Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Melania Trump Fanfiction

Our American Friend by Anna Pitoniak

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(“I felt helpless,” she said. “Here it is, I thought. This is what the bargain comes down to. This is your destiny, Lara. You will be a part of this, this tragedy. And there is nothing you can do about it. Because you chose this.”) Sofie, a former White House correspondent, is astonished to be chosen to be the biographer of the mysterious First Lady Lara Caine. As Lara tells her story, Sofie comes to realize that the secrets she’s spilling out could be ruinous […]

Window Dressing

To Marry and to Meddle by Martha Waters

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The English countryside in early September was a glorious place. The sun shone. The bees buzzed. The heady scent of wildflowers lingered in the air. Emily Turner could not think of a more romantic setting for the world’s least romantic marriage proposal. Julian needs a wife who makes him look respectable to remake his theatre’s reputation, Emily needs to get out from under her parents’ thumb and away from a skeevy suitor. Marriage sounds like the perfect solution – but being married is more complicated […]

‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’

Violeta by Isabel Allende

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Violeta, who was born during the Spanish influenza pandemic and turns one hundred years old during the coronavirus pandemic, writes a memoir to hand down to her grandson Camilo. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Isabel Allende, and in fact have several others of her books on hand, piled in the tottering tower that is my TBR list. However, this is the first book by her that I’ve read, and it did not reach the heights I was expecting. Not that this is […]

Even the Dog Can’t Save It

Bear Witness by Lark O Jensen

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Stacie is a tour guide, introducing people to Alaskan wildlife from a boat. When a man vanishes from the tour, she thinks he’s stowed away to cause trouble. But when his body is discovered out amid the ice floes, she realizes that there is something far worse at play. I really wanted to like this book. The premise sounds so cool and so eerie, the idea of a body bobbing out in the frigid Alaskan waters. Unfortunately the story goes downhill from there. My main […]

Another Baking Romance

Donut Fall in Love by Jackie Lau

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After the debacle of Always, in December I decided to make sure the next thing I read didn’t make me angry (don’t worry, future angry reviews will come – and soon –  I just usually like to give myself 24 hours to get eloquent with the rage) so I put down the two books I was reading and went back to an ARC that I had not been able to get to before the deadline (my apologies to the fine folks at NetGalley and Berkley) […]

Travel Back to 2004

Never Tell by Selena Montgomery

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One of the moments I enjoyed a lot last year was when I asked a group of people if they knew Stacey Abrams wrote romance novels. They did not. I blew their minds. When I had an opportunity to read an arc of the rerelease of Never Tell, I jumped at it. The book was originally published in 2004. At this point in my life, I’m not really looking for romantic suspense stories. I also don’t read true crime stories involving murder. It’s not a […]



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