Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Bayou Bengals

Heaven's Prisoners by James Lee Burke

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When I was a kid, I used to go with my dad to visit his parents, who retired to a bayou in north Louisiana. And while north Louisiana is almost a drastically different state than south Louisiana, the flourishes of French culture combined with the marshlands, cypress trees, and petrostate aesthetic are still prevalent in that neck of the woods. So whenever I need to do some bayou reading, I look up the next David Robicheaux book from James Lee Burke. I plan on pouring […]

Ruby by Ruby

This is Your Time by Ruby Bridges

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This is Your Time by Ruby Bridges is a sweet book about a powerful event and time in history. Bridges own words show how it was to be the first one. How it was making history when you are not even double digits yet. She did not know what it all meant. She wanted to go to school. She did not understand why she was the only one in her classroom. She did not understand the toil it would take on her parents. And yet, […]

More Vacation Reading

Black Edge: Insider Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street by Sheelah Kolhatkar

Shadow State: Murder, Mayhem and Russia's Attack on the West by Luke Harding

Murder in the Bayou: Who Killed the Women Known as the Jeff Davis 8? by Ethan Brown

The Thief Who Couldn't Sleep by Lawrence Block

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I was on vacation last week (with all the requisite social distancing procedures) and I did a lot of vacation reading. I’m not sure why but lately I’ve been on a non-fiction kick, thus, three out of the four books I read were non-fic. Fortunately for me, everything I read was at least good and all merited the coveted 4-stars. Black Edge I became interested in this story when I learned that Steve Cohen and Preet Bharara’s relationship was the basis for the hit Showtime […]

Love, Hound Dogs and Country Music

Dear Hank Williams by Kimberly Willis Holt

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I like Kimberly Willis Holt as an author. I think most things she has written, even if I am not a huge fan, I will enjoy. Yet, I really went at Dear Hank Williams with no expectations. Granted, my first thought was “How many kids are going to know who Hank Williams is?” But soon realized that is not the important part. This book might be set in the late 1940’s but in many ways, it could be set almost anytime. There is some history […]

A tree nymph with a past finds love in a small town

Even Tree Nymphs Get the Blues by Molly Harper

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This year, I’ve been living for the paranormal romance audiobooks. They make my commute bearable. Molly Harper’s Even Tree Nymphs Get the Blues is set in Mystic Bayou where supernatural beings coexist with humans. I have a soft spot for supernatural tales set in Louisiana after the Sookie Stackhouse series. The series was the gateway drug that got me reading again after a long absence. Since this is a stand-alone novella, I happily dove without reading the first two books. Said tree nymph is Ingrid […]

CBRBingo – Birthday. A Little Lagniappe

Gumbo Life: Tales from the Roux Bayou by Ken Wells

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CBR Bingo – Birthday! I don’t think I’m alone in this, but at the launch of CBR Bingo I already had a few books in the queue so I am doing what I can to find space on the bingo card for them, at times having to pull off a bit of a shoehorn situation. And thus, I discovered the Ken Wells’ birthday was August 5th. BOOM. SQUARED. Also, after reading this book, I sent the following Facebook message to the author. No response yet, […]



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