Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

We’re All Named After Murder Victims. What Could Go Wrong?

The Family Plot: A Novel by Megan Collins

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Living on a secluded island mansion, the Lighthouse family allows no outsider into their lives. The parents, obsessed with all things true crime, named their four children after various victims; the eldest, Charlie (the Lindbergh baby), his twin Tate (after Sharon Tate), Dahlia (after the Black Dahlia), and her twin Andrew (after Lizzie Borden’s father). Everything is fine in their lives until the sudden disappearance of Andy one night, with barely a note left behind. Back on the island to bury her father after ten […]

“Hatred is the sincerest form of flattery.”

If We Were Villains: A Novel by M.L. Rio

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“If We Were Villains” tells the story of Oliver Marks, finishing his ten-year sentence in prison for murder, met at the gate by Joseph Colborne, the detective on the case. Never believing Oliver was guilty, Colburne wants to know what actually happened all those years ago, back when Oliver was a lower-income student on scholarship at the Dellecher Classical Conservatory, an exclusive and cliquish art school. In on an acting scholarship, Oliver joined the acting set and their obsession with all things Shakespeare, where he […]

First Lie Wins: the spy thriller that wasn’t

First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

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mood music: Secrets – the weeknd Yet again, I find myself in the minority opinion after my latest “read.” I chose to listen to the audiobook version of this title while nursing a cold, and while the first third of the story was intriguing and well-paced, the latter two-thirds fell apart for me in a way that I had to read a summary to understand what happened at the end. To me, it felt like there were a lot of plot points that were left […]

An interesting take on the dystopian genre

The Last One by Alexandra Oliva

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A reality TV show launches 12 contestants into the woods, fending for their own survival and the chance to win a huge prize. The last person able to survive alone wins the money and bragging rights. Cut off from the rest off the world, they are left to their own devices to survive in the wilderness and win the competition. The producers of the show give nicknames to each contestant; our protagonist is Zoo. She’s plucky and bookish, and has a hard time adjusting to […]

“Beautiful girl, lovely dress, where she is now I can only guess”

Good as Gone by Amy Gentry

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How does it affect a family when the worst thing imaginable happens? How do parents influence their child’s decisions without even realizing that they’re doing it? How do you deal with the fact that your long lost loved one might be an imposter? These are some of the themes throughout Amy Gentry’s suspense novel Good as Gone. The novel begins eight years from the present day when young Julie Whitaker is taken from her bedroom at knife point by an unknown abductor never to be […]



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