Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Grief, murder and more grief

The Maidens: A Novel by Alex Michaelides

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I tore through this novel over the weekend. It’s a psychological thriller and murder mystery set at Cambridge University. “The Maidens” are an informal sorority of students whose leader/father figure is an American professor of classics named Edward Fosca. When a beautiful “maiden” named Tara is found brutally murdered just off campus, psychotherapist Mariana Andros rushes to the university to comfort her niece Zoe, Tara’s best friend. Mariana is convinced that despite his alibi, Fosca is behind the murder, especially when the body of another […]

Who Gets the Last Word?

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

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Since it’s publication in 2019, Alex Michaelides’s The Silent Patient has sold over 6.5 million copies. I cannot for the life of me fathom why. Usually, when I read a mega-bestseller I can understand the appeal even if I don’t particularly like it. For instance, I absolutely despised Where the Crawdads Sing, but it did have readable prose and propulsive momentum that kept me reading right up until its damnable conclusion. It also had an unusual character at its center, someone who intrigued the reader […]

More horror in real life

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

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All month I have searched for a “perfect” horror novel, something to match the energy of “spooky season”. I read several thrillers, but nothing that really fit the bill. And then, on Monday, real life horror intervened and now I need to put the horror novel aside – I’m hoping to find some books that are more comforting, scares are the last thing I want. I’m a teacher in St. Louis, and not two miles from my house something horrific happened and I am still […]

Writing by Numbers

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

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Thirty-six year old Mariana works as a group therapist in London as she mourns the loss of her beloved husband Sebastian, who drowned off the coast of the Greek island of Naxos a year earlier. When her niece Zoë calls her and tells her that her best friend has been found dead, Mariana seizes the chance and travels to Cambridge to offer comfort. But she soon finds herself in the middle of the investigation, and as other girls turn up dead she looks toward a […]

with this post, you will know every book i read this year and how i felt about them

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

The Night Sister by Jennifer McMahon

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones

We Were Never Here by Andrea Bartz

Life's Too Short by Abby Jimenez

Ten Dead Comedians by Fred Van Lente

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss

N or M? by Agatha Christie

Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney

The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling

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You’ve probably heard of this one already. Woman takes the regional train to and from work every day and watches for a couple who live on a house backing the tracks. She likes to make up stories about what they’re doing every day. One day she sees the wife kissing a man who’s not her husband. Because her previous marriage ended due to infidelity, the main character goes to confront the wife, whom she does not know, but her alcoholism intervenes and she blacks out […]

“Edward Fosca was a murderer.”

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

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**30 Books in 30 Days** Book 9/30 I received a free ARC of The Maidens by Alex Michaelides from Macmillan in an exchange for an honest review. I tell you what, I am just really not sure what to say about this book! I kind of feel like I want to sit with it some more, but I need to get this review out. I’m reading so many books this month they would just pile up if I didn’t keep on top of them, so […]



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