Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Strong start, weird finish

Guard Your Daughters by Diana Tutton

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Guard Your Daughters was Diana Tutton’s first published novel (1953) and became a bestseller. In some ways it reminded me of I Capture the Castle, Pride and Prejudice, and Little Women (the latter two are referenced by the characters). The five beautiful Harvey sisters live in post-war England with their parents in a country house, supporting each other’s creative endeavors and hoping to meet lovely young men to marry. Mr. Harvey is a prolific and successful novelist who spends all day writing; the little attention […]

But where are the crows?

The Puzzle Wood by Rosie Andrews

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(Hello Team, I am posting a review in June!  This is months earlier than I usually do!) I picked this book up on vacation in Edinburgh. The cover has crows on it and it looked good enough. Spoiler – there are no crows in the book at all. Weak sauce. I do not read much mystery at all. The pitch of “governess goes to isolated mansion in woods and things are spoooooooky” seemed like a diverting way to spend much of the flight home.   […]

I read a young adult book on India’s partition and felt like my heart was absolutely shredded

The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani

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The world is burning at the moment, and we may be hyper focused on the US trying to gun for the “Most Likely to Revert to a Dictatorship” award or Israel’s decision to start double-fisting wars or (literally happened today) US’s decision to join the Iran-Israel conflict — but do you know that WWIII came very close to breaking out in May? India and Pakistan — both nuclear-armed, and both sworn enemies since the Brits left — started bombing each other over militant attacks in […]

It’s hard to resist a book described as “The Dark Sapphic Romance that Inspired Dracula”

Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu

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Originally serialized in the magazine The Dark Blue from 1871-72, Carmilla is the first vampire story. Not only did it serve as the inspiration for for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, it was written by a woman. The novel is just over 150 pages long and is presented as a scientific account of events in the life of a young woman named Laura. The novel opens with an unknown intellectual explaining that he is including Laura’s case in volume 1 of a Dr. Hesselius’ collected papers. So […]

Together we can be worth more than the sum of our parts

Grown Women by Sarai Johnson

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Sarai Johnson teaches writing and literature courses at Howard and American Universities in the DC Area, and apparently wrote Grown Women, her first novel, in her free time. In my free time I do things like sleep, or sit around and do nothing, or make lists of things I should be doing. Okay okay, I also read the product of other people’s free time. Which bring us full circle to Grown Women, a novel about four generations of women, with the story beginning in 1974 […]

A Sheep Detective Story!

Three Bags Full: A Novel by Leonie Swann

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This charming murder mystery was originally published in German in 2005. The Deluxe Edition that I read came out this year, and apparently an animated movie with Hugh Jackman and Emma Thompson is due in 2026. I happened to see the sequel to this novel (Big Bad Wool) in Barnes and Noble, so I asked if they had the first book. If you enjoy cozy murder mysteries, look this one up. The action takes place in a quaint little Irish village called Glennkill, famous for […]



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