Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“She was stuck sitting in a wingback chair, her phone as dead as a brick in her hand, and listening to Orchid pepper the townie with questions about how bad the storm had gotten.”

In the Hall with the Knife by Diana Peterfreund

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This book wound up on my to read thanks to a Read Harder Challenge from 2020 – read a mystery where the victim is not a woman – and the fact that I had loved the previous books I had read by Diana Peterfreund, For Darkness Shows the Stars and Across a Star-Swept Sea (as well as their accompanying prequel short stories Among the Nameless Stars and The First Star to Fall). It ended up in my hands thanks to my book exchange gifter, NTE. […]

Tryin’ to reach my goal, my power of speech: unimpeachable

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Everyone (like…internet everyone, I don’t know anyone in real life who read these books) said I’d love Across a Star-Swept Sea more than For Darkness Shows the Stars and I scoffed (that’s right SCOFFED) because I super loved For Darkness Shows the Stars the first time I read it (because Persuasion) so I just couldn’t imagine. And, in fact, had I not reread For Darkness Shows the Stars before reading Across a Star-Swept Sea, the first novel may have remained my favorite. But Across a […]

I’m a diamond in the rough, a shiny piece of coal

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I’ve now read this twice. I read it immediately upon learning that it was based on Jane Austen’s Persuasion, which (as I get older) is slowly overtaking Pride & Prejudice for my favorite Austen novel. Pride & Prejudice is the novel that made me fall in love with Jane Austen. Persuasion is the one that kicked me straight in the heart for hundreds of pages. Something about regret and missed chances…it takes age to truly begin to appreciate it and really FEEL it. Not that […]

An Austen retelling that’s actually good

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Scootsa1000 put this book in the same category as Clueless and Bridget Jones in her recent review of Jane (a retelling of Jane Eyre) and I immediately checked to see if my library had it. Because a good dystopian retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion? So here for that. Luckily my library had it in stock and I was able to immediately dive right in. The world Elliot North and Malakai Wentforth live in is recovering from something they call the reduction. Basically genetic engineering and […]

“We can only be responsible for what we ourselves do.”

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For whatever reason, I always feel the need to explain in my reviews how I came to read the book I’m reviewing. I think it helps center me before I jump into the analysis (if I manage to get to the analysis and not just the summary). This one is easy… I blame you people. Based on gushing reviews of Diana Peterfreund’s series I picked up For Darkness Shows the Stars and then read the short stories, which should each be read before their matching […]

“Three syllables and three thousand memories.”

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Whenever a writer takes on a retelling of a classic, I get nervous. I probably shouldn’t, since so much of the media we enjoy these days’ takes it roots in just this type of storytelling. Regardless, when I originally heard the description of For Darkness Shows the Stars as a post-apocalyptic retelling of Austen’s Persuasion I was not immediately sold. Nevertheless, this book made a believer out of me. So much so that I’ve already downloaded the accompanying short story to my Nook and I’ll […]



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