Cannonball Read 14

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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[got me] to a nunnery!

Matrix by Lauren Groff

Heloise & Abelard: A New Biography by James Burge

The Tigress of Forlì: Renaissance Italy's Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de Medici by Elizabeth Lev

Letters of a Portuguese Nun: Uncovering the Mystery Behind a 17th Century Forbidden Love by Myriam Cyr

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I thought I was going to need some time to recover from the exquisite The Everlasting, but really it flung me head-first into a literal rabbit-hole. A warren. An abbey. A nunnery, if you will. Also- The Atlantic just posted a list of books that were done dirty by pandemic releases, and OF COURE The Everlasting resides within those vaulted halls. I was immediately drawn to Caterina Riario Sforza de Medici after she was mentioned several times in The Everlasting. A distant relative of her spots her likeness in the […]

Time Warp

Nowhere Girl by Magali Le Huche

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In the first few pages of Nowhere Girl, I felt like I had time traveled between several decades. First, the 1960s due to the reference of the Beatles and the feeling of the art and tone of the story. Then, the 1970s via the look of the city and again, the tone of the story and the Beatles. And then via the clothes we finally landed in the 1980s and 1990s. But then you have references to some pop culture when the main character and […]

I Need A Hefty Historical Saga About This Woman, ASAP

The Mistress From Chandernagore by A. B. de M. Hunter

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When Catherine, born to a French family in India, wed an Englishman from down the river, she thought she would settle down and have lots of children. But instead her life becomes a whirl of travel, scandal, spies, and romance that eventually leads her to the highest echelons of Napoleonic society. Poor student of history that I am, I do know who Talleyrand is. But I had never even considered the existence of a Mme de Talleyrand, and so was quite delighted to learn all […]

‘And blue anemone for you, and the excitement and anticipation I feel when I think of our lives together.’

A Proposal in Provence by Donna Alward

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Anemone didn’t find out that she was the illegitimate child of the already married Lord Pemberton until after both her parents had passed away. Hoping to get to know her family better, she comes to work at their company in France. But when her identity is discovered, she’s whisked away to the countryside hide from the publicity by her charming boss Phillipe. This is the fifth book in the Heirs to an Empire series, but I followed it quite easily without having read any of […]

The Original Elizabeth and Mary

The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World by Shelley Puhak

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Two women, rival queens, rule kingdoms that lie side by side. Over the course of decades, they scheme and intrigue and fight both to keep their crowns and to take away the other’s. One will die peacefully, the other violently, and from their actions a dynasty will come to an end. The Dark Queens follows the lives of Brunhild and Fredegund, who were Frankish queens during the 500s. They had extremely disparate origins, with one starting as a Spanish princess and the other as a palace […]

En Garde!

The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France by Eric Jager

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I got a familiar feeling when I read this, like I had read something like it before. So I looked up the writer’s name and sure enough, he wrote another, similar book about a crime involving French aristocracy. Blood Royal was a good enough book but it focused less on the crime and more on the budding Civil War in France over the death of Louis X. It dragged the story down and while it was readable, it wasn’t necessarily good. This one avoids that mistake. […]



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