Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A little disappointing

Codename Charming by Lucy Parker

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I have read all of Lucy Parker’s books, and she’s been a favorite romance author of mine for years now. I always look forward to when another book of hers is published. So, when I saw Codename Charming (2023) was available and not at my library, I bought it immediately. Then I saved it for my backpacking trip, so I’d have something fun and distracting to read. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed in this one. Part of the problem was that most of the characters in […]

From Serf to Empress

Tsarina by Ellen Alpsten

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CBR 15 Bingo – History: This is a historical novel which in following the rise of Catherine I recreates the world of late 17th century Russia. Born a serf, Marta manages through her cunning and luck to rise through society until she becomes the mistress and later wife of Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia. This is an insane story of stratospheric social mobility, and I am shocked I hadn’t heard of it beyond Alpsten’s books. There’s plenty of shadowy corners in Catherine’s biography in […]

I suspect a complete lack of physical affection has led the British monarchy to where it is today.

Spare by Prince Harry

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CBR15 Bingo: Politics – The internal politicking of the British royal family is intriguing and horrifying. While not a British royal super fan, I’ve always been interested in them.  Queen Elizabeth’s corgis were part of the reason I got a corgi of my own. I thought I knew the broad strokes of Harry’s early life; trouble in schools, some drugs, partying, two stints in the military, and then he seemed to come into his own as an adult.  In recent years, I’ve followed the royals […]

And What Comes After Bans?

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

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Read as part of CBR15bingo: gender and banned. Maia Kobabe is a non-binary writer whose book Gender Queer has been banned at many schools and libraries across the country.  It almost made perfect sense that when I saw I had to read a banned book on gender for this challenge, I’d get to Maia Kobabe’s work. Maia’s book seems to have been the spark that ignited the fires of book banning in Florida. I will not argue that most Americans have a complex understanding of gender. […]

An aptly named memoir

Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton & Me by Bernie Taupin

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Cbr15bingo on the air I like Elton John’s music. I know people who are super fans, and I am not one of those, but growing up in the 1970s with older siblings, I heard his music all the time on the radio or on our stereo at home. Between my sibs and me, we probably had most of his albums from the 1970s, and then with the ’80s and MTV, you couldn’t miss his videos. Recently, I heard part of Marc Maron’s interview with Bernie […]

“Families are like fingerprints; no two are the same, and they tend to leave their mark.”

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

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CBR 15 Bing0 – Politics This is my first Alice Feeney and it is a good book for spoooooky season. Feeney does her own spin on an Agatha Christie-style “And Then There Were None” story, in that she sort of cribbed from it entirely in a number of key ways. Britain? Check. Isolated group on an island? Check. Creepy rhymes (in this case, poems)? Check. People starting dying one by one? Check. That said, her take on the construct was refreshing and kept me turning […]



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