Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Lucy Parker Delivers (and with a romantic pairing that don’t want kids to boot!)

Headliners (London Celebrities #5) by Lucy Parker

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I love Lucy Parker, it’s as simple as that. I love the kind of book she writes; I love the world she has built in this series and the characters she chooses to populate it with. I’m rating this one five stars, as I did with its immediate predecessor The Austen Playbook mostly because of how it made me feel while I was reading it. That isn’t to say that Parker isn’t using her craft well – she absolutely is – but that craft sunk […]

A Valentine’s Delight

A Big Surprise for Valentine's Day (Holidays with the Wongs #4) by Jackie Lau

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In recent months Jackie Lau has jumped to the “read right away” position as her novellas in the Holidays with the Wongs series has been released. While I didn’t get an ARC this time, I have signed up to be considered in future. A Big Surprise for Valentine’s Day makes me feel that was a very good choice. Picking up after the events of A Match Made for Thanksgiving and A Second Chance Road Trip for Christmas and running concurrently with A Fake Girlfriend for […]

This One Was Unfortunately a Miss for Me

Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory

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I was going to read this one in the week after Christmas but having taken a look at this year’s Read Harder Challenge I decided to wait until New Years since this is Guillory’s book featuring Maddie’s mom Vivian, who raised her by herself – take that task 14: Read a romance starring a single parent. I just wish this was better. Jasmine Guillory launched onto the Romance scene two years ago with The Wedding Date and has released four novels in that time. The […]

“I hate to be sanctimonious about it, but it turns out that good conversation solves a great many problems.”

That Inevitable Victorian Thing by E.K. Johnston

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I don’t read all that much alternative history, so it took a bit of digging through my to read list in order to find something to read for Read Harder’s Task 2. But, sure enough I had one and while I let it sit to very late (although not the latest on my to read list for this year’s challenges) it was an enjoyable, if slightly unexpected, read. For plot summary purposes I’m going to borrow from Goodreads, since I’m not sure I could do […]

“i’m pretty sure you have s t a r d u s t running through those v e i n s. – women are some kind of magic.”

The Princess Saves Herself in This One by Amanda Lovelace

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In my review of Crimes of the Heart I took a potshot at Poetry as a genre, mostly because it has had a high barrier of entry to me in the past (graphic novels/comics has been my other major hurdle) but in fairness I have gotten better at finding poetry that works for me in at least part due to all the reading challenges I do that require poetry. In 2018 I read two collections I quite enjoyed, No Matter the Wreckage and Depression & […]

“Her quickness of mind was like a hiss, a dart, a lethal bite.” (CBR11 Bingo)

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (Translator)

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Friends, I really tried with this one. This story should work for me. Check out this Goodreads summary: “The story begins in the 1950s, in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else. As they grow, as their paths repeatedly diverge and converge, Elena and Lila remain best friends whose respective destinies are reflected and refracted in the other. They are likewise […]



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