Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Come for the setup. Stay for the yearning.

Eight Weeks in Paris by S.R. Lane

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Note: It’s a lot of yearning. In writing this review, I tried to categorize the main characters’ relationship as enemies-to-friends-to-lovers or grumpy/sunshine, but neither one fits. I expected a sweet and charming romance set among the landmarks of Paris, but I got a very serious, surprisingly deep take on celebrity, fame, and integrity. Nicholas Madden is the brooding, short-fused, paparazzi-hating serious actor. After campaigning for and being cast as Frederick, the main character in The Throne, a queer romance period piece set in Belle Époque […]

Late to the party, but still treats

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher

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I came late to the Carrie Fisher as an author party.  I knew she had written certain ones, forgotten she’d written other ones, but never read anything. Plus, I only had a small inkling of wanting to read anything (mostly right after she passed). But then I found The Princess Diarist. Thinking it was the last memoir she wrote, I figured it was as good as any other to start with. Afterall, why not do the most recent one? It would have the most updated […]

A new Lucy Parker romance with actors falling for each other

Misdirected by Lucy Parker

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CBR17 Bingo: Work (Actors on set – and in private) I read this book at the end of March, and as such, I’m going to rely on the official plot summary to help me out here: Hattie Murton never dreamed of TV stardom. A straight-from-a-fairytale encounter with a casting agent somehow landed her a part on what she’d thought would be a one-off pilot for Leicester Square, a bodice-ripping drama adapted from a bestselling romance novel. Buoyed by a surge in demand for romantic dramas, […]

In the Early 1980s Fujiwara Maki began a picture diary

My Picture Diary by Maki Fujiwara

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My Picture Diary is an odd little book. It is a day-to-day/day in the life of the author, Maki Fujiwara (also illustrated by) and her family. Things are fairly dull on the surface, but a lot is going on nonetheless. You can see the era (the late 1970s/early 1980s) and the culture and country (Japan); and of course, the husband and wife and the parent(s) and child relationships. The illustrations are simple, but deceptively so. The style itself is not overly detailed, but they do […]

A romance about audiobook narrators, by a queen of audiobook narration

Thank You for Listening by Julia Whelan

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Sewanee (pronounced Swanie, several characters call her Swan) Chester was a child actress on a popular sitcom, but a serious injury while filming her big break as an adult led to her losing an eye and becoming permanently scarred, so now she makes her living as an audiobook narrator. While it may not be as glamorous as acting, she’s very good at it and has won several awards. Early in her career, she also narrated romance novels, but now her cynicism makes it too hard […]

A great Shakespearean actor

Ira’s Shakespeare Dream by Glenda Armand

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Ira’s Shakespeare Dream by Glenda Armand and illustrated by Floyd Cooper was the right book at the right time. Had I read it any other time than recently in APril 2024, I don’t think it would have hit me the same. I had just read a book that had put all the well-known people in the theme, and I needed something that would give me the unknown. Read via an online reader copy and currently available, Armand takes a probably mostly unknown actor of color […]



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