Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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I'm a mom of two and a voracious reader. I love happily-ever-afters and space ships. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: llamareadsbooks's Quick Questions interview.)

llamareadsbooks's Reviews:

“In the end, we are always our hunger.”

Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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That cover is gorgeous! And hey, who doesn’t want to read a book about a vampire and her glowing dog? “Bribes could buy almost anything back north, but this was not the North. This was good old Mexico City, which had fallen to the Spaniards but would not yield to vampires.” In this alternate world, vampires were revealed to the world in the 1970s, leading to political upheaval all over the world. While the rest of Mexico may be controlled by various vampire gangs, Mexico […]

“What about me doesn’t feel real?”

The Inn on Sweetbriar Lane by Jeannie Chin

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Every once in a while I get an itch for a small town romance, but the lack of diversity and the suspension of disbelief (sure, every small town can support a cupcake bakery and a bookstore and a yarn shop and a cute coffee shop and…) can get a bit grating. But this book? It scratches that small town itch while addressing those issues, plus has a pretty fun enemies-to-lovers angle. After a tragic incident that left him wounded, Clay has arrived in the small […]

An excellent spec fiction anthology

The Year's Best African Speculative Fiction (2021) by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki

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I absolutely adore speculative fiction anthologies, so when I saw that both C.L. Clark and T.L. Huchu had stories in this one, I had to read it. This is a collection of twenty-nine stories from 2020 told by African or African diaspora writers, a good mix of science fiction, fantasy and horror. There are stories that deal with age-old problems like racism and parenthood and newer ones like climate change and gentrification, from robot revolutions to vengeful djinn. Most of the stories were a solid […]

Another small-town, second-chance Christmas romance

No Ordinary Christmas by Belle Calhoune

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It’s no secret that I love second chance romances and holiday romances, so one that combined the two? Should’ve been a homerun. Unfortunately, while there was quite a bit of both that worked, the book overall didn’t hit well for me. Dante and Lucy grew up together in the little town of Mistletoe, Maine. They’d been childhood friends and then in a relationship, until he unexpectedly took off for California, throwing away all their careful plans for the future. In the almost nine years since, he’s […]

Fake relationship, second chance category romance

Just a Little Married by Reese Ryan

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This third and final book in the Moonlight Ridge trilogy is the whole reason I started reading it! I love Reese Ryan’s books, and I’m the sort of completionist who can’t just jump in with the third book, but I’ve definitely enjoyed discovering new authors. And this is the perfect finale for me with a mix of the second chance and fake relationship tropes! “Unlike his lovestruck brothers, Travis would happily stick to his “bachelor life,” get Moonlight Ridge’s kitchen and catering services in shape, […]

“Why look after the soul of a thing if you’ve trained it to believe it has no soul?”

Activation Degradation by Marina J. Lostetter

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Oh, hello, blurb that barely scratches the surface of this book. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting in to with this book, but it was exactly what I needed right now. At its heart, it’s a book about found family, about finding the people who love you even when you mess up, who love you for who you are and not what you can do for them. “It had a job to do. It wanted to do its job. It wanted to pilot […]



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