Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Long drawn-out pining, really not my cup of tea

Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell

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Nowhere Bingo Card: A book that’s been on my shelf for more than a year Prince Kiem, a minor royal in the Iskat Empire is called before the Emperor and told in no uncertain terms that he will be getting married to secure a valuable political alliance. The Empire is about to renegotiate its treaty agreements with all the planets in its dominion, and the representatives all have to be married to be accepted (that bit wasn’t entirely clear to me). So Kiem has to […]

Tennal the Chaos needs more Motivation

Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell

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I really liked Everina Maxwell’s debut Winter’s Orbit, so I made sure to get Ocean’s Echo as soon as it came out. I saved it for June as school is out and also Pride month. Ocean’s Echo is not a direct sequel which is sort of too bad but fine since I already knew that, but it’s definitely got some parallels. Basically an order vs chaos pair are forced together and must work through their personal and public problems; this worked out quite well the […]

less successful but still amusing second entry in series

Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell

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In this iteration, Maxwell takes us back to her general universe but in an entirely different quadrant (?), with a new set of main characters, motivations, et al. It’s a gutsy move, given how invested the audience was in the world of Taam and Jainan from Winter’s Orbit. As a result, you can clearly tell that there’s a vague formula that Maxwell is trying to reapply in this iteration. We’ve got the damaged one (in this case Tennal, the royal/connected one) and the less obviously damaged […]

Oh, and I forgot to mention that this book takes place in a world with a cultural assumption of bi- and pan-sexuality, and people who aren’t are considered “gender exclusive”!

Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell

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This is going to be a short review. I read this too long ago, and have forgotten too much of it. I did like it, though! Quite a bit. I just wish I had gone into it with the correct expectations. Somehow, I’d gotten it into my head that this was a romance with some science fiction in it, rather than what it actually was, the other way around. This is waaaay more science fiction than it is romance, in a space opera sort of […]

A Fine Juggling Act With Nary a Dropped Ball in Sight.

Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell

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I am really, really shocked at how much I liked this one! I think I have mentioned previously that I am not exactly one of the most broad readers of the romance genre, and I am not a super huge fan of the more contrived plots the genre follows. But here I am, writing up a review on a book that who’s main premise is a fake dating/arranged marriage scenario—and confessing that I really, really enjoyed it? I think what really got me on board with Winter’s […]

one last re-read of a book from 2021, which is a great sign

Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell

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Strong content warnings, from the author: https://everinamaxwell.com/content-wa… Thanks again to the dual recommendations from llamareadsbooks and CoffeeShopReader both! Re-read (October 2021, review December 2021): I wanted to also re-read this book after The Charm Offensive and my re-read of Boyfriend Material, so I suppose the best theme you could stitch would be “gay HEAs, location notwithstanding.” I agree with the original reviews that this isn’t really a romance first scifi novel, but perhaps it’s more of a mood that you have to go into it with. On this second re-read, I found it very romantic, […]



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