Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Not pure fluff, but very, very good.

The Heart Principle (The Kiss Quotient, #3) by Helen Hoang

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I liked the first two books in this series, but this one is on another level. It’s very personal and you can tell, even before you get to the end and the author’s note where she straight out says that the book is half memoir. With this book, she was Working Through Some Shit. However, just because you write what you know as an author doesn’t mean that you will write something good or compelling, but Hoang has definitely managed to do that, and I […]

“The only good thing this broken heart of mine can feel is love for you.”

The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang

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The Heart Principle was delayed a year while its author Helen Hoang dealt with some personal traumas which she goes into in depth in the Author’s Note. Many of those traumas feed directly into the re-worked plot of this book. I’m firmly in the camp that this is a romance, even if the romance plotline finds itself uncentered through sections of the work, but this is certainly not a rom-com style book as its cover would want you to believe – in fact I have […]

Conventional and Less Conventional

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore

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I’m terrible at titles, but I did want to highlight what I saw as the main difference between these two romance novels (both of which I enjoyed). Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore is a pretty standard historical romance, set in late Victorian England (rather than the usual Regency period). The time period is important, as politics are central to Dunmore’s plot. Her heroine, Annabelle Archer, has seized the opportunity to escape domestic drudgery and enroll in Oxford, were she involves herself in the suffrage movement. […]

Sex lessons premise + multi-layered characters + an earnest HEA = a contemporary romance that gripped my heart

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

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I finally read The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang. I have to confess that I’m reading this loose series out of order. I reviewed The Bride Test last year, which made me cry it was so sweet. This year, I’m reviewing it for CBR12 bingo square with the “Cannonballer Says” square. Looking at the past reviews, nearly all my CBR romance peeps raved about it. And it did not disappoint! Stella Lane loves her job predicting customer behavior using complex math. In her personal life, […]

Jumping on a Couple Bandwagons

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

Attachments: A Novel by Rainbow Rowell

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

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I have a pretty lengthy TBR list from perusing CBR, and when some rough life stuff came up recently and I needed some light reading, I decided to try a few books that Cannonballers have recommended that I thought would fit the bill. I’d seen The Kiss Quotient reviewed several times, and I know Rainbow Rowell is a favorite around these parts. So, in the order I read them: The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang. First of all, hoo boy is there a lot of […]

Oh, Look. Intelligent, Attractive Romance Novel Protagonists Are Insecure About Their Obvious Mutual Feelings.

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

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I have been reading romance since I was approximately 12, raiding my mom’s bookshelves for old Nora Roberts paperbacks. However, I tend to avoid straight-up contemporary romances. Romantic suspense? Hell yes. Paranormal romance? Bring on the werewolves. Historical romance? As long as it’s not too misogynistic, I am down. I want to read about people falling in love and getting their HEA, but I want a murder mystery, a jewel heist, or some werewolves to spice things up a bit and keep the plot moving. […]



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