Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Abduct

Sweet Savage Love by Rosemary Rogers

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July 18, 2021 Ginny Brandon, a senator’s daughter, is sent to nominally ride a wagon train to California, but is actually smuggling gold to Mexico to support the Emperor’s cause. She is relentlessly drawn to the wagon train guide, Steve Morgan. But unbeknownst to her, Steve is actually a spy intent on thwarting her father’s plans. What can I say about this book? It’s a wild ride, but one I never wanted to get off of. Ginny and Steve are a quintessential, swashbuckling romance hero […]

Your Confederate Sympathies May Vary

The Outlaw Hearts by Rebecca Brandewyne

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When schoolteacher Jenny Colter takes the train into the little Ozarks town of Tumbling Creek, she’s hoping to leave behind the violence which destroyed her family in post-Civil War Atlanta. But when she catches sight of the uncovered face of Luke Morgan when he’s robbing the train, he’s determined to keep her quiet by any means necessary… Rebecca Brandewyne is another of those writers of big off-the-wall 80s bodice rippers which I love, though her work doesn’t reach for the soaring heights of WTF-ery that […]

Not That Kind of Oven

Skye O'Malley by Bertrice Small

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Beautiful Skye O’Malley falls in love with Niall Burke on the eve of her marriage to another man, but even someone as adventurous as she cannot imagine the twists and turns her life will take on her way back to him. Sometimes you just want to lay back, turn off your brain, and enjoy a rollicking adventure full of romance, drama, and a surprising amount of politics. Bertrice Small’s work fits the bill perfectly, and in the life of Skye O’Malley, her best known heroine, […]

Grossly Misdirected Rage

Beloved Enemy by Amanda York

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Lanna, an English gentlewoman, falls in love with one young American but finds herself coerced into marriage with his dark-tempered friend, who seems intent on punishing her for reasons she does not understand. Look at that cover. Take a moment to appreciate that cover. I really miss old bodice-ripper style romance covers. Anyway, young, sheltered Lanna falls squarely in the trap of a dastardly devil with mommy issues who’s trying to get revenge on her father through her, except it turns out that Lanna is […]

Janet Just Won’t Quit

The Kadin by Bernice Small

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This book charts the colorful life of Janet Leslie from birth to death. Born in Scotland, she ended up one of the chief wives of an Ottoman prince and comes to play an important part in his reign. Firstly, this is not a romance. We do not see much of the relationship between Janet/Cyra and either of her love interests. Instead, we get a lot of political intrigue, historical facts, and some lovable gal palling between Cyra and Selim’s other wives. It’s not serious historical […]

The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind small

Zanzara by Gloria Vitanza Basile

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Born in poverty and raised in a squalid orphanage, Phaedra’s life transforms completely when her identity as a prince’s illegitimate daughter is revealed, vaunting her into the lap of luxury. But she has a long, tough path to tread still before she will reach her happy ending. I really, really love the crazy bloody bodice rippers of the 1970s and 80s. They are always wild and adventurous, often with a strong historical grounding, and take you careening through the kind of heroine’s journey that leave […]



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