Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“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 […]

What do you get when you mix 1930s New York with advice from a Founding Father?

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

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Being able to submerge readers in a particular era/time/place is one of Amor Towles’s super powers. Whether it’s early 20th century Russia, or the 1950s American midwest, readers can expect to feel and breathe an era through Towles’ expertly crafted prose. In Rules of Civility, Towles’s debut novel, we find ourselves transported to New York in the late 1930s, just as the city is starting to see the light at the end of a grueling decade, a decade that “launched the Great Depression just to […]

Unorthodox and Unashamed

Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and a Saint by Nadia Bolz-Weber

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I have been following Nadia Bolz-Weber on social media for a few years now and I subscribe to her newsletter. I find her preaching to be witty, funny, cutting, provocative and deeply spiritual. It has been most welcome over the years as I have tried to deal with the problems of everyday life and the larger fucked up world. Bolz-Weber has written several books but I believe this was the first and it sort of provides the “origin story” for Pastrix Nadia, a Lutheran pastor […]

Enemies to lovers at a performing arts summer camp

Into the Woods by Jenny Holiday

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Why: Learning that I adore Jenny Holiday’s Christmas in Eldovia trilogy, Emmalita recommended that I should read Into the Woods and I’m glad I did! What: Into the Woods is a contemporary romance.  Wild Arts summer camp is in last minute need of two artists in residence for the July and August sessions.  Through acquaintances Gretchen Miller and Teddy Knight end up filling in for the dance and instrumental music programs respectively.  After an initial round of wrong impressions and then bonding through camp experiences, Gretchen and Teddy […]

“To peel back the carpeting of the world and tumble into the stars.”

Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

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I read Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries in two days.  Since I didn’t want to start a new book until I caught up on reviews, I decided to read it again. It took only two days to read it a second time.  What I’m saying is that I enjoyed this book so much I read it twice in four days.  Written in the style of a personal journal, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries is an engaging fantasy set in an alternative 1909 where fae, fairies, Fair […]

Thinking about the Roman Empire

Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome by Robert Harris

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“…he thinks politics is a fight for justice. Politics is a profession.” Back in the day, I attended an all-girls Catholic high school where Latin was a very popular class. My 9th and 10th grade Latin classes were packed. Within my own family it was a tradition not just to take Latin (as opposed to Spanish or French), but to take it for the full four years of high school. I probably would have continued that tradition if not for 2 things: the sudden availability […]



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