Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A delightful British rom-com (Bingo #6)

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

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4.5 stars #CBR12 Bingo: Reader’s Choice (replaces How-To) Official book description: Wanted: One (fake) boyfriend Practically perfect in every way Luc O’Donnell is tangentially–and reluctantly–famous. His rock star parents split when he was young, and the father he’s never met spent the next twenty years cruising in and out of rehab. Now that his dad’s making a comeback, Luc’s back in the public eye, and one compromising photo is enough to ruin everything. To clean up his image, Luc has to find a nice, normal relationship…and […]

A Spy In The Closet

Who Is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht

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Using spy stories to tell larger tales about identity is becoming a popular trope. Most recently, I’m thinking of how Lauren Wilkinson used the genre to talk about black identity against the specter of white imperialism. Rosalie Knecht does it in a different way with a lesbian woman. There are two stories running concurrently with one another: flashbacks to Vera’s time leading up to joining the CIA and her time in Argentina trying to run counterintelligence on KGB factions attempting to facilitate a communist-led coup. […]

The first book in a historical romance series set during the Scottish Enlightenment.

Provoked (Enlightenment, #1) by Joanna Chambers

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I should have read this so much sooner! I’ve owned a Kindle version for years now. I guess I was thinking this was more like your standard “historical” romance, with the focus mostly on the romance, and where history often takes a backseat, or gets a bit imaginary (cough Tessa Dare cough). And don’t get me wrong, I enjoy those types of books often when done well. They are a fluffy good time. But there’s something about the style this book is written in, which […]

I wish this had been longer and more fleshed out. #CBRBingo – Cannonballer Says

Spellbound (Magic in Manhattan, #1) by Allie Therin

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This was a solid first novel, and a good start to this fantasy/romance series. This is paranormal/fantasy romance set in 1925, where some people have paranormal powers but most don’t, and magic is a well kept secret. Our main characters are Rory Brodigan, a scryer, who can see the history of any object, and Arthur Kenzie, a politician’s son who fought in WWI, and who uses his wealth to employ paranormals to keep the world safe. Rory is caught up in their net when a […]

Play me your tiny violins and order me a waaambulance, because this review is very whiny.

Fence, Vol. 4: Rivals by C.S. Pacat

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These take way too long to come out and they are way too short give me the next one nowwww. Seriously, it’s so frustrating. I just binge re-read the first three volumes as a refresher, and then went straight into this one, and it took me all of an hour, and then it was done, and now I have to wait. And I’ve been trained to wait since I was a wee-reader, but for some reason, waiting for this series is something that is very […]

“But I can have spiders in my head as long as I don’t let them consume me.” #CBRBingo – Happy

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune

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This was very sweet and I was extremely charmed by it. I didn’t end up giving it the fifth star, because shmoopsy mostly doesn’t work for me, and this did get a bit shmoopsy there at the end. (Shmoopsy is a technical term.) But overall, this was witty and so sweet and heartwarming, with a light undercurrent of dark humor. I loved the worldbuilding; the gentle bite of the satire combined so well with the big hearts of the main characters. Briefly (because I think […]



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