Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Gals being literary rivals, then pals, then more?

Ladies in Hating by Alexandra Vasti

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Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. Lady Georgiana Cleeve was disowned by her father when she announced that she was the author of several popular novels, and has lived alone with her mother ever since, cut off from all contact with her brothers, convinced that the scandal she brought on herself and her family would irrevocably tarnish the reputations of anyone connected to her. She is selling well and her books are popular, but for […]

As she watched, a single dark red petal broke free from the vine just above the plaque and floated, strange and slow, all the way to the ground.

Ladies in Hating by Alexandra Vasti

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After reading Charlie Jane Anders’s Lessons in Magic and Disaster last month, I particularly enjoyed reading about two women writing books and falling in love in Georgian England. In Lessons, Jamie was researching magic and queer subtext in a fictional novel written by real 18th century woman, Sarah Fielding. In Ladies in Hating, Georgiana and Catriona are each authors of gothic books under pseudonyms. It is still scandalous for a woman to be an author, especially of gothic literature, though Georgiana’s identity is somewhat of […]

A madcap road trip (with zebras)

Earl Crush by Alexandra Vasti

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3.5 stars Nowhere Books Bingo 25: Book about a road trip or travelling Disclaimer! This was an ARC granted to me from St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley. My opinions are my own. Lydia Hope-Wallace is a wallflower, and perfectly happy to remain so, because she has crippling social anxiety and tends to throw up if forced to interact too much with people outside her immediate family or friends. She’s been secretly writing seditious pamphlets and publishing them anonymously for the past three years, and for […]

“You bring the morning with you. You’re the light, sweetheart.”

Ne'er Duke Well by Alexandra Vasti

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Nowhere Book Bingo 25: Recommended by a friend (see, Des, I finally read it!) Buzzwords 2025 Cover Challenge: Foliage Peter Kent has lived most of his life in America, and certainly never expected to inherit a dukedom. Now he’s the Duke of Stanhope and desperately trying to be granted custody of his younger half-siblings, both of whom treat him with disdain and claim they are perfectly happy living with their decrepit guardian. It doesn’t help his case that Peter’s inexperience with English high society keeps […]

“No,” she rasped. “I have chosen the abyss.”

Earl Crush by Alexandra Vasti

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“Don’t worry,” Georgiana said. “Everyone else is invisible to Strathrannoch when Lydia is in the room. One becomes accustomed to it.” No one has to convince Arthur Baird, Earl of Strathrannoch, that Lydia Hope-Wallace is worthy of his love and admiration. He is heart-eyes over her not long after she proposes marriage and then faints on his doorstep. As he carts her to his dusty chaise lounge (titled, but poor), he notices the lushness of Lydia’s figure and the color of her eyelashes. In historical […]

“I am covered in the excrement of several looted American animals”

In Which Winnie Halifax is Utterly Ruined by Alexandra Vasti

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The last in the Halifax Hellions series. Plot: Winnie’s mother was a con woman who through various means was able to finance her life and the life of her daughter by stealing shit from the aristocracy. This never sat well with Winnie, so when she was 20, she broke off to set her own course. Being an impoverished commoner though, she did need to use a little of her mother’s ill gotten gains, and being a single woman trying to start a business in regency […]



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