Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Murder Mysteries: Hercule Poirot > Miss Marple

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Nemesis by Agatha Christie

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The ingenious website I Write Like has informed me on six separate occasions that my writing most resembles that of Agatha Christie, the best-selling author of all time, aside from Shakespeare and the Bible. Praise be! However, I have never read the First Lady of Mystery, as murders solved by someone other than Sherlock Holmes rarely appeal to me. Fortunately, on last week’s trip to the coast I came across Coalesce Bookstore, a shop packed to the rafters with volumes old and new. I left […]

Long before Team Edward and Team Jacob, there was Team Poirot and Team Marple

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CBR Bingo entry: Brain Candy Back when I was in grade school, I devoured Agatha Christie novels. I didn’t keep track, but I bet I read a good third of the 66 detective novels she wrote in her lifetime, and I was firmly on Team Poirot. Sure, Miss Marple is a sweet old lady, but I preferred the peculiar Belgian detective who was forever getting mistaken for a Frenchman. Nevertheless, I’m not sure whether I ever read Murder on the Orient Express before now. Normally […]

“Thank you.” I smiled sweetly at him. “Your trousers are on fire.”

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Oh well. Now I don’t have to feel bad about finishing up Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia Grey series. This one was kind of a bust.  I’m a big fan of Raybourn and had more love for the Lady Julia books than the majority of her fans, but this final (?) book in the series was a huge disappointment. A lot of Cannonballers have read and reviewed her books. I reviewed two of them this year, here , so I’m not going to get into too much detail about […]

A Suspenseful Thrilling Mystery… NOT!

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I chose I Am Watching You by Teresa Driscoll as my Kindle First book last September. It seemed the most appealing of the choices, and honestly, it’s the only Kindle First book I’ve read out of the handful residing on my e-reader. I needed a quick easy read after struggling through my previous book, and I can usually get sucked into good suspense. I Am Watching You tells the story of a missing girl, Anna, from the perspectives of a witness, her father, her best friend, a […]

Do you disapprove of minstrels, too?

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I often geek out when visiting historical sites. The whole “OMG, so and so ACTUALLY walked here, lived here, died here…” gets me every time.  No surprise then that Juliana Gray’s  dedication in  “A Strange Scottish Shore” definitely spoke to me: To all those who have stood where history was made and felt its echo.” This is the second in what I truly hope is a continuing series about a no-nonsense administrator, Emmeline Truelove,  her employer, the Duke of Olympia, and  her would be paramour, […]

You Can’t Expect to be Treated Rationally as a Woman

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3.5 Stars for A Study in Scarlet, 4.5 stars for a Conspiracy in Belgravia Is there anything Sherry Thomas can’t do? After I listened to the audio books A Study in Scarlet and A Conspiracy in Belgravia, I discovered that Sherry Thomas likes to write what she enjoys reading, so she has written romance, fantasy, mystery, and a wuxia-inspired duology. I will seek them all out. These mystery novels were delightful. A Study in Scarlet is a great start, but A Conspiracy in Belgravia was so […]



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