Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Faces That Launched a Thousand Political Conflicts

Medieval Royal Mistresses: Mischievous Women who Slept with Kings and Princes by Julia A. Hickey

by Leave a Comment

In an era where women were constrained by their sex and status, royal mistresses managed to have outsized influence of English history through their connections with kings and the children that they bore them. As I got into this book, it occurred to me that when you learn about history, the various favorites of kings and queens are left out except in very few instances where the story would make no sense without their inclusion (Anne Boleyn of course comes to mind). Instead their illegitimate […]

She’s a Queen, He’s Just an Asshole

Second Chance with His Viking Wife by Sarah Rodi

by 6 Comments

CBR15 Bingo – Europe: This book is set in Saxon England, and additionally includes Norse characters who immigrated there from Greenland. Teon hasn’t seen his wife Revna in years, when they were forced to wed to prevent a war. He hates Vikings, her father especially, and yet he can’t help but be drawn to her. I picked up this book because I’m trying to read more historical romance from different settings, and I don’t recall having read a Viking romance before, especially one it is the […]

Medieval Over Time in Pictures Has No Substance

The Fantasy of the Middle Ages by Larisa Grollemond, Bryan C Keene

by Leave a Comment

I realize that The Fantasy of the Middle Ages was basically designed as an accompaniment to an exhibit at the Getty Museum and as such was possibly never meant to be a fully standalone book. Except that it now is, and as a stand-alone book, this is beyond shallow. It has a lot of pretty pictures, but often with little context of the history or art of the source manuscript) , and it brings up aa lot of things about how the Middel Ages in […]

Saving Grace

Saving Grace by Julie Garwood

by Leave a Comment

July 26, 2022 Review: I tend to re-read this book anytime I am sad or upset. It’s been about 3 years and definitely needed this historical romance that introduced me what good romance writing can do. I honestly wish that Garwood had continued on with Johanna and Gabriel’s story in a subsequent book, or maybe followed Johanna’s brother Nicholas, but the ending to this book is always a great gut punch. Taking place 10 years after the start of this book we can daydream about […]

No One to Really Root For but It’s Still Somehow Pretty Good

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

by Leave a Comment

She Who Became the Sun definitely lived up to the hype; the characters are interesting and complex, and there is plenty of action and plot. What bothered me was that there was really only one character who stood up for general human decency, not just “I must take charge of my destiny no matter what I have to do (including murdering innocent people and not so innocent people)”. The basic premise is pretty well known already: in a quasi historical early medieval China, a nameless […]

The Original Elizabeth and Mary

The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World by Shelley Puhak

by 5 Comments

Two women, rival queens, rule kingdoms that lie side by side. Over the course of decades, they scheme and intrigue and fight both to keep their crowns and to take away the other’s. One will die peacefully, the other violently, and from their actions a dynasty will come to an end. The Dark Queens follows the lives of Brunhild and Fredegund, who were Frankish queens during the 500s. They had extremely disparate origins, with one starting as a Spanish princess and the other as a palace […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo