Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Victorian steampunk romance with ghosts!

Gaslight Hades by Grace Draven

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You can always count on Draven for some creative world building that doesn’t feel like LOTR fan fiction. Plot: Nathaniel was a rich, happy dude with a penchant for steampunk type engineering, not least because Lenore, the daughter of the inventor he worked with most was brilliant and beautiful and super into him. But he had a passion for exploring, so he got himself drafted to work on a transport ship that travels deep into space, and then promptly got himself killed by unutterable horrors […]

“Privilege,” she said gently, “gives the crown its shine. Duty gives it its weight.”

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4.5 stars Since I started reading romance, I’ve enjoyed many colors and stripes of them. But I have to say, I believe that possibly above all other romance sub-genres, I categorically enjoy fantasy/paranormal series that follow one couple and continue along a larger arc. I’m talking the “Fever” series, or the “Kate Daniels” series, and “Wraith Kings” certainly qualifies as well. I appreciate these longer takes for a lot of reasons: they frequently get to tease out the sexual tension over a longer period of […]

“You make a very handsome dead eel, my husband”

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Radiance is an extremely clever romance, and the good-natured ribbing between the two leads, whose species find each other unforgivably ugly, is hilarious. It’s also a very thoughtful and reasoned take on societal beauty standards, and how remarkably different perceptions can be between two groups who aren’t all that dissimilar, but project and amplify their differences into something grotesque. Ildiko is a regular human noblewoman who enters a diplomatic marriage with Prince Brishen of the Kai. Neither is dragged kicking and screaming into it, because […]

A marriage of convenience story done right

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4.5 stars Ildiko is a human woman, the less than favoured niece of the Gauri king. To cement an important political alliance she’s been promised in marriage to Prince Brishen of Bast-Haradis, a Kai warrior and the younger son to the ruthless ruling couple. Humans and Kai, for all that they share similar anatomical traits are very different, both in looks and cultural values. The Kai have black, unreadable eyes, sharp features, grey skin, long claws and a mouth full of sharp fangs and are […]

An arranged marriage, two races who hate each other. Of this romance is born.

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Radiance by Grace Draven is the book of the month for Vaginal Fantasy. I am beginning to despair over the choices made for that particular book club. It’s not that Radiance is bad exactly, it’s just a ridiculous piece of fluff that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense once you start to think about various plot elements. Brishen Khaskem is a prince of the Kai and Ildiko is a human noble woman of a neighboring kingdom. The kai and humans find each other to […]



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