Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Love and Grief on the Oregon Coast

Heartwaves by Anita Kelly

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Every Anita Kelly book I read is my new favorite, and this is the one currently holding the trophy. When we meet Mae, they have just spread their best friend’s ashes at the beach in a small Oregon town. Almost on a whim, she decides to move to this town—in part because she wants to be closer to Jesus (the friend, not the Lord), and in part because there’s a storefront for sale on Main Street. What better way to honor Jesus’s legacy than to […]

Beautiful, harrowing and oh so sad

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

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CBR16 Bingo: Liberate (our protagonists are fighting in World War I to keep the world safe from the Germans) Official plot summary, because I finished this book in early April: It’s 1914, and talk of war feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. At seventeen, they’re too young to enlist, and anyway, Gaunt is fighting his own private battle – an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, […]

“We all have the right to be recognised for who we are.”

A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall

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4.5 stars For most of her life, Viola Carroll was forced to live a lie. Then she went off to the Napoleonic wars, with her best friend and constant companion Justin de Vere, the Duke of Gracewood, and because of a horrible accident where she was presumed dead by everyone who knew her, she decided to just let most people assume her former self was indeed dead (so her title and estates could pass to her brother), making it possible for her to finally live […]

A porn star and a virgin walk into a bakery

Make You Mine (Running in Circles #1) by E.M. Lindsey

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CBR15Bingo: Edibles square CBR15Passport: New to me author Noah is a reluctant baker trying to keep his deceased bubbe’s beloved family bakery afloat. After leaving school to be the sole guardian and provider for his fourteen-year-old brother Adam, Noah believes he cannot survive losing another family member. As a young child, he and his family left Tel Aviv after the death of his father. Devastated, his mother never recovered and met her own tragic end. After losing his grandmother, twenty-year-old Noah makes a promise to […]

I don’t want power. I just object to idiots having power over me.

Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold

Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold

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I was so afraid for you, I forgot to be afraid for your enemies. ― Lois McMaster Bujold, Barrayar These three novels were my entry into the Vorkosigan books by Lois McMaster Bujold. There are a few different entry points, but these three provided the right amount of backstory at the right time. I’ve read that you can begin with The Warrior’s Apprentice, however you would miss out on some wonderful characters that are only referenced within the two earlier books. Shards of Honor is […]

Little book, big story

The Golden Hour by Niki Smith

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Triggers with experiencing violence event are explored in The Golden Hour. This is a sweet look at the difficulties one boy faces with anxiety, depression, and his PTSD after witnessing gun violence involving a teacher at school. Through therapy, grounding techniques and new friends Manuel starts healing. I know it seems odd that it is sweet, but Niki Smith tastefully shows you the journey Manuel takes. Smith brings in elements of Manuel coming from a single parent home. They show you a bit of his […]



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