Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

How could one ever capture a star?

The Muse of Maiden Lane by Mimi Matthews

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CBR16 Bingo: Celestial – Teddy paints Stella as Electra, one of the Pleiades of Greek mythology – the daughters of the Titan Atlas who were transformed into stars by Zeus. Grey-haired Stella is the only one of her friends still unwed, and does not expect to marry soon either. But between her new acquaintance with aspiring artist Teddy and the pressure from her brother’s impending marriage, Stella finds that her path may not be what she always envisioned. After a whirlwind read of the previous three […]

The Heart Trumps the Head

Never Wager with a Wallflower by Virginia Heath

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Venus and Galahad have never really gotten along, but when he buys the buildings next to the orphanage she works at intending to turn them into a gambling hall, their sparring begins to look a lot more like attraction and respect. This is the third book in the Merriwell Sisters, which follows a trio of sisters who must make their own way in the world after being abandoned by their ne’er-do-well father. I haven’t read the first two books, but this worked well as a […]

Janet Just Won’t Quit

The Kadin by Bernice Small

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This book charts the colorful life of Janet Leslie from birth to death. Born in Scotland, she ended up one of the chief wives of an Ottoman prince and comes to play an important part in his reign. Firstly, this is not a romance. We do not see much of the relationship between Janet/Cyra and either of her love interests. Instead, we get a lot of political intrigue, historical facts, and some lovable gal palling between Cyra and Selim’s other wives. It’s not serious historical […]

Matters of Inheritance and Love on the Brink of Waterloo

Deserted by Mary Lancaster

Beloved by Mary Lancaster

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Deserted – 4 stars Sophia thinks she’s escaped the clutches of her tyrannical cousins when she comes to be companion to the Duchess of Cuttyngham, even if it’s under strange circumstances. But when her employer makes her escape to Brussels and her family pursues her to her new home, Sophia is forced to turn to the icy but beguiling Earl of Frostbrook for help. This is the third book in The Duel series, which follows the fallout of the Duke of Cuttyngham’s death in a […]

RIP Celestin you would have loved r/Brochet

Bitter Promise by Ila Dell Youngblood

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Though Micaela falls in love with pirate’s son Dominique, she agrees to marry Celestin, the man she’s been betrothed to since she was a child. I went into this book expecting a historical romance – I was not aware that the Baroness Pontalba was a real person with a lengthy Wikipedia entry, and so that the story does not necessarily have a happy ending. In that light the way this book is written, with plenty of emphasis on the more mundane up ands downs of […]

An Adulterous Fiction in King Henry’s Court

The Tudors in Love: Passion and Politics in the Age of England's Most Famous Dynasty by Sarah Gristwood

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The various romantic travails of the Tudor dynasty have been well-covered in dramatic novels and shows in the centuries since they lived and died, but they too may have been influenced by earlier literature and tradition, specifically the idea of courtly love. In a market flooded with books concerning Tudor marriages, it’s hard for new releases to stand above the crowd. The Tudors in Love tries to carve its niche with the theme of courtly love, that fashionable alleged holdover from Arthurian times, and how […]



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