Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Short reads to finish off my reading year (and help me to finally complete my double Cannonball)

Night of the Scoundrel by Kelly Bowen

The Monsters We Deserve by Marcus Sedgwick

A Match Made for Thanksgiving by Jackie Lau

A Second-Chance Road Trip for Christmas by Jackie Lau

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Night of the Scoundrel by Kelly Bowen Rating: 4 stars In this novella which concludes Kelly Bowen’s The Devils of Dover series, we finally find out more about the mysterious King, who has been popping up in Bowen’s books for a long time. A shadowy London crime lord with connections to smuggling, art forgery, theft and all sorts of other untoward business, he is not a man to cross. He discovers that a man he believed to be dead, a man who ruined his childhood and set him […]

Continually Thankful My Own Mother Doesn’t Use Her Knowledge of Romance Novel Tropes Against Her Children

A Match Made for Thanksgiving by Jackie Lau

A Second Chance Road Trip for Christmas by Jackie Lau

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We’ve reached the time of year where I usually plow through a couple holiday romance novellas while traveling and wind up my Cannonball year. I’ve read two such novellas (and have emmalita to thank for getting them on my radar) and I couldn’t be happier about it. It has also added a new to me author to my buy list so thank goodness I just got a gift card for books in my work Secret Santa! A Match Made for Thanksgiving and A Second Chance […]

Two Great Tropes in One

A Fake Girlfriend for Chinese New Year by Jackie Lau

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Jackie Lau’s A Fake Girlfriend for Chinese New Year is the third in her quartet of small town holiday romances, Holidays with the Wongs. Lau is one of the authors I discovered this year via Twitter and she has become one of my comfort reads. I have yet to dislike one of her books, and I found this one charming, and yes, comfortable. After being traumatized with a surprise blind date in A Match Made for Thanksgiving, Zach Wong is worried his mother and grandmother will try […]

A Pleasent Second Chance at Love Holiday Novella

A Second Chance Road trip for Christmas by Jackie Lau

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Getting on Jackie Lau’s advance reader copy list has been a delight. I received this novella from the author in exchange for an honest review. I enjoy Lau’s books. I like the way she often balances romance tropes, indulgent food descriptions and weightier issues her characters face. In past books she has had characters deal with mental health, abortion, and finding connection with their Chinese roots in a white dominated culture. A Second Chance Road Trip for Christmas is lighter than previous books, mainly dealing […]

A Romance for Canadian Thanksgiving

A Match Made for Thanksgiving by Jackie Lau

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One of my favorite Canadian romance authors, Jackie Lau, has seen a lot of holiday romances featuring white characters, but very few with biracial or Asian characters. She decided to correct that with a series of four novellas, one for each of the Wong siblings. The Wongs grew up in the small Ontario town of Mosquito Bay. The first novella centers around Canadian Thanksgiving, which is this weekend. This is a sweet, fluffy novella with low conflict, some steamy sex, baking, and a playboy who […]



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