Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“It was the sad privilege of blood relations to love him despite all.”

This House of Grief by Helen Garner

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In Australia on Father’s Day, 2005, a car carrying a man and his three young sons careened into a dam. Robert Farquharson survived, but his sons drowned. The ensuing murder trial would drag on for seven long years. You really do stumble across books on Goodreads that you’d never get to read otherwise. I have never heard of this case or this author before, but when it popped up in my recommendations, I was intrigued enough to put in a request at the library – […]

“Everything begins and ends at exactly the right time and place.”

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay

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On St. Valentine’s Day in 1900, three Australian schoolgirls and their teacher vanish while on a school outing at Hanging Rock. Though they have disappeared from view like a rock dropped into water, the consequences of what happened will ripple outward until they touch the stories of even those who had been on the periphery of their lives. I’ve had my eye on the book for a few months now, so when I opened my Cannonball Book Exchange package from ElCiccio to find she’d send […]

“There is no special protection when you cross that invisible line from your ordinary life to that parallel world where tragedies happen. It happens just like this. You don’t become someone else. You’re still exactly the same. Everything around you still smells and looks and feels exactly the same.”

Truly, Madly, Guilty by Liane Moriarty

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CBR Bingo – Oceania Australian literary phenomenon Liane Moriarty has done it again!! Or I guess, she did it again a while back because this isn’t her newest book, but it’s gripped me just like all the rest. Hold my calls. Feed my dog. I’m stuck in a book. Moriarty has a slick formula that relies on foreshadowing to hook you from the beginning. Much like in “Big Little Lies” we know at the start of the book that something awful happened to tear these […]

She showed her knees and swam away a winner

Annette Feels Free: The True Story of Annette Kellerman, World-Class Swimmer, Fashion Pioneer, and Real-Life Mermaid by Katie Mazeika

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When looking through the old online reader copy links I found some surprises but others, like Annette Feels Free: The True Story of Annette Kellerman, World-Class Swimmer, Fashion Pioneer, and Real-Life Mermaid was only a small surprise as I like biographies of unknown (or at least mostly unknown) people. And Kellerman is a fairly unknown name today. But that was not the case when she was a swimmer. Taking Australia by storm, a young teen took to swimming like fish takes to swimming. It did […]

Picture book round up part… I’ve lost count

The Mighty Pollinators by Helen Frost

Too Much!: An Overwhelming Day by Jolene Gutierrez

Steve Irwin by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegar

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Helen Frost will have a new pollen book at the end of March-early April 2024 called The Mighty Pollinators. No, this is not a book and/or graphic novel about a new DC or Marvel movie of superheroes, but it is a book about the critters, insects, buggies, and even the wind, and how they make your garden, flowers, and more, grow. This is all done with fairly shorter poems that allow for the facts to be presented, but also in a fun and quick manner. […]

Harper, have you considered… therapy?

Harper and the Single Dad by Amy Andrews

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After an abrupt breakup with Yarran, Harper fled to London and immersed herself in her career as a surgeon. When she returns to Sydney twelve years later, it almost feels like things between her and Yarran haven’t changed at all – except that Yarran has been married, widowed, and had a young son in that time. I pick up Harlequin romances to read when I am in the mood for a simple, comforting romance, and this book did not fail me in that regard. A […]



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