Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Happy International Women’s Day to Esther Green

The Keeper's Six by Kate Elliott

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First of all, Thank you, Emmalita, for The Keeper’s Six!  I’ve been rather bad about writing reviews but I want to share how awesome Esther Green is on International Women’s Day.  Esther is a badass, an adventurer, intelligent, determined, Jewish, a mother, a widower, a magical caster called a Lantern, is over 60 years old and still going on fantastical missions!  That’s the type of 60 year old that I hope to be. Esther Green is woken in the middle of night with an urgent call […]

Golden Girls with Guns

Killers of a Certain Age: A Novel by Deanna Raybourn

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Back in 2010 a Bruce Willis movie called Red (Retired, Extremely Dangerous) came out. I don’t especially love action movies but this one was great — a comedy action movie with a load of outstanding actors in it, including John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, and Helen Mirren. They all play retired secret agents whom Willis convinces to come out of retirement when he finds himself targeted by mysterious forces. Helen Mirren was my favorite as a bad ass weapons expert who has been running a genteel […]

Choosing to create a full life despite being imprisoned by circumstances

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

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A Gentleman in Moscow was my book club’s pick for February, otherwise I likely would never have picked it up.  Amongst our tiny group one person noped out, one person was struggling 100 pages in (unknown if they finished it), but I found myself curious and kept going.  While the writing could ramble, sometimes giving asides that have no pertinence to the story, I found myself drawn into the tiny world of Count Alexander Rostov sentenced to live the rest of his life at the Metropol […]

Who Knew You Could Learn So Much About Tennis from a Novel?

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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What would you do to defend your legacy? How hard would you work to regain a lost record? For Carrie Soto, 37-year old retired tennis star, it isn’t a hypothetical. She’s just watched Nicki Chan earn her 20th Grand Slam title, tying the record that Carrie set five years prior. Carrie’s entire career was urged on by her drive to be the greatest, and she is not going to stand by and watch another take her place at the top. So, as the title says, […]

Crime, suspense and romance in Regency England

The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies (The Ill-Mannered Ladies Book 1) by Alison Goodman

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Shoutout to Narfna for bringing this book to my attention! This was a very entertaining novel that contains three exciting adventures featuring a highly unusual woman in Regency England. Lady Augusta Colebrook is forty-something, single, and a member of the noble class. She and her fraternal twin sister Lady Julia are well connected and well liked in London society, but then again very few people know about their private activities. When we meet Augusta (Gus) and Julia, they are attempting to help a married friend […]

“We didn’t call the police right away.”

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim

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This book is the “One Book One Community” pick for my local library this year and is the story of a family frantically searching for their missing father, told from the perspective of his 20-year-old daughter, Mia. From the opening sentence, “We didn’t call the police right away” I was gripped with Kim’s novel and Mia’s storytelling. I found this book to be very readable and hard to put down, and specifically catered to my literary and personal interests. First of all, done well I […]



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