Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I Love Swiss Cheese But Not As a Plot Device

The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf

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True Crime writer Wylie’s life is a mess: she’s divorced, she’s having a fight with her teenage son, and there’s a book that needs finishing, so she does what any sane person would do: rent the house where the crime she’s writing about took place (the place has been uninhabited for twenty years, but is somehow still livable, unvandalised, and connected to the grid) so she can finish her novel. Of course, a snow storm rears its head, cutting off the electricity. Of course, she […]

Amazing Grace

How To Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie

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Total psychopath or justifiably big mad at her treatment at the hands of her wealthy bio-family? That’s for us and a jury of her peers to decide! Grace Bernard has been imprisoned for a murder she didn’t commit. But not for any of the several murders she did carry out. Getting away with all of the murders is the ultimate goal, but as Grace languishes in prison waiting for her appeal she’s got some time to kill. What better way to fill that time than […]

Two Writers

We Are Watching by Alison Gaylin

Saint of the Narrows Street by William Boyle

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I finished two books this past week and enjoyed them to varying degrees. One was by a favorite author, another by an author I’ve struggled with in the past. Let’s get to the latter first since I like going in reading order… We Are Watching**** I’ve always felt cold toward Alison Gaylin’s work. She’s a very good writer and yet, there’s an emotional distance in her books that I can’t land with. It’s the same issue I get when watching most Christopher Nolan movies: yeah […]

“For four years we spied and we worked damn hard and we saved people’s lives and we made a difference and nobody cared too much that we were women. And then it all ended.”

The Three Lives of Alix St. Pierre by Natasha Lester

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Ex-OSS agent Alix St. Pierre seeks a fresh start in Paris as the PR agent for the freshly established House of Dior, but her actions and enemies from during the war continue to dog her steps. This was the oldest NetGalley ARC on my shelf, so it’s with a real sense of satisfaction that I’m crossing it off the list. And it was fun to see yet another fresh perspective on World War Two, that of a female OSS agent, and better yet to see […]

Where’s The Abyss When You Need It?

Murder on Canvas by Aaron Ben-Shahar

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Normally, I like reading. Curling up with a book and a strong cup of tea is how I like to end my days usually. Reading makes me happy. This book, however, made me regret not only learning how to read, but that there are light sources in the world that I can read by. My mother once hurled a book across a room she was so disgusted by it; I want to hurl this one into the sun, a black hole, or the abyss, whichever […]

“I am forty four and I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.”

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

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When Sally catapults to national attention for putting her adoptive father’s body out with the trash, little does she know that this is not the first time she’s been in the headlines. I don’t read a lot of suspense, but after seeing this book all over my Goodreads feed the last couple of years I was sufficiently intrigued. That’s a pretty startling image to start off with, one’s father in the trash! Nugent creates a fascinating dual character study following Sally and Peter, and I […]



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