Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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”My name, since you raise the topic, is Arthur Aloysius Kimberley de Brabazon Secretan. What would you do in my place?” “Leave the country … You poor bastard, you never stood a chance.” #CBRBingo – The Roaring 20’s

Slippery Creatures (The Will Darling Adventures, #1) by K.J. Charles

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I loved everything about this. K.J. Charles is honestly spoiling me for other historical romance authors. There’s just something about her style (very detailed, historically accurate, flawed but compelling characters) that gets me right in the pleasure center. She also doesn’t just write in one time period or keep it to straight-up romance. She’s always messing around with spy fiction or mystery or golden age pulp (here and Think of England) or jewelry heists or homages to Georgette Heyer regency fiction. Sometimes many of these […]

“I like the way he says ‘furthermore’,” Merrick observed quietly. “Cos you can tell he means ‘wankers’.”

Flight of Magpies (A Charm of Magpies, #3) by K.J. Charles

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All in all, this series has not been my personal favorite from K.J. Charles, but I’d still call it very good. In Flight of Magpies, plotlines and arcs that have been building since book one finally are resolved. Crane wants to leave the country with Stephen more and more every day. He’s chafing at England’s restrictive society, and he’d rather be away from reminders of his family legacy and obligations, as all they do is remind him of how terrible his life used to be. […]

Kicking off this year’s Bingo Card with an excellent historical romance

Any Old Diamonds by K.J. Charles

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#CBR12Bingo: Money! Official book description (because I’m still reviewing books I read three months ago): Lord Alexander Pyne-ffoulkes, the younger son of the Duke of Ilvar, holds a bitter grudge against his wealthy father. The Duke intends to give his Duchess a priceless diamond parure on their wedding anniversary — so Alec hires a pair of jewel thieves to steal it. The Duke’s remote castle is a difficult target, and Alec needs a way to get the thieves in. Soldier-turned-criminal Jerry Crozier has the answer: he’ll […]

The country house party from Hell.

Proper English (England, #0) by K.J. Charles

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This wasn’t nearly as good as Think of England, one of my top five books from 2019, but it was still top quality, as I’ve come to expect from my K.J. Charles books. Proper English is an indirect prequel to Think of England, as it takes place two years earlier than the previous book, and shows how Fen and Pat met (they are together at the time Think of England is grappling with its own disastrous house party). But you really don’t need to read […]

::hangs large flashing neon sign saying “MORE PEOPLE READ K.J. CHARLES” over the top of this review::

Gilded Cage (The Lilywhite Boys, #2) by K.J. Charles

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First, I made the embedded cover real big in this review so y’all can see our heroine Susan’s face. It is the most non-swoony face I have ever, ever seen on a romance novel cover, and that is so true to her character, I love it. Even the arms are folded! Susan Lazarus is not fucking around. This is the second book in the Lilywhite Boys series, which follows two con men and thieves in late Victorian London. This series is actually connected to Charles’s […]

One of the very few cases where I like the plot better than the romance.

A Case of Possession (A Charm of Magpies, #2) by K.J. Charles

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The first book did need a sequel, and this was a pretty good one! It addressed: the power imbalance between Stephen and Crane; the issue of their homosexuality and how it would affect them going forward if they were found out (Crane doesn’t care, but it would ruin Stephen’s life); the issue of Stephen’s newfound power, which comes from the relationship (coughcough) between Stephen and Crane, but which his colleagues presume is evidence of him becoming a warlock (a warlock is someone who drains life […]



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