Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

And a road trip to finish the Bingo Board!

The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart

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CBR11Bingo – Travel! Coyote Sunrise and her father Rodeo live an unconventional lifestyle. Tried and true hippies, they drive round the country as the wind takes them on a repurposed school bus which acts as both home and transport. Sometimes they drive toward their favorite sandwich shop in the Bayou, or maybe they’re assisting a fellow traveler they found stranded. It’s been this way for five years – because five years ago, Coyote’s mother and sisters were killed in a car accident. And leaving home […]

Middle of the (surface) road

Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly

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Another installment in Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series, this recent (2017) book follows Bosch through two plot lines: 1) the re-opening of an old murder file where a convicted killer alleges Bosch framed him; and 2) a recent double murder tied to the opioid epidemic. This was the fourth Harry Bosch novel I’ve read, and for the first 75 pages I swore I’d read it before (I actually flipped forward a little to see if I recognized the plot points).  I think part of déjà […]

I’m going up the country, baby don’t you want to go?

Roadtripping: On the Move with the Buffalo Gals by Conni Massing

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I find I like the idea of literary travel books more than I usually like the books themselves.  Travel books have a tendency to veer into stories of someone else’s vacation- fascinating and possibly life changing for the traveler, less so for the listener/ reader.  In addition, travelogues can lack the themes or narratives that pull a fictional novel along and, likewise, can be short on the cohesive conclusions that a good non-fiction book draws. Given that they’re not my favourite genre, why did I […]

She’s different. She’s the great exception

Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers

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CBR11 Bingo: Birthday! (P.L. Travers born August 9th, 1899) (BINGO! Cannonballer Says square to Summer Read square/Far and Away square to Birthday square) The film version of Mary Poppins has been a favorite of mine since childhood. Even though I was a voracious reader as a kid, I never got around to reading the book. Several years ago, I watched “Saving Mr. Banks,” the mostly fictionalized account of the struggle of Walt Disney to persuade P. L. Travers to allow him to make the film version of her book. While I’m certain that the artistic […]

Angels Rule the World

Angels' Blood by Nalini Singh

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After reading Nalini Singh’s short story in Burning Up, I delved into her Archangel series starting with Angels’ Blood. The author celebrated a birthday on Sept 7th. I’m already on the third entry, so it was mere luck I was able to use this review for the Birthday #CBR11Bingo square. We are introduced to Elena Deveraux, a fierce vampire hunter who was born (or cursed according to her father) with the power to track vampires my scent. In this reality, angels are out in the […]

At the Heart of a Monster

The Alienist by Caleb Carr

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In 1896, a serial killer targets boys who work as prostitutes in the seedy parts of New York City. A controversial psychiatrist, then called an alienist, and a reporter gather an investigative team in order to identify the killer through the usage of scientific methods like forensics and an early form of profiling. I actually thought that I’d like this more because on the surface it has all the ingredients that I usually enjoy, like a well-researched historical background, cameos by a parade of historical […]



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