Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Five stars for The Five. Plus, a quadruple BINGO and board blackout!

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

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CBR15 BINGO (QUADRUPLE BINGO AND BINGO BLACKOUT): History, because it tells the true, untold history of the women murdered by Jack the Ripper Vertical bingo: South America, Dwelling, Hold Steady, Strange Worlds, History Horizontal bingo: History, Bodies, Bodies, Adulthood, Edibles, Europe Diagonal bingo: History, Queer Lives, North America, Violence, Sex 4 corners and center square: South America, Sex, Europe, History, North America I’m a fan of historical true crime stories, particularly those that happened before the 20th century; however, I have never read a book […]

Death (and other Nonsense) on the Nile

Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

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My mom and I shared a love of Ancient Egypt, mythology and archaeology. She was a big fan of Elizabeth Peters mysteries, and I have had a few of the paperbacks from her mystery novel collection buried in my to-read piles for years. I finally decided to dig them out and give Peters a try. The first novel in the series, Crocodile on the Sandbank, introduces readers to her Victorian-era heroine, Amelia Peabody. Amelia is a no-nonsense, feisty woman who has also inherited an interest […]

Crossdressing, murder, and blackmail, oh my!

The Body at the Tower (The Agency #2) by Y. S. Lee

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(Note: mild spoilers for Book #1, A Spy in the House.) This has been a fun series to read in the evenings when winding down: the plotting is nicely propulsive, historical London is very well-centered, and Mary Quinn (née Lang) remains an engaging protagonist. This sophomore entry in Lee’s The Agency series picks up about a year after the first book left off: she is now a full member of the all-ladies investigatory firm concealed within Miss Scrimshaw’s School for Girls, and her two superiors […]

The League of Extraordinary Women Strikes Again

A Rogue of One's Own by Evie Dunmore

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Hmm I feel bad giving this the same rating as the prior entry in the series, Bringing Down the Duke, because while similar this book is so very much better. It is, like the first book, at its heart a romance novel but like Serious and Literary, which you can tell because it gets a proper book release and the cover has the cartoon characters as opposed to a realistic drawing. No one is denying that part of it, there are tropes galore (the dowdy one […]

“The tricky thing about giving opinions is that sometimes they cost you more than you wanted to spend.”

The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee

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Jo Kuan and her father figure Old Jin have gotten by pretty well, considering they are Chinese Americans in the deep South of 1890.  Old Jin works as a horse caretaker for a local wealthy family, and Jo has a talent for millinery, so she is hopeful for an apprenticeship at the shop she works.  However, she is abruptly fired one day due to her supposed overly-frank attitude with customers (“You make the customers uncomfortable”).  Old Jin is able to get her a position as […]

A Romance? Historical Fiction? Who Knows?

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Through some rabbit hole on the internet, I stumbled across the name Anya Seton and a fancy cover for her book, The Turqouise. Intrigued, I waited patiently for the inter-library loan snail to bring it to me, and boy was I surprised when the book delivered was a battered hardcover bound with actual thread and smelling of an octogenarian’s basement.  While slightly put-off, I accepted it anyway and went home to discover the strange and satisfying pleasure of reading an old book. I ripped my fare share […]



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