Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

If you thought Dan Brown was bad…

The Witch of Babylon by DJ McIntosh

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The back cover blurb for this book positions it as a sort of ‘DaVinci’s Code set in ancient Mesopotamia!’: mysterious and powerful ancient artifacts, a deadly conspiracy to keep these artifacts secreted, and an antiques dealer protagonist who is out to solve the mystery. John Madison is the antiques dealer protagonist, and his adventure into ancient Iraq begins when his older half brother, Samuel, an archeologist, is killed in a mysterious accident. Unbeknownst to John, his brother has sold their joint New York City apartment […]

Memory Whole

A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham

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Stacy Willingham doesn’t imbue a Louisiana-based novel with enough Louisiana-ness but that’s about the only real complaint I have of her stellar debut effort here. As a frequent mystery/thriller/crime reader, I know all the tricks and tells. I know when I’m about to be duped. I generally know who the killer is early on. There’s just only so many ways a writer can retell the same story. This is why I find myself more often interested in the whydunnit than the who- or howdunnit. What […]

“The thing is, and maybe I’m biased by all those years I’ve spent in fictional realms built on deceit, I don’t trust narrators any more than I trust the actual people in my life. We never get the whole truth, not from anybody.” #CBRBINGO – Elephant

Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson

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This was the first of two extremely entertaining thrillers that I read by Peter Swanson in 2022. I fear I may have read his best work now, so I’m not sure if I’ll be checking out any more of his stuff, but I can absolutely recommend Eight Perfect Murders as a stand-out thriller (along with The Kind Worth Killing). Holy shit, was this thing a page-turner. So the plot here is that bookshop owner Malcolm Kershaw, years ago, compiled a list of literature’s most perfect […]

If Enemy Pie, Casper the friendly ghost, and Dr. Doolittle made a book

Batcat by Meggie Ramm

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Batcat by Meggie Ramm is a cute story about not being just one thing, but a mix of things that makes you, you and special. Batcat has a problem. It is called a Ghost. A very annoying, obnoxious ghost. You see, Batcat wants to be alone. Drink their hot chocolate alone. Sleep alone. Eat alone. Watch tv alone. Play video games alone. And most importantly, when they have an ice cream craving, they want to go to the freezer and find their ice cream not eaten […]

Very few people believed that they were bad, and this was the scariest part. Human nature could be so hideous, but it persisted in this ugliness by insisting it was good.”

Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka

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Cannonball Read Bingo: Scandal In one word: Evocative This book came by recommendation of a like-minded reading pal who threw the phrase “best book I read all year” out, so I decided that reading it was a no-brainer, especially as I was looking for something dark and spooky. It doesn’t get much darker than a male serial killer of women, especially as true crime is having such a surge in popularity in recent years. Plus, I needed something for my Cannonball Read bingo “scandal” card […]

Not velvet, more like scratchy polyester

Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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  Having really enjoyed Moreno-Garcia’s novel, Mexican Gothic, I ordered Velvet Was the Night excitedly, hopeful for another arresting story that was gripping from the start. Unfortunately, that was not what I got from this book. It took me much longer to get into it, and I may have set myself up for disappointment since I was holding it up to Mexican Gothic. It took me several days to finish this book, which isn’t the case with a book I am actively enjoying, I can […]



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