Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A mechanic, a doctor, and an enemies-to-lovers romance

Mechanics of Love by Meka James

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From the moment that cover was released, I have been dying to get my hands on this book. The other two books gave hints that something was going on with Irene and I couldn’t wait to see what sort of sparks would fly between her and Remi. And oh boy I was not disappointed! This book is the third in the series and could probably be read as a standalone, though you’d miss out on the friendship development. Irene has spent her life being everything everyone […]

Hallmark-style sweet tea

Sweet Tea by Piper Huguley

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CBR13Bingo: Home This book is exactly as sweet as the title suggests! It’s an interracial romance between an intellectual property lawyer and the filmmaker who’s trying to preserve old southern recipes. It does lean heavily on the “big city person returns to her small town roots” Hallmark premise, so be warned if that’s not your thing. After a tragic accident upended her life as a young teen, Althea left Milford and her remaining family behind her. Years of boarding school, college and hard work later, […]

“A kiss might be blameless, so long as it was the other person doing the leaning. Was it your fault, really, if someone else kissed you?”

The Portrait of a Mirror by A. Natasha Joukovsky

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What if A.S. Byatt’s Possession popped up again in the internet age? The Portrait of a Mirror answers that question with a heaping helping of Greek mythology to boot. Diana, Wes, Dale, and Vivien are spoiled obsessives staring at themselves into eternity. They are slimy people, but you know what? I don’t care! I want them to be happy in their clandestine adventures, and I want them to be miserable in their public falling outs! Wes and Diana are married. Their relationship is a constant sparring match that […]

“I knew our relationship was strong, and like the house he was renovating for me, it had good bones”

Renovation of Love by Meka James

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Second chance romance is one of my favorite tropes, so of course I jumped on this as soon as I saw the gorgeous cover and read the blurb. And it’s a really lovely story about two high school sweethearts finding each other – and love – again. “I was here to get this new business venture off the ground and start anew. None of my plans entailed rekindling a long-dead romance with the first and, if I were being honest with myself, only real love […]

A gorgeous exploration of family, grief and love

Love at First by Kate Clayborn

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Kate Clayborn’s spectacular Love Lettering was the first book I read in 2020. Now, while the rest of the year didn’t work out so well, I can’t deny that it was an amazing reading year for me, and now Love at First looks like it’s continuing that tradition. I am an absolute sucker for a found family story, and this is an expert exploration of that trope and its power. It’s also got a bit of a Romeo & Juliet feel, and since that’s literally […]

The stories we tell ourselves

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

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Conversations with Friends has earned the (dubious) honor of receiving my first 5-star review of the year. For the first 3-4 chapters in the book, I didn’t think it would, but it ended up being a compulsive read that kept popping up in my mind when I was doing other things. Conversations is a tight story about a young student, Frances, and her best friend (and ex-girlfriend) Bobbi, who meet and befriend Melissa, a journalist married to a handsome actor, Nick. As Frances is drawn into Melissa […]



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