Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

‘A million girls would kill for this job’

The World's Worst Assistant (2022) by Sona Movsesian

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CBR bingo square ‘funky’, because…Sona Movsesian seems like a funky and groovy person, and Conan O’Brien used to do a funky little ‘string dance’ with his hips, and Max Weinberg and the Max Weinberg 7 were pretty funky back in the day, and Sona Movsesian is Conan O’Brien’s assistant. If I haven’t horribly misjudged the time difference and therefore deadline or missed something else egregious, I believe this review completes a bingo for me. ‘A million girls would kill for this job’ is, of course, […]

Foiling spies and spying foils

The Ministry of Unladylike Activity (2022) by Robin Stevens

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CBR Bingo ‘Font’ square–the title on the cover embeds a cool little plane, a magnifying glass, and a fluttering blackout curtain in its lettering, while the print text inside is interspersed with lists and notes that look like handwriting. Robin Stevens’s ‘Murder Most Unladylike’ series (2014-2021) is rather marvellous; it starts off in a very English boarding school in the early 1930s, where the very English Honourable Daisy Wells befriends Hazel Wong, a new girl from Hong Kong who is trying to find her place […]

I wasn’t ready for the Alex Craft series to end.

Grave War by Kalayna Price

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CBR14 Bingo Square: Shadow I’m a big fan of witches and magic mysteries, so I got immediately hooked on the Alex Craft novels. In book one, Alex uses her magic to raise shades, which aren’t quite ghosts. More like the memory imprint of a person after they pass. It’s a very handy skill to have a shade testify in their murder trial. Alex has been quite a few personal revelations, a love triangle, and an angry fae queen by the time we reach the final […]

Up to date on all my review and managed a bingo blackout *does little dance*

The Stand-Up Groomsman by Jackie Lau

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CBR14 Bingo: Funky (Mel makes Vivian feel very funky, in the bad way, when criticising her career choices when they first meet. There is later a lot of *funky bass line* when they finally get together). This was an ARC given to me by the author. It has not affected the contents of my review. Vivian Liao used to be a huge fan of comedian Melvin “Mel” Lee, and one of her hobbies was making fan art about him. Then she actually had a chance […]

“The thing is, and maybe I’m biased by all those years I’ve spent in fictional realms built on deceit, I don’t trust narrators any more than I trust the actual people in my life. We never get the whole truth, not from anybody.” #CBRBINGO – Elephant

Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson

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This was the first of two extremely entertaining thrillers that I read by Peter Swanson in 2022. I fear I may have read his best work now, so I’m not sure if I’ll be checking out any more of his stuff, but I can absolutely recommend Eight Perfect Murders as a stand-out thriller (along with The Kind Worth Killing). Holy shit, was this thing a page-turner. So the plot here is that bookshop owner Malcolm Kershaw, years ago, compiled a list of literature’s most perfect […]

Happy Bingo Blackout!

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

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BINGO – Question: will the second capture the magic of the first? Will I be able to blackout my Bingo card? Answer: Mostly and yes! Murderbot is out on its own searching for answers about its past. Not really on the lamb but also not looking for any attention either, Murderbot sneaks its way to RaviHyral, the location where it first malfunctioned, in order to get more information about its past. Along the way, Murderbot hitches a ride with a research transport ship that is […]



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