Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Prince Sebastian would like to introduce you to himself, Lady Crystallia

The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang

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The Prince and the Dressmaker most likely was pretty cutting-edge when it came out last year. We were started to talk about sexual identity and gender fluidness and the issues that come from that. Using the graphic novel format also is a bit different. But this publishers imprint seems to be the one to go to for cutting-edge stories in this usually more approachable format. However, a year later, having a young man dress in woman’s clothing as sometimes he feels male and sometimes female, […]

#CBR10Bingo: AlabamaPink – The Dud Avocado (First bingo!)

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#CBR10Bingo: AlabamaPink Sally Jay Gorce is a young woman of independent means, thanks to the benevolence of a rich uncle. He’s given her enough money to live comfortably abroad for two whole years, no strings attached, as long as she comes back and tells him about her adventures at the end of the two years. Not needing to hold down a job or really do anything at all for the money, means Sally Jay spends her time flitting about Paris, taking a lover, drinking and […]

The Parisians Used to Poison Each Other With Menstrual Blood, and Other Weird Facts

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Nicolas de la Reynie has the distinction of being Paris’s first police chief, a position he stepped into during the reign of King Louis XIV.  Paris was a nasty cesspool full of criminals at the time, and de la Reynie turned things around by putting lamps up everywhere (which is how Paris came to be known as “the City of Light”). But not everything in Paris could be cured with a well-placed lamp.  During de la Reynie’s tenure, people in Paris were getting poisoned left […]

In which I figured out what romance I should write

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Well, okay, this wasn’t my least favorite Florand, but it didn’t blow me away either. It also took me over a week to read (bad in Romance Standard Time.) Caveats: I have been in a romance slump for awhile, and I may have just poisoned my own well too badly both in general mood and specific experience with this author. And now that I am reviewing it basically a month later, I have the arduous task of even trying to remember it (she said, rolling […]

Ice sculpting with a chainsaw, world-class desserts and special ops soldiers with a book club

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3.5 stars This is the third book in a series, and while you can read each of these books completely independently of each other, this book references an pretty significant event in the previous book, Chase Me, and readers who want more details may want to check that book out first (it’s also the better romance of the two). Be aware that I spoil part of the plot of that one in the very first paragraph of this review, though. Lina Farah has had to […]

A story of untold heroes

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For the most part, you know what you’re getting when you read a book that takes place during World War II and is set in a location that was occupied by Germany. Even if you find a book or movie that tells an inspirational or uplifting story within that backdrop, it’s always delivered with the requisite edge of horror. How could it not? There is no story to tell from that period in human history that isn’t tainted by the atrocity. I’m not sure if […]



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