Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“For the one you love? Anything. You unmake the world and build a new one. You do anything to give them what they need.”

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

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4.5 stars CBR17 Bingo: G (A book title starting with G)   After months of online research, Alice Scott has tracked down the reclusive former tabloid darling Margaret Ives and hopes to persuade the woman to let Alice write her biography. Imagine the unpleasant surprise for Alice when it turns out that Margaret might not want to tell her life’s story at all, and she basically wants to ‘audition’ Alice and another writer for the next month, before she makes up her mind. That other […]

A romance about audiobook narrators, by a queen of audiobook narration

Thank You for Listening by Julia Whelan

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Sewanee (pronounced Swanie, several characters call her Swan) Chester was a child actress on a popular sitcom, but a serious injury while filming her big break as an adult led to her losing an eye and becoming permanently scarred, so now she makes her living as an audiobook narrator. While it may not be as glamorous as acting, she’s very good at it and has won several awards. Early in her career, she also narrated romance novels, but now her cynicism makes it too hard […]

“You’re the reason for for the word wonderful. It really shouldn’t be used for anything else.”

Funny Story by Emily Henry

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CBR16 Sweet Books: Exciting Daphne used to have the perfect life. Working as a children’s librarian, living in a beautiful house with her fiancée Peter, Then, returning from his bachelor party, a shame-faced Peter confesses that he is in fact in love with his best friend Petra, and Daphne has one week to move all her things out of the house (which is owned entirely by Peter). Concluding that Petra’s equally dumped boyfriend Miles probably has some free space in his flat, Daphne moves in […]

Audiobooks, take me away!

Thank You For Listening by Julia Whelan

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A hundred years or so ago, I had an office job I hated that also had a horribly long commute. Desperate for entertainment, I started checking audiobooks out of the library. Suddenly my 45-minute drive was filled with stories and the drive didn’t feel nearly as long as it was. Audiobooks have come a long way since 2007. Now there are multi-cast recordings, graphic audio adaptations with sound effects, and celebrity memoirs narrated by the actual celebrities who wrote them. Julia Whelan is a giant […]

“The only good thing about getting old is nothing, but I don’t complain.”

Thank You For Listening by Julia Whelan

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There is a growing trend of books being written FOR audio and I absolutely love it. Plot: Sewanee Chester wanted to be an actress, and thanks to some nepotism, genetics, and actual talent, she made it big. And then she promptly UN-made it and retreated to audiobook narration. Fortunately, she is excellent at that too. Less fortunately, audiobook narrators aren’t exactly bringing in Marvel money, and she needs cash. So she dusts off the pen name she used when she started, back when romance novels […]

Overall good but appreciated the stories by characters that aren’t Harry Dresden in particular.

Brief Cases by Jim Butcher

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Last year I listened to the first Dresden Files short story collection, Side Jobs, to be able to listen to the excellent narration by James Marsters (on the recommendation of ardaigle!).  Marsters is a great narrator but he fell short when it came time for Karrin Murphy’s story at the end of the book.  For the next collection of short stories, Brief Cases, they brought on two female narrators, Cassandra Campbell and Julia Whelan for stories from Anastasia Luccio and Molly Carpenter’s POV.  No disrespect to […]



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