Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Great Second Entry to a Series

What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher

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I don’t understand how T. Kingfisher manages to build up so much dread in her Sworn Soldier novellas, but she’s done it again in What Feasts at Night. We rejoin Alex Easton a few months after the terrible ordeal in Ruravia, and Alex pretty clearly has some PTSD from almost being taken over by a sentient fungus. But their friend (and fellow fungus survivor) Miss Potter has asked to use their hunting lodge as a base for mushroom hunting in Gallacia, and so Alex and […]

Unfussy (and that’s a good thing)

The Boy from the Woods by Harlan Coben

Dead Lake by Darcy Coates

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After forcing my way through one of the hallmarks of 19th century European literature (voluntarily, no less) I decided I deserved something less fussy, and so I picked Coates (always a reliable plck for moderately scary yet uncomplicated) and Harlan Coben, whom I’d never read before and kept putting off because people were giving me high expectations.  Let me preface this by saying I’m typing this after spending the entire weekend abroad with my students and coherence is not my forte at the moment, so […]

“The great fish moved silently through the night water”

Jaws by Peter Benchley

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before – there is this village on Long Island, and it’s summer 1974, and there’s this shark and it’s killing people. Which is a problem. It’s a problem because a) dead people and b) this coastal village’s livelihood is based on tourism, namely summer tourism and now the tourists could end up as shark food. So, there is a kind of willful ignorance and pretending everything is fine on behalf of village officials because they need that summer […]

Creatures In The Mist

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

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All the creepy existential dread your gothic little heart could desire. Opal is scratching out a meager existence in Eden, Kentucky- a small town plagued by more than its fair share of bad luck. With no remorse she will lie, cheat, and steal in service of a better life for her younger brother out of this miserable place. Opal is offered a surprisingly well paid job as housekeeper at Starling House. She knows she shouldn’t take the job, she knows there’s something wrong with the […]

Fever Dream on the Northern Atlantic

The Last One by Will Dean

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Her trip on the luxury ocean liner RMS Atlantica is supposed to be the vacation of a lifetime, but when Caz wakes up to find that every other person on the ship seems to have vanished, it becomes a waking nightmare instead. It’s a good thing I went on my first cruise before I read this book. Partly because it makes it easier to visualize the setting, and partly I probably would have been more anxious about wandering around its deserted decks or corridors late […]

“Black History is Black Horror”

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

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Tananarive Due is one of the preeminent voices in Black Horror. The above quote is from her. She authored my favorite haunted house book, The Good House, so she is definitely on my auto read list when she puts out a new book. This latest offering did not disappoint. This book is part horror and part historical fiction which takes place in the Jim Crow South. As you might imagine it’s not an easy read, but it’s extremely worth your time and attention. Robbie Stevens […]



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