Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A good trilogy ender.

Enlightened (Enlightenment, #3) by Joanna Chambers

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I was hoping for a real firecracker with this one, just a really undeniably great closer to this lovely trilogy, but what I got was more what I actually should have expected, which was more like the slow burn of a hearth fire. This has been entirely a trilogy about quiet, inner emotions and inner growth, and not melodramatic, shout to the sky emotions. The more I reflect on how this series ended, the more I liked it. David has been recuperating for the last […]

An excellent middle book in this historical romance trilogy.

Beguiled (Enlightenment, #2) by Joanna Chambers

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This series continues to be the perfect blend of historical fiction and romance. Most historical romance authors use the historical setting as a backdrop and creator of atmosphere, or convert it into a sort of fantasy realm to explore other things, which can be really fun! But as I said in my review of the first book in this series, there’s just something so pleasurable about stone cold history being actually explored in this format. In the first book, it was the fallout from a […]

I’m not certain you’d know the right sort of man for you if he arrived on your doorstep riding an elephant.

It's In His Kiss by Julia Quinn

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This book is trickier to conjure an analogous baked good for, but, of course, I’m gonna try. I do think this is more pie than cake, so…if book 7 in the Bridgerton series were a pie, it would be a Little Women filling with a Nancy Drew crust. Odd, yes, but so is our heroine here. The youngest Bridgerton child and last remaining single daughter, Hyacinth, poses a bit of a challenge to marry off for the exhausted Lady Violet. (Poor thing is sooooo close! Six down, two to go, Vi!) […]

Why don’t you just marry her?

When He Was Wicked by Julia Quinn

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If book six in the Bridgerton series were a cake (I did warn everyone in the last review), it would be multiple layers of Outlander enveloped in a Fifty Shades of Grey ganache. This is definitely the raciest of the books so far. Widows aren’t afraid of a little wickedness, I guess. Francesca, the third daughter of the Bridgerton clan, was married, and promptly widowed to a Scottish earl at some point backstage. It’s mentioned in other books, mostly to explain Francesca’s absence at certain family activities or crises: “Oh, she […]

CBR Diversions – Literary Couples That Make You Swoon

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With Valentine’s Day swiftly approaching, romance is in the air. To complement our featured romance book reviews, this week’s CBR Diversion celebrates our favorite literary couples. Who makes you swoon? I know many of you are historical romance fans who love a reformed rake who meets his match. Daphne and Simon have become quite popular in the zeitgeist after the Netflix adaption of Julia Quinn’s The Duke and I premiered. Personally, I’m a sucker for the slow burn courtship in urban fantasy series. In the […]

I never thought it would happen to me.

To Sir Phillip, With Love by Julia Quinn

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If book five in the Bridgerton series were a cake, it would be one tier of Mary Poppins, and one tier of Sound of Music with a thin layer of gothic Brontë jam holding the layers together. I may start to use these cake analogies for all of my reviews. I apologize in advance. Mama Violet had been trying to marry off second eldest daughter Eloise for quite some time. However, having refused multiple proposals, Eloise preferred to settle into a comfortable spinsterhood with her best friend Penelope. A safe […]



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