Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Don’t Bring Helen! (Or Please Do)

The Expectant Detectives by Kat Ailes

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CBR16 Bingo: Games – Alice and her friends take up the murder investigation as diversion more than anything else while waiting to give birth, though things aren’t all fun and games for very long. Alice and her partner Joe move to the countryside hoping to raise their soon-to-be born son in a peaceful environment, but that peace is shattered when a local store owner is found murdered during the course of an eventful antenatal class. I’ve read plenty of flavors of cozy mystery, but a […]

The Navajo Lens

Shutter by Ramona Emerson

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I have always pursued good character-driven crime fiction. Yes, plotting is important and necessary to a good story but as I’ve said many times, I need a reason to care about what’s going on. The less I care about the characters, the less I’ll care about what’s going down. This is why whodunits rarely do it for me: they’re too focused on the mystery to make me care about who killed who. Shutter is not a tightly-plotted novel and that might bother some readers but I was so […]

Liar Liar Pants Incredibly on Fire

First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

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This was very much a case of right book, right time. I needed something fast-paced and twisty that would absorb me fully and let me focus on the characters’ trials and tribulations.  And this book delivered exactly what I needed!   The book follows Evie Porter, except that is not her real name.  And the whole history she has spun for her boyfriend Ryan is not true.  Evie and Ryan’s completely coincidental meeting was also anything but coincidental.   But Evie is not scamming Ryan becasue […]

Murder mystery with women you won’t like

Scenes of the Crime by Jilly Gagnon

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This is a classic beach or vacation read, with I Know What You Did Last Summer vibes but. You know, I say that, but I haven’t read that actual book. I might have watched the movie a looooong time ago though. Ok, there are major differences probably. But we have a group of friends, including Emily, who lost their friend Vanessa one fateful night at her family winery conveniently high up on a treacherous ocean cliff. At Emily’s suggestion, several years later, the friends reunite. […]

Murder on an interplanetary cruise

The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

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What: A murder mystery in space!  Lovebirds Tesla Crane and Shal Steward are celebrating their honeymoon on an interplanetary cruise ship.  Tesla’s notoriety has them traveling incognito and all is going well until Shal finds a woman who has been stabbed in the corridor.  When the woman dies shortly thereafter, he is accused of murder.  Tesla and Shal work to solve the murder, clear his name, and try to have a honeymoon! Who:  Tesla Crane is a ridiculously rich heiress and retired roboticist.  Living with […]

Unlikable Characters Doing Inexplicable Things

Tell Me Who You Are by Louisa Luna

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The story: Dr. Caroline Strange is a psychiatrist in Brooklyn. She has a very inflated sense of self-worth, believing she knows what’s best for everyone, and gives all of her patients cutesy, cringy, cruel nicknames like Tawdry Twyla and Weepy Jasmine. One morning a new patient arrives, tells her, “I’m going to kill someone, and I know who you really are,” and walks out. This sets off twin storylines, narrated by three different characters–1) Caroline in the present, trying to figure out who this guy […]



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