Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Not as good as I wanted it to be.

Every Time I Go On Vacation, Someone Dies (The Vacation Mysteries, #1) by Catherine Mack

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Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books, and Macmillan Audio for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the contents of my review. This was one of my most anticipated books of the year, and in that way it was a huge disappointment. I expected something funny, clever, and unique, and this wasn’t really any of those things. In fact, almost immediately I had a really bad reaction to this book and almost DNFed it because I was disliking the writing style, but I was buddy […]

Flavia de Luce, a menace to murderers

Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd by Alan Brandley

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Poor Flavia. As if being banished to Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy in Canada at the end of The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches and then being banished back home again at the end of As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust weren’t bad enough, her return to Buckshaw is hardly the homecoming she imagined. She’s picked up at the dock with zero fanfare, her father is in the hospital with pneumonia, and her pet chicken, Esmerelda, is deceased. Things are hardly tickety-boo in Flavia’s world. Fortunately, […]

Sipping Tea and Solving Mysteries While Eating Delicious Chinese Food

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto

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This was a cute, low-stakes cozy fantasy with a great cover that really fits the vibe of the novel. It features Vera Wong, a Chinese immigrant and widow who owns a rundown teahouse that doesn’t get much traffic. She has a distant relationship with her grown son, probably due to frequent nagging texts like this: “Tilly, are you awake? It is 4:31 AM, very late. When I was your age, I wake up at 4AM every morning to cook breakfast for Ah Gong and Ah […]

Blinded by the Glitter

A Most Efficient Murder by Anthony Slayton

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When the body of a strange young woman is found in the Earl of Unsworth’s garden during a party, his capable secretary Mr. Quayle is tasked with keeping the family from scandal during the investigation – a task only made harder by the secrets everyone is keeping. This is a cozy sort of mystery in 1920s England, with the vibe you’d get if you blend the adventurous plots of Sherlock Holmes and the humorous domestic drama of PG Wodehouse. I liked how the author built […]

“Everyone who dies is alive. We call people “dead” because we need a word for it, but “dead” just means that time has stopped moving forward for that person? You understand? No one dies, not really.”

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman

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I LOVE THIS BOOK AND BOOK SERIES AND YOU SHOULD READ IT. Yup. All caps. Yelling right out of the gate. I mean serious business. This joy is not a drill! This book is the fourth in the series, so if you haven’t read The Thursday Murder Club you should begin at the beginning and prepare to nearly swoon with delight in each installment. Osman has created a quartet of characters that I cannot wait to visit when I finally travel to England, because duh […]

Watch enough tv crime shows and cook for everyone and you’ll find the killer

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto

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I needed a cozy mystery and Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers is indeed just that. Vera’s the stereotypical Chinese mom/grandma who runs a tea shop virtually no one goes to anymore. Then she finds a dead guy in there when she goes to open her shop, and people just start turning up (not just the police but them too, a little). Various folks who have some connection to the victim or crime including his wife Julia, “reporter” Riki, “podcaster” Sana, and the victim’s brother […]



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