barn. Weirdly, each thigh bone has a hole in it with a small doll on a wire looped […]



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