Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Winning the lottery does not solve all problems, but it sure helps

Best of Luck (Chance of a Lifetime #3) by Kate Clayborn

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This is the final novel in the chance of a lifetime series and probably the weakest, but it’s still one of the sweetest stories I’ve read in a long while. Though it is the third in the series and includes characters from the previous books, you don’t HAVE to read them in order. If the characters in this novel appeal to you more than the other books, you can start with this one if you want. Plot: a shy, chronically ill woman is trying to, […]

A trilogy of very nice contemporary romances

Beginner's Luck by Kate Clayborn

Luck of the Draw by Kate Clayborn

Best of Luck by Kate Clayborn

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A group of three close-knit friends buy a lottery ticket together one night and end up winning a considerable amount of money. Not enough to never have to worry about money again, but certainly enough that they can fulfill some life-long dreams and still live comfortably afterwards. Beginner’s Luck – 3.5 stars Ekaterina “Kit” Averin is if possible the least risk-averse person there is. She’s very happy working as a research assistant at a university, co-writing the occasional article and generally happily hiding her technical […]

A series about flawed, earnest people trying to make a life for themselves

Beginner's Luck (Chance of a Lifetime #1) by Kate Clayborn

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I’ve never read a series so unrelated to its main premise. This is the first book in a series following three women after they win the lottery. The win is surprisingly incidental to the actual stories. In essence, what this series attempts to ask is this – if your financial difficulties, your debt, your worries about saving for retirement, the financial needs of people you support, if it all went away, what choices would you make? How would you live differently than you do now? […]

Finding hope by accepting responsibility for your mistakes

Luck of the Draw by Kate Clayborn

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Ya’ll. I can’t with this book. I literally can’t. This shit is why I read. Go read it.   Not enough? Right. Word minimums. I read FaintingViolet’s recommendation of this book a few weeks ago (I think? I don’t know how time works anymore). Both this book and the first in the series were waitlisted, so I put my name down and promptly forgot about it. So much so that I forgot that this is the second in the series and didn’t realize it until […]

Today is only February 1, and I already find myself way behind in reviews for 2020.

Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn

American Royals by Katharine McGee

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman

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How can I already be so far behind? I always have such good intentions with reviewing…and I am great about keeping up with the reading. I just never find the time to sit down and think and type. Thus, I gift to you these three quick reviews for books that were FINE. First, Love Lettering, a book I never would have heard of if I hadn’t been obsessively following all of the tweets about the RWA meltdown over the holidays. I somehow stumbled across some […]

“That’s the truth about making mistakes, about making wrong choices. You live with them, and if you’re lucky you get enough perspective to see where you went astray. “

Luck of the Draw (Chance of a Lifetime #2) by Kate Clayborn

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I’m going to have such a tough time telling you why I like this book so much. This is my second Fake Relationship Romance Novels in recent days. Jackie Lau’s A Fake Girlfriend for Chinese New Year handled the trope well with friends who agree to be in a short term fake relationship for the sake of familial peace. It was well executed and well plotted and I happily gave it three stars. This one shares a trope, and that’s about where the comparison ends. […]



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