Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

It Was Her House First

It Was Her House First by Cherie Priest

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Having an overly credible horror protagonist doesn’t always work. Most of ghostly or demonic horror comes down to gaslighting, more than anything else. I noticed this for the first time when doing the Dracula audiobook with my wife, and her pointing out that Dracula and Johnathan Harker are basically acting out a domestic thriller for the first third of the book. You often need to have a character not know what’s happening in order to make a compelling read as they are slowly driven to […]

Fond of Zombies, Are You? What about Zombies AND Pirates?

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

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Well now!  Steampunk with zombies and pirates, and a certain amount of historical fact to boot?  Welcome to turn of the century Seattle. IRL, Seattle suffered a devastating fire in the late 1890s which tore through the lumber constructed Pioneer Square, its original downtown.  There was also the issue of frequent rain-induced flooding, due to the steep coastal shoreline.  So the civic leaders swapped out timber construction for masonry, and rebuilt, streets and all, on the top of the original buildings.  The lower levels acted […]

That Feeling When Your Dog Retrieves a Dismembered Leg

Flight Risk by Cherie Priest

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CBR 15 Bingo – North America: This book is set in rainy Seattle, Washington, and we see plenty of the splendor of its nature as well. Leda, a travel agent and part-time psychic, gets swept up in the case of a dual disappearance when a couple is reported missing in seemingly unrelated circumstances. This is the second book in The Booking Agents series, which follows Leda and a skeptical police detective, Grady, as they solve confounding crimes. I read the first book a few years […]

She’s Not Afraid to Catch Feelings

Grave Reservations by Cherie Priest

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I was really excited to get my hands on this. It had good reviews and its quirky nature seemed up my alley. And it…mostly met expectations. Let’s unpack… For all intents and purposes, this is a cozy mystery and I don’t usually do cozies. The relentlessly sunny outlook despite the presence of a dead body, the sexless flirting and banter, the stuffy settings and predictable plots. But even though this has some of that, it was written by a younger person who isn’t trying too […]

I’ve read scarier ghost stories for kids

The Family Plot by Cherie Priest

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Mrs. Winthrop is determined to get rid of her home. It is an old, Southern Tennessee beaut of a home filled with original wood stairs and rails, original furniture from when it was built way-back-when, filled with old family belongings that to the Music City Salvage team will be worth a fortune. After the patriarch of the family-run business purchases the home he sends in his team to gather the scrap: daughter Dahlia, drunk nephew Bobby, Bobby’s son Gabe, and unrelated worker Brad. They show […]

If you like Lovecraftian horror, you might like this better than I did.

Maplecroft (The Borden Dispatches, #1) by Cherie Priest

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Before you read too much of my blather, the gist of this review will be that this book was Not For Me. Those two stars mean, “not to my tastes or preferences,” not “this book is very flawed and here’s why.” The review might still be of interest for you for the purposes of finding out if the book might be For You. Maplecroft is an epistolary novel that posits the what if of: What if Lizzie Borden famously murdered her parents for a good […]



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