Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Sparkling Revenge Romance

Revenge of the Sunshine by Jackie Lau

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I remember the moment I realized some men like it when a woman is mean to them. Zoe, the sunshine in Jackie Lau’s Revenge of the Sunshine, is a little bit mean. Bennett Chung secretly likes it that Zoe bullies him into whimsey. He doesn’t admit that he likes it. You have to pay attention to what he does, not what he says (or thinks). Zoe could have been meaner to Bennett’s younger brother, her ex-boyfriend, and her former best friend after she caught them […]

First Book in a New Series

Revenge of the Sunshine by Jackie Lau

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I have read a lot of Jackie Lau novels, and at this point I’ve got a pretty good idea what one of her books is going to contain and if I’m going to enjoy it. It will have emotionally layered backstories for both of its main leads; be set in the larger Toronto environs; food, beverage, bars, and restaurants with delicious descriptions will appear; there will be some quite steamy scenes; mental health representation will appear in no small way; and the value of true […]

Sunshine and grumpy: Christmas edition

Magically Generated by Jackie Lau

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CBR17 Bingo: Arts (Everett makes detailed sketches before making his amazing snow sculptures) This was an ARC from the author. My opinions are my own. Nora Blackburn no longer believes in love and is super wary of anything that might be a fraud or scam. Her previous relationship was with a man who scammed her out of thousands of dollars, and she’s determined not to be fooled again. Her state of constant hyperawareness and scepticism of everyone and everything also means she isolates herself, and she […]

“She wanted to read stories that had been written with care, by a writer who’d wrestled with words, who might have sworn at the computer and procrastinated by cleaning the entire apartment and furiously dictated notes in the middle of the night”

Magically Generated by Jackie Lau

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Invariably, something that is bothering an author is going to make its way into the book they’re writing. That something for Jackie Lau in Magically Generated is GenAI. While I am largely on the side that Lau takes via her main character’s rants, I thought the note was hit too often and it wasn’t necessary because Lau already had enough character depth with Nora to have the reader empathize with her “done with the nonsense and not trusting anyone new or anything on the internet” vibe she is giving off strongly as this Christmas novella gets started (and throughout, really).    I love […]

Probably best to skip the mystery dumplings at the night market

Time Loops & Meet Cutes by Jackie Lau

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4.5 stars Thank you to Netgalley, Jackie Lau and Atria Books for this ARC. My opinions are my own. Noelle Tom feels like she’s in a rut. She’s underappreciated at work, she doesn’t have much of a social life to speak of, and she’s pretty much given up on love and dating. Having worked late yet another Friday evening, Noelle goes to the night market and buys some dumplings from a mysterious old woman who claims they will “give her what she needed most”. Unfortunately, […]

Magical Realism Dumplings

Time Loops & Meet Cutes by Jackie Lau

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Time loop stories are not my favorite genre so when Jackie Lau announced last year that Time Loops & Meet Cutes would be the title of her next book published by Atria Books, I took note but hadn’t planned on prioritizing it in my reading. Then I was sent an ARC and my curiosity and trust in Lau pushed me to accept it and get reading.   When we meet Noelle Tom, she is an overworked, underpaid, chronically in her own head person who doesn’t have […]



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