Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Nazi Handmaid’s Tale

Widowland by C.J. Carey

by Leave a Comment

In a 1953 England under the control of German forces, life is good for Rose Ransom, a member of the privileged Geli class – or at least as good as life can be for a woman in the oppressive regime. But when she is given the task of infiltrating Widowland in search of possible subversives, she comes to learn she might have more power than she always thought. The premise of this book caught my eye immediately. I haven’t really read alternate history books before, […]

“Separately, each cloud can block the wind. Together, we might determine its flow.”

Kill Her Twice by Stacey Lee

by Leave a Comment

Sisters May and Gemma Chow are working hard to keep their family afloat while their father is away being treated for tuberculosis. When they discover the body of Lulu Wong, a former classmate and rising Hollywood star on the outskirts of Chinatown, they set out to solve the mystery of her death. I’m always on the lookout for historical fiction that centers the experience of people who were marginalized during the era of the setting, because to see history through their eyes is usually completely […]

American Pastimes

Game Show Confidential by Boze Hadleigh

by Leave a Comment

Game shows have a surprisingly long history, starting with their roots in radio quiz shows in the 1930s to today’s glut of revivals, with plenty of drama and scandals along the way. It occurred to me over the course of reading this book that I’ve not actually seen many American game shows beyond Jeopardy – I was more likely to pass my time watching Telugu game shows aired in the early afternoon with my grandmother during summer holidays. But the appeal of game shows in […]

A Lineage of Madness

The Noh Mask Mystery by Akimitsu Takagi

by Leave a Comment

An aspiring mystery writer and his childhood friend must join forces to solve the mystery of a string of deaths in a prominent Japanese family that may be the result of an inherited curse. I’ve always enjoyed reading works in translation – they seem to bring you closer to the place in which they are set – but I definitely haven’t read many genre works. As such, I was intrigued by the prospect of this locked room murder mystery, written in 1949 but never before […]

Love in the Quiet Places

A Daddy for Her Twins by Scarlet Wilson

by Leave a Comment

Three years after the death of her husband, single mom and physiotherapist Madison must figure out if she is ready to move on with the new pediatric doctor Fletch. I don’t know if Harlequin’s been publishing a spate of single parent romances lately or I’m just reading more of them. Sometimes they can be too saccharine or the kids might seem to have been written by someone who’s never met a kid, but when done right it adds another dimension to the romance. This is […]

“But the question I find myself asking is this: How can a man control your fate when he is not even the master of his own?”

A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen

by Leave a Comment

Freya is sick of being stuck in a loveless marriage, spending her days gutting fish and keeping house. But when she reveals her identity as a child of the goddess Hlin, she is swept up into the politics of the realm, for it has been prophesied that whoever controls her fate will become king of the land. Fantasy was always my first love when it came to books. Nowadays I have ranged far from that familiar region, but sometimes you just want to go back […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo