Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Giving the old tropes an update

Her Fake Date Until Midnight by Eve Pendle

by Leave a Comment

This is a book where I appreciate what the author is doing more than I actually enjoy the book. His Fake Date Until Midnight felt like Pendle took the category romances from the late 1970s – 80s and then gave it all an update. Clara is insecure and a bit of a doormat. She’s also an enormously competent vet and not insecure when it comes to doing her job. The job itself is insecure because her jerk boss is the father of her jerk ex, and […]

A Prayer for the Cannonball

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers

by 9 Comments

I opened A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, read the first sentence and felt my shoulders lower and my jaw unclench. This is a difficult book to review because my response to it is a blend of intellectual and emotional that’s hard to capture. It’s easy to describe one or the other and harder to get communicate “I’m thinking deep thoughts and feeling feelings all over the place!” So just assume that all the thoughts and responses are happening at once. And if I were the […]

The gym is supposed to be my safe space

Set on You by Amy Lea

by 2 Comments

First I have to give credit to Amy Lea for her excellent content note at the beginning of Set on You. Lea notes that the book focuses on fitness culture. Lea states she tries to keep it at the healthier end, but for some readers it may still be triggering. Her main character, Crystal Chen, is a personal trainer who has centered her career around body positivity and exercise. The book contains many references to body shaming, misogyny, and online trolls. If exercise and body […]

Then he got down to the serious business of kissing his favorite nemesis.

Kiss Hard by Nalini Singh

by Leave a Comment

Nalini Singh’s contemporary romances are among my favorite. They each are like a beautiful cupcake that is beautiful and sweet, but also a nutritious and with a memorable flavor. Daniel Esera and Caiti River met as teens when their older siblings, Sailor Bishop and Isa Rain, started dating (and later married). They immediately struck combative sparks and have been nemeses ever since. Caiti was folded into the larger Esera-Bishop clan giving them plenty of opportunities to bicker. They are not out to destroy each other […]

No

Partner Track by Cat Wynn

by 7 Comments

I picked up Partner Track partly because the cover is so objectively terrible I felt like they were trying to keep me from reading the book. But I had also heard that even though it looks like it takes place in a megachurch, the book was high heat. The book does have a lot of sex and does not take place in a megachurch. Perdie is an associate at a firm in Charleston, SC. When we meet her, she is in a deposition and just […]

If anyone else had made that comment, she’d assume they were flirting.

What a Match by Mimi Grace

by Leave a Comment

After reading several fast paced and loud books in a row it was nice to slow down with a quiet book. Anthony Woods has had a crush on his best friend and business partner’s sister, Gwen, for a long time and has dealt with it by avoiding her as much as possible. Gwen has recently ended a long term relationship amicably, and she feels like she need to get the romance part of her life sorted. She signs up with a matchmaking service to weed […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo