Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Don’t mess with Louise Lloyd

Dead Dead Girls (Harlem Renaissance Mystery #1) by Nekesa Afia

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Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia has a beautifully illustrated cover that caught my eye. I (wrongly) assumed this was a cozy mystery set in the Harlem Renaissance. But it’s a historical mystery about a serial killer murdering Black girls who work or visit speakeasies. The book follows Harlem resident Louise Lloyd who is unintentionally famous for surviving a kidnapping as a teenager. Known as Harlem’s Hero, she rescued her fellow captives. In the present time of the book, she wants to move past all […]

Wait for it, wait for it. . .

Good Behavior by Molly Keane

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As we meet Aroon St. Charles, she has just served a lovely luncheon of delicate rabbit’s broth to her very elderly mother.  Alas, the elder Mrs. St. Charles can’t abide even the scent of the stuff, and promptly keels over and dies.  Not to let such a delicious treat go to waste, Aroon finishes it off.  Well, now, that seems a little cold-blooded, no?  Ah, but richly deserved. Aroon was been born into the impoverished Irish gentry.  They are down to slowly selling off the […]

Double Cannonballing with a good series-ender.

Subtle Blood (The Will Darling Adventures, #3) by K.J. Charles

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**30 Books in 30 Days** Book 23/30 To be honest, I think if (when) I read all three books in this series back to back in the future, I will bump up both books two and three from four to five stars. It has been top notch in all areas: romance, class examinations, mysteries, historical fiction set in the 1920s, books about friendship, books about secret agents and spies, suspense novels. Seriously, just in all the things this series sets out to do, it succeeds […]

Not as fluffy as the tv show but still a fun ride

Cocaine Blue by Kerry Greenwood

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Needing some light entertainment, I decided to rewatch Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. It’s a delightful show and the rewatch made me curious about the books.  Phryne, carrying the cocktail, decanted it unobtrusively into a potted palm against which she had no personal grudge, and hoped that it would not give her away by dying too rapidly. Content warning: the book, and my review, mention sexual assault.  Cocaine Blues is the first book in the series. Miss Phryne Fisher is a wealthy socialite in 1920s England. […]

Thank God they were British. He took a deep breath. “Cup of tea?”

Slippery Creatures by KJ Charles

The Sugared Game by KJ Charles

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When KJ Charles initially announced the three book Will Darling Adventures series, it looked like it would all be released in 2020 and so I thought I would read all three and then review them together. However, 2020 is awful and apparently it’s hard to write when the world is on fire and your government is trying to kill you (KJ Charles is British). I have given in and decided to review the first two books without waiting for the third. Will Darling has returned […]

That rare unicorn, a good middle book.

The Sugared Game (The Will Darling Adventures, #2) by K.J. Charles

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This book wasn’t as purely enjoyable for me as the first one, but it was really an excellent middle book that does what all middle books should do: It furthers the character arcs of the characters we care about so that they are not stagnant and wallowing, it pushes the main story arcs along further and things actually happen, and it provides its own enclosed story arc so that you are left satisfied by the presence of a beginning, middle, and ending within the book […]



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