Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

::hangs large flashing neon sign saying “MORE PEOPLE READ K.J. CHARLES” over the top of this review::

Gilded Cage (The Lilywhite Boys, #2) by K.J. Charles

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First, I made the embedded cover real big in this review so y’all can see our heroine Susan’s face. It is the most non-swoony face I have ever, ever seen on a romance novel cover, and that is so true to her character, I love it. Even the arms are folded! Susan Lazarus is not fucking around. This is the second book in the Lilywhite Boys series, which follows two con men and thieves in late Victorian London. This series is actually connected to Charles’s […]

One of the very few cases where I like the plot better than the romance.

A Case of Possession (A Charm of Magpies, #2) by K.J. Charles

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The first book did need a sequel, and this was a pretty good one! It addressed: the power imbalance between Stephen and Crane; the issue of their homosexuality and how it would affect them going forward if they were found out (Crane doesn’t care, but it would ruin Stephen’s life); the issue of Stephen’s newfound power, which comes from the relationship (coughcough) between Stephen and Crane, but which his colleagues presume is evidence of him becoming a warlock (a warlock is someone who drains life […]

Short reads to finish off my reading year (and help me to finally complete my double Cannonball)

Night of the Scoundrel by Kelly Bowen

The Monsters We Deserve by Marcus Sedgwick

A Match Made for Thanksgiving by Jackie Lau

A Second-Chance Road Trip for Christmas by Jackie Lau

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Night of the Scoundrel by Kelly Bowen Rating: 4 stars In this novella which concludes Kelly Bowen’s The Devils of Dover series, we finally find out more about the mysterious King, who has been popping up in Bowen’s books for a long time. A shadowy London crime lord with connections to smuggling, art forgery, theft and all sorts of other untoward business, he is not a man to cross. He discovers that a man he believed to be dead, a man who ruined his childhood and set him […]

Two nerdy characters and a make-over fake dating plot – in a Regency romance

My Fake Rake by Eva Leigh

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Official book description: Lady Grace Wyatt is content as a wallflower, focusing on scientific pursuits rather than the complications of society matches. But when a handsome, celebrated naturalist returns from abroad, Grace wishes, for once, to be noticed. Her solution: to “build” the perfect man, who will court her publicly and help her catch his eye. Grace’s colleague, anthropologist Sebastian Holloway, is just the blank slate she requires. In exchange for funding his passage on an expedition leaving London in a few months, Sebastian allows […]

A sweet & salty little f/f romance novella.

A Little Light Mischief by Cat Sebastian

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First the blurb, for context: A seductive thief Lady’s maid Molly Wilkins is done with thieving—and cheating and stabbing and all the rest of it. She’s determined to keep her hands to herself, so she really shouldn’t be tempted to seduce her employer’s prim and proper companion, Alice. But how can she resist when Alice can’t seem to keep her eyes off Molly? Finds her own heart For the first time in her life, Alice Stapleton has absolutely nothing to do. The only thing that […]

Seriously, is no one else bothered about there being zero wagers in this book?

The Wallflower Wager (Girl Meets Duke, #3) by Tessa Dare

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Much better than her last book. And for once the hero isn’t a man who thinks he’s broken and thus doesn’t deserve love. She’s played that card way too often. The premise here is that Penny, the titular wallflower who resigned herself to being a spinster ten years before, has a ton of animals in her care, and her family is threatening to move her back to her ancestral home if she doesn’t: a) Get rid of most of the animals, b) Get a new […]



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