Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“The woman was a holy terror: the sweetest face, the pillowiest bosom, and a perspicacity that stripped a man naked in seconds.”

The Hollow of Fear (Lady Sherlock, #3) by Sherry Thomas

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This series is so fun. I think this is my favorite one so far, because it did two things. First, the plot hinges on Charlotte/Sherlock saving her dear friend and would-be paramour Lord Ingram from murder charges when his wife turns up dead on his estate in a gruesome fashion. And second, we finally get to see Charlotte in action at crime scenes and investigating herself. She does this by inventing another Holmes brother and dressing up as a man, saying she is both there […]

Two for One Weddings

After the Wedding by Courtney Milan

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I got After the Wedding from Courtney Milan when I donated to a trans rights charity she was matching donations for. It was very exciting! And it’s signed by her! It’s a Courtney Milan book, so it was a very interesting historical romance, set right after the Civil War. The book takes place in England, Adrian Hunter has a black father and a white mother who sound devoted to each other but are not introduced. Maybe in a future story? Camilla Worth is high society […]

“The real villain is love: an unstable isotope, constantly undergoing spontaneous nuclear decay. And it will forever go unpunished.”

Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

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This book was a really fun time and I liked it a lot, but I did feel there were a couple of things that didn’t fully work, so no five stars on this one. While Ali (we have met so I can call her Ali) is so good at dialogue and at characters, and character interaction, there were a couple of tropes and individual incidents that happened that made me stop reading and think to myself, really? But they didn’t hurt the overall story for […]

Blonde Assassin

The Blonde by Anna Godbersen

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The fun thing about this book is that few of the individual subplots work and yet, Anna Godbersen creates such a vivid re-imagination of Marilyn Monroe as a person that I really didn’t care. Monroe is often depicted—mostly by but not limited to men (looking at you, Joyce Carol Oates)—as a wide-eyed naifish mentally damaged sex doll. I have to imagine there is more to her life than going around speaking in innuendo and substance-induced rage but rarely have I seen this depicted. Blonde is the latest […]

“I’d follow a clown into a storm drain if he had a baby goat in pajamas.”

Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez

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Objectively Part of Your World is probably closer to four stars, but I had a really good time with it so I’m giving it five. This book was so uplifting and charming and cozy and swoony. Firstly, before we get to plot, probably good to know that this takes place in a very, very, very light sff atmosphere, so there will have to be some suspension of disbelief, but honestly that’s not hard to do here (the idea, I think, was to try to create an approximation […]

“He kissed for his enjoyment and mine, and we staggered and stumbled our way to the ground, still kissing for the sheer glory of being alive, the wonder of finding a congenial soul in the world, and the very real prospect of being dead before the weekend.”

The Henchmen of Zenda by K.J. Charles

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This honestly might be five stars on re-read, but I’ve been handing out five star ratings like they’re candy, and I’ve come off my book high now. This is a strong 4.5 stars for now. Firstly, this is a retelling of The Prisoner of Zenda, a Ruritanian Romance/Adventure/Swashbuckler from the late 1800s, written by Anthony Hope. I’ve never read the original, but before diving into this I did read the detailed summary of the book and I’m really glad I did that, because it was […]



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