Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Sometimes a life is so entirely disrupted, on such a large and ungraspable scale, all one can do is face the ruined day.”

The Christie Affair by Nina De Gramont

by Leave a Comment

This is much more like what I wanted from 2021’s The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, a book which also speculates on what happened to Agatha Christie when she went missing for eleven days in 1926. At the same time, I could not have predicted what avenues this story would take. So really, it’s more like this gave me the feelings I was looking for, even if not in the way I expected. The other book gave me a plot more like I expected but was lacking […]

I don’t understand why people like this one, either!!

Lavender House by Lev A.C. Rosen

by Leave a Comment

Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the content of my review. I’m not sure how much help my review is going to be here, because I’m pretty certain I would have given it a different rating (though maybe not that different) had I not done the audio. I really wish I hadn’t jumped on this ARC instead of waiting for the hard copy to come in to my library. This is a queer murder mystery. It is not like Knives […]

“The woman was a holy terror: the sweetest face, the pillowiest bosom, and a perspicacity that stripped a man naked in seconds.”

The Hollow of Fear (Lady Sherlock, #3) by Sherry Thomas

by Leave a Comment

This series is so fun. I think this is my favorite one so far, because it did two things. First, the plot hinges on Charlotte/Sherlock saving her dear friend and would-be paramour Lord Ingram from murder charges when his wife turns up dead on his estate in a gruesome fashion. And second, we finally get to see Charlotte in action at crime scenes and investigating herself. She does this by inventing another Holmes brother and dressing up as a man, saying she is both there […]

Does what it says on the tin. #CBRBINGO – Snake

The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray

by Leave a Comment

The short, spoiler-free version: Two thumbs up, very fun. Surprisingly angsty. Does justice to murder mysteries and to Jane Austen. The longer, mostly spoiler-free version (spoils the premise and which characters are in the book from the Jane Austen canon): But where is Elinor?? I am disappointed that she only merits a couple of mentions in this book when we are in Marianne’s POV, but maybe Claudia Gray just doesn’t love her as much as I do. That’s pretty easy to do, I guess, because […]

“And then Sherlock Holmes had turned out to be a woman with loose morals and no remorse.”

A Conspiracy in Belgravia (Lady Sherlock, #2) by Sherry Thomas

by 2 Comments

I spent my July 4th holiday off work reading about a fictional British character based on another fictional British character. I read this whole thing in a day, but even if I hadn’t had the day off work, I would have zoomed through it. I just love this series, its whole vibe. I’ve said this before, but I’m so impressed with how Sherry Thomas has managed to create her own sort of chemistry with these characters and these stories, when reimaginings can often feel pretty […]

Fascinating historical fantasy mystery, an okay romance.

Rag and Bone (Rag and Bone, #1) by K.J. Charles

by Leave a Comment

Sometimes this happens with K.J. Charles and me—and it’s often in this particular magical world of hers, come to think of it—where I am way more interested in the plot and worldbuilding than I am in the central romance. Here, partly it’s because the couple are already together at the start of the book, and the tension of “will they stay together” is just not as inherently interesting to me as “how will they get together and when”. But also, partly, there’s just something about […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo