Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

An Unexpected Reading Week

The Herd by Andrea Bartz

Cross to Bear by John Maginnis

Hiding In Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump by Sarah Kendzior

Quarry's List by Max Allan Collins

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This turned out to be an unexpected reading week for me as I knocked out four books between Monday and tonight. However, I worked a lot this week and was just too damn tired to log everything when I was finished so I’m dropping it all here. The Herd 3 stars I gave Andrea Bartz’s debut a weak 4-stars as I graded it on the new author curve. It was a fun New York tale but I feel like it could have been better. I was […]

A bit of a bummer after the high of #9.

The Long Way Home (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #10) by Louise Penny

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Actually, I’ve slept on it, and this book makes me angry. My initial review was a little wishy-washy, because for 95% of this book, the writing is like an experimental offshoot of the normal series. There is no crime to solve; Gamache is retired. Instead, Peter has failed to come home on time after his and Clara’s separation, and Clara wants to find him, so Gamache, Beauvoir, and Myrna accompany her on an investigation road trip to basically follow in his footsteps. Only, pretty much […]

Guinness book of world records, record for least Miss Marple in a Miss Marple book.

The Moving Finger (Miss Marple, #4) by Agatha Christie

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This was fun, but it felt much less like a whodunit than I wanted it to, and Miss Marple came in late to the story even for Miss Marple. I think it may be a record of some sort, how little and how late she was in this book (and her parts were the best parts). Our narrator is actually Jerry Barton, a man who has moved to the small village of Lymstock on the advice of his doctor. Jerry is recovering from a plane […]

A dream is a wish your heart makes (Cannonball!)

Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater

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#CBR12 Bingo: Orange (would also work for Fresh Start) This is the start of a new series, so it stands alone. You don’t have to have read Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle series, starting with The Raven Boys, but it gives a lot of useful background to Ronan and the other Lynch brothers.   Official book description: The dreamers walk among us . . . and so do the dreamed. Those who dream cannot stop dreaming – they can only try to control it. Those who are dreamed cannot have their […]

“The rumors were fed well and grew fat and solid. They sprouted legs and heads, and they never died.”

The Dry (Aaron Falk, #1) by Jane Harper

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I really liked this. Just a very solid murder mystery with good character work, and great atmosphere. Set in a small farming town in rural Australia, The Dry follows two murder cases, one from twenty years back when Aaron lived in the town with his father, and in present day as Aaron has come back to town for the first time to attend the funeral of his former best friend, Luke Hadler, who in addition to killing himself, also murdered his wife and small son, […]

“If I had to get there without friends, I could do it. Had been doing it. I’d never met anyone who brought me somewhere I wanted to stay, looked at me and saw someone I wanted to be for good; anyone who was worth giving up the more I wanted down the line.”

The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5) by Tana French

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This is still my least favorite Dublin Murder book, but I found a little something more in it this time. I was actually kind of dreading revisiting this one, because the prospect of getting inside all those teenage girls’ heads just felt like way too much to handle at the moment. I used to be a teenaged girl, and I do not miss it. French is such a good writer, so evocative, that I just knew it was going to bring me right back to […]



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