Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Highwaywomen, Smugglers, Ghosts, and Dukes

Moonstruck Madness by Laurie McBain

Chance The Winds of Fortune by Laurie McBain

Dark Before the Rising Sun by Laurie McBain

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Moonstruck Madness – 4.5 stars (Aug 2022) Sabrina is a lady by day, but by night she rides as a highwayman, trying to keep her family afloat. When she clashes with the Duke of Camareigh, her schemes begin to unravel. There is not as much swashbuckling adventure as you usually get in these old bodice rippers, but that was more than made up for by the genuinely strong-willed heroine and her rather sensible reasons for clashing with the hero. Lucien is rather arrogant though, and […]

Tittle Tattle in Georgian London

The Real Bridgerton by Catherine Curzon

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This book guides us through a century of aristocratic scandals, covering both stories that are well-known today and others that have faded from public memory, discussing adultery, murder, and even incest. I read an awful lot of historical romance, and many Regency romances use the plot device of social ruin being carried around town by scandal sheets. Having read this book though, I am rather astonished that these fictional scandals managed to shock anyone at all, considering what the aristocracy was really getting up too! […]

The sunshine and the grumpy one – now with added crime!

The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian

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CBR14 Bingo: Gaslight (Marian was lied to and manipulated by the duke, book also set in the Georgian era) Spoiler warning! I’m going to do my best to review this book without spoiling major plot points from The Queer Principles of Kit Webb or this book, but if you want to remain fully unspoiled, you’d probably want to skip this review until you’ve actually read the book. Which you should (read the book, I mean), it’s absolutely marvellous. Marian Hayes, believed to be the Duchess […]

“Spite was honor when it was the only weapon you had against someone more powerful” – BINGO!

The Queer Principles of Kit Webb by Cat Sebastian

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4.5 stars CBR14: Rec’d (this has been recommended by multiple Cannonballers and pretty much every romance review blog I can think of) Edward Percival “Percy” Talbot, Lord Holland, returns to England after several years abroad in Europe to discover that his mother died in his absence, and his deeply unpleasant father hastily remarried, to Percy’s best friend from childhood, Lady Marian Hayes, who also had time to birth Percy a baby sister. Furthermore, Marian reveals that a blackmailer has contacted her with proof that the […]

Quinn’s best novel in a while

First Comes Scandal by Julia Quinn

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3.5 stars This is the fourth and, I’m assuming, final book in the Rokesby series. All the books work fine on their own, you do not need to read any others for the story to make sense. Nicholas Rokesby, the fourth son of the Earl of Manston, is studying to be a doctor in Edinburgh. When he receives an urgent summons from his parents while he’s in the middle of taking important exams, he assumes someone may be dead or at least dying, so he travels back […]

Ending the year on a rather mediocre note

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Miss Poppy Bridgerton is visiting a cousin at the coast when she stumbles upon a strange cave, which happens to be full of smugglers’ goods. When she’s shortly after discovered by two of the smugglers, she finds herself drugged and abducted onto a ship, where the very handsome captain tells her that she can’t be released until after the ship has been to Portugal and back. Poppy is none too happy about this, obviously, but doesn’t really have a choice. She just has to hope […]



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