Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Her whole family was murdered and she’s not OK

Out of the Ashes by Kara Thomas

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Samantha Newsom is leaving her shift as a nurse to help assist in the suicide of her terminally ill uncle Gil at the beginning of this story. It’s quite a tone to set immediately. The next morning, Sam gets a call that her uncle has died (duh), but nobody suspects any foul play. Hot take – you should be allowed to decide when you and how you die if you’re terminally ill. But that’s a topic for another time. Sam heads back out to Gil’s […]

What would you do if you were maybe really nearby to a murder?

Stranger in the Woods by Anni Taylor

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We meet our main character Isla as she’s photographing some rich people on a yacht. She sounds like a good photographer, but then she has a seizure and falls into the water. Her mom is scared and so is she. Isla is also looking for a little bit of adventure though. She feels trapped in Sydney and wants to branch out. She randomly finds an ad for a month-long assignment in the Scottish Highlands photographing a renowned architect and his family and estate. Once Isla […]

No Country For Grieving Mothers

Stolen by Tess Stimson

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‘But Lottie is alive. My daughter is alive. She’s tenacious, determined, ferocious. She couldn’t be extinguished without creating a disturbance, a rent in the fabric of the world that I would feel.’ Alex’s three year-old daughter Lottie is kidnapped from a destination wedding in Florida, vanishing into thin air under the negligent eyes of the guests. Sympathy for grieving Alex turns to suspicion as the case progresses. This story, told from the viewpoints of Alex, reporter Quinn, and a mysterious abductor, takes an unusual approach […]

Markov Chain Text Generator – the Mystery Novel!

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths

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This book seems like it has everything: Iron Age sacrificial burials! Dangerous saltwater marshes! Academics drawn into police investigations! Bird enthusiasts! New Age mysticism! Scary Biblical passages! Gruff but sensitive detectives! Murder! Cats! Bones! All of the things that would normally draw me into the depths of a novel- there was a promise of being sucked out to sea in the dangerous salt marshes, but I was left on shore squinting into the distance with an annoyed “is that it?” stuck in my craw. The […]

Would You Know if You Lived in Captivity?

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Trigger warning: Rape/captivity Helena Pelletier is just about as happy and at peace in her life as she can be.  She has a loving husband, two daughters whom she loves, a jam making business and strong connection to nature and the world around her.  In the first chapter or two, I was seriously envious, then the other shoe drops and we learn that Helena has been keeping secrets about her past.  Now, due to her father escaping from prison (after fashioning a shiv out of […]

Deeply disturbing and graphically violent

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As per the blurb:  Karin Slaughter returns with a sophisticated and chilling psychological thriller of dangerous secrets, cold vengeance, and unexpected absolution, in which two estranged sisters must come together to find truth about two harrowing tragedies, twenty years apart, that devastate their lives. This was a deeply disturbing book – well written, with great attention to plot and detail, but overall disturbing.  I would warn anyone thinking of reading this that it contains highly graphic violence to women, with scenes of torture and rape […]



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