Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“The things my brother and I don’t say could pave over the Atlantic Ocean.”

Seven For a Secret (Timothy Wilde, #2) by Lyndsay Faye

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See, this is why I was asking how many five-star reviews in a month is too many, because I kind of want to give this one five stars, too! Great mystery, great character work (brothers! <3 <3), great second book in a trilogy (a rare thing!), impeccable historical fiction. This is the main book I read while on vacation last week, and because I was distracted by friends and food and reality TV (they made me watch Love is Blind!!! ilikedit), I read it over […]

“Historians, I think, should be keepers of truth. We must tell things as they are – honestly, and without subversion. That is the greatest good one can do.”

City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1) by Robert Jackson Bennett

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Rating four stars (4.5, really) on the side of caution with full knowledge that I could come back here very soon and bump this up to five stars. How many five-star reviews is too many to give out in one month? Anyway, this book was great! This is only the second series I’ve read by Robert Jackson Bennett, but I feel like it might have bumped him up to my favorite authors list. I five-starred both published books in his latest series, so I had […]

A juicy gossipy fiction about old Hollywood

Scandal in Babylon by Barbara Hambly

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This book was entertaining.  Set in 1924 in Hollywood, amidst the glitz and glamour of old Tinseltown in it’s glory days, we are plunged into the story fairly quickly.  Emma Blackstone has come to the U.S. to be an assistant of sorts to her famous sister-in-law Kitty Flint, star of the movie being filmed.  Emma lost her husband in the war, and was in need of somewhere to live when Kitty swooped in to help.  Now Emma finds herself on a movie set, keeping an […]

“You cannot be betrayed by someone you do not trust.”

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

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This cover is gorgeous!  It may have sucked me into checking this out, but I stayed for the story.  This is one of those books that jumps from present time back to a point in history.  I’ve read several of these; it’s a popular theme that usually involves distant relatives.  However, in this case, it’s a young woman, Caroline Parcewell, in present day who finds out her husband has cheated on her, and she takes off to London on what was supposed to be the […]

Cozy and Enjoyable

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

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The Thursday Murder Club is a murder mystery (sort of a cozy?) that takes place in a retirement community. If you’re looking for a perfectly enjoyable mystery that’s never scary but has more depth than a cozy and will also make you laugh, this might be a good choice. The four main characters, Joyce, Elizabeth, Ibrahim, and Ron enjoy solving old murders in their spare time, but when a developer is murdered in their community, they decide to help the police (whether the police like it […]

There is more food in this one than in the last one, if that’s even possible. Have your local Filipino restaurant on standby whilst reading.

Homicide and Halo-Halo (Tita Rosie's Kitchen, #2) by Mia P. Manansala

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I told myself I would continue with this series if the writing got better in this book, and it did! There were a couple rather tragic instances of dialogue (see below*), but for the most part both the dialogue and inner narration/characterization for Lila got much better. I feel like I have a better handle on who she is as a person, where in the first one she was sort of a blank slate. There is still a lot of room for improvement, but I […]



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