Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Lightning-struck until your heart’s split open, but you never stop reaching for something more.

Just Like This by Cole McCade

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Cole McCade writes beautifully. It felt at times, while I was reading Just Like This, that McCade was getting the ink for his story right out of my well of feelings. I am allergic to my own feelings and would much rather experience them by proxy through fictional characters. McCade doesn’t let me do that. Just Like This is the second book in the Albin Academy series. Albin Academy is a boarding school mostly for boys rich families find troublesome. The teachers and staff also live […]

I loved this. #CBRBingo – Pandemic

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

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I’ve been dreading writing this review because I loved the book so much. I really don’t think I’m going to say too much about the book or the characters, because I can’t. Well, I could, but I would just end up hating whatever I wrote because I love the book too much and I’m too close to it and words are never enough, I tell you. Basically, this is a British rom-com in book form. It is actually, legitimately funny. I loved both of the […]

That rare unicorn, a good middle book.

The Sugared Game (The Will Darling Adventures, #2) by K.J. Charles

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This book wasn’t as purely enjoyable for me as the first one, but it was really an excellent middle book that does what all middle books should do: It furthers the character arcs of the characters we care about so that they are not stagnant and wallowing, it pushes the main story arcs along further and things actually happen, and it provides its own enclosed story arc so that you are left satisfied by the presence of a beginning, middle, and ending within the book […]

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 […]

”My name, since you raise the topic, is Arthur Aloysius Kimberley de Brabazon Secretan. What would you do in my place?” “Leave the country … You poor bastard, you never stood a chance.” #CBRBingo – The Roaring 20’s

Slippery Creatures (The Will Darling Adventures, #1) by K.J. Charles

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I loved everything about this. K.J. Charles is honestly spoiling me for other historical romance authors. There’s just something about her style (very detailed, historically accurate, flawed but compelling characters) that gets me right in the pleasure center. She also doesn’t just write in one time period or keep it to straight-up romance. She’s always messing around with spy fiction or mystery or golden age pulp (here and Think of England) or jewelry heists or homages to Georgette Heyer regency fiction. Sometimes many of these […]



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