Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Codependant Hacker in Search of a Cause

The Salvation Gambit by Emily Skrutskie

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After a job gone wrong, Murdock and her gang of con artists are tithed to a sentient warship that’s styled itself into a punitive god. Escaping the ship would be hard enough – but when the Justice takes a personal interest in Murdock, the stakes only get higher. I have been slowing dipping my toes into the space opera genre, mostly via the wonderful Becky Chambers, but I am always on the lookout for more. And the premise of this book immediately sold me – […]

The Dark Corners of the Past

Great Scandals of the Victorians by Debbie Blake

Public Faces, Secret Lives by Wendy L. Rouse

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Great Scandals of the Victorians: Disreputable Stories from the Royal Court to the Stage – 3.5 stars For all that Victorians had a reputation for being straitlaced, they had their fair share of scandals – and some of them ended up having major effects on contemporary society, sometimes even driving forth social changes which still affect us today. I love a good gossip session about people I’ve never met, which is why history is one of my favorite subjects. In this book, we learn about […]

The Intersection of Love and the Law

You'll Do: A History of Marrying for Reasons Other Than Love by Marcia A. Zug

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In this short history of the legalities of marriage in the United States, Zug takes us through how marriage as an institution has shifted over the centuries and how the many reasons for marrying for something other than love, such money, status, or legal benefits, played its part in that. Coming from a culture where marriage is considered an essential step of adulthood and is still sometimes arranged by one’s parents, I never really thought much about it, or why the legal institution of marriage […]

Dynasty Building in Tudor and Stuart England

A Woman of Influence: The Spectacular Rise of Alice Spencer in Tudor England by Vanessa Wilkie

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Alice Spencer, the youngest daughter of a wealthy farmer, was just another building block in the Spencer dynasty, but the marriage that made her the Countess of Derby was just the start of her spectacular rise through the ranks of Tudor England. This book answered a very important question that’s been bothering me for a very long time: Why did medieval aristocrats splash around so much money on frivolous luxuries? I knew the answer had something to do with amassing power and influence, but it’s […]

New Jackie Lau with Fake Dating – I was automatically in!

Love, Lies, & Cherry Pie by Jackie Lau

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I make a habit of reading Jackie Lau books when I can, and being able to read Love, Lies, & Cherry Pie as an ARC was something I just couldn’t pass up, particularly when the logline for the book is a Pride and Prejudice retelling having a good time with some tropes (Lau tends to always have more than one in her work). The tropes in question are fake dating, forced proximity, and enemies to lovers, and I think Lau did a good job with […]

Matchmaking for the Romance Averse

Calm the Storm by Penny Fairbanks

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Felicity doesn’t want to get married after a lifetime of being neglected by her parents, but when a mysterious matchmaker throws her together with the visiting Atticus, they end up changing each other’s lives. This is the second book in the Society of Swans series, which revolves around a group of friends who receive letters from an anonymous matchmaker called Lady Swan. I haven’t read the first book, but this works well as a standalone. I wanted to read this book because I was intrigued […]



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