Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

All I did was phone you. Then be in the same restaurant as you. Then watch you from across a crowded coffee place. Then follow you down a street when it’s getting dark and there’s no one else around and oh okay right yeah I’m seeing it now yep it’s dawning on me…

When Grumpy Met Sunshine by Charlotte Stein

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I don’t even know how to talk about this book. One of the things I loved best about it was the way Charlotte Stein used words to illuminate her characters, but I’m reading an advance reader copy so I’m not supposed to quote from it. I’m going to have to share a quote though because otherwise I’m just going to blather a bunch of dumb words at you. She saw it happen, almost immediately. All in one big rush, like he couldn’t contain it. Her […]

Gorgeous

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams

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Tia Williams has just made me like a fated lovers romance. Not like. Love. Lovers who are destined for each other is one of my least favorite tropes, but WIlliams makes this work for me. She throws in the right mix of magic and logic, and gives us achingly human characters. Now is the perfect time to read this. A lot of the action takes place in February 2024. Williams grounds her magic in the leap year, almost making me believe in the magic of […]

No Winners in Crime and Politics

The Peking Express by James M Zimmerman

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A train full of wealthy passengers, both foreign and Chinese, is wending its way across the country to Peking. But after being taken hostage by bandits, their plight goes from bad to worse as geopolitics rear their head too. In the summer of 1923, Chinese bandits robbed a luxurious train and took over 300 of its passengers hostage, including many foreign citizens. As the situation became worse and the consequences mounted, it became an international crisis that eventually struck a blow against the stability of […]

The Past is a Different Country

Wanderlust: An Eccentric Explorer, an Epic Journey, a Lost Age by Reid Mitenbuler

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Peter Freuchen first rose to prominence as an Arctic explorer in the early twentieth century, but during his long adventurous life he wore many other hats, becoming a best-selling author, working in Hollywood, and being imprisoned in a Nazi prison camp for being a member of the resistance. I like exploration stories. They introduce you to an old world that no longer exists, they have the kinds of details that boggle the mind, and are usually populated with exactly the eccentric kinds of people you’d […]

“Really, if one could not capture a moment in four lines, what was one doing? “

Write for Me, Marquess by Kate Archer

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Juliet, the youngest of the Bennington sisters, has decided that the man she marries must be a poet. And there’s even one in London interested in her – even if his haikus underwhelm her. Certainly a sporting man like the Marquess of Hamill will not suit her, no matter how handsome she finds him. This is the fifth book in the series, but not the final – for the sole Bennington brother remains to be wed. But Juliet is the last daughter, and I was […]

Dead As a Doornail

Strange Ways to Die in History by Ben Gazur

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In this book, we are taken on a tour of various bizarre and ironic deaths that people have died over the past several millennia, some with plenty of backstory and some just as vignettes. I am a macabre person – I enjoy true crime, creepy mysteries, high strange events. But sometimes you want to return to the basics, and that for me is weird stories from history. A dash of humor on the side is always appreciated too. As such, this book sounded right up […]



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