Trigger Warning: sexual assault I do not know much about hockey, I live in Texas and while Dallas has an NHL team the whole sport tends to fly under my radar, but you don’t need to know anything about hockey to be enraptured by Beartown. Saying I “enjoyed” Beartown doesn’t seem right, it isn’t a particularly enjoyable story, but like A Man Called Ove Backman delivers a very sad but beautiful story this time about life in a small Swedish town whose entire focus is on their youth hockey team. I’ve […]
There are few things sadder for a reader than a book which lets them down.
I am so disappointed in this book – I had high hopes for it but in the end I felt empty. I really wanted to like this one, but the writing bothered me too much. The story is fine, not great but fine. There were a lot of stereotypical plot contrivances along the way. There were several times I rolled my eyes; popular media needs to stop perpetuating lazy stereotypes. So, what is the story about? After hearing a story how her grandmother fell in […]
(It’s a witty aside, do you see?)
In 1940’s London, Juliet Armstrong is recruited to MI5. Initially doing mostly secretarial work, she finds herself tasked with more and more espionage, infiltrating right wing groups sympathising with Hitler. Ten years later, she’s working for the BBC when a run in with a former colleague brings her previous work back to haunt her. Is she going to pay for what she did for her country? I so struggled with this one, and it pains me to say it as I have enjoyed a couple […]
Women of her class are molded to be ornaments
At this point, I think enough Cannonballers have written rave reviews about Sherry Thomas’ “Lady Sherlock Series”. Just read these books if the subject matter appeals to you at all. They are a treasure and I think that each one is better than the last. “The Hollow of Fear” is the third book in the series. I have to admit, again, that my Sherlock Holmes background is via Madonna’s ex husband and Benedict Cumberbatch. I, therefore, come at these books without a reference point for […]