Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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A family too annoying to care about

These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean

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I saw These Summer Storms (2025) by Sarah MacLean on NPR’s Favorite Books List. I’ve never read anything by Sarah MacLean, but I’m a fan of romance novels, and this one seemed interesting enough. So I picked it up. Unfortunately, I found this one more disappointing than not. After a fun beginning, the plot did not feel believable, and I didn’t like the characters. By the end of the book, I was curious how it was going to end, but I was also ready for it to be […]

“I Notice You” Her whole life she tried hard not to be noticed, but it never felt as dangerous as it was when this man – all strong hands and set jaw – noticed her. As if she didn’t have enough mess to contend with.”

These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean

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Do you have any authors that you feel like, if you met them in real life, you’d just automatically be friends? Something about their voice, their tone, their sense of humor, the way their background characters lovingly put up with their stupid-ass, obviously-in-love-but-too-blind-to-see-it best friends : Just something about how they write hits you exactly right and you’re convinced, “Yes, this person and I are obviously simpatico, long-lost BFFs”? The author that most fits into that category for me is Sarah MacLean. Now, this may be […]

Strong Succession vibes in Maclean’s new contemporary

These Summer Storms by Sarah Maclean

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4.5 stars CBR17 Book Bingo: Family Thanks to Random House and Netgalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. Alice Storm hasn’t had any contact with her family for five years, since she went public with some unsavoury company secrets and her father disowned her. Now her larger-than-life father, Franklin Storm, is dead, and she has to return to the family’s private island off Rhode Island to pay her respects. She isn’t planning on staying past the funeral, but it seems even in death, […]

Some romantic books I read this summer and am reviewing now to reach a double Cannonball

Fangirl, the Manga: Volume 3 by Rainbow Rowell and Gabi Nam

Deal with the Devil by Kit Rocha

How the Wallflower Was Won by Eva Leigh

Knockout by Sarah Maclean

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Fangirl, the Manga: Volume 3 – Rainbow Rowell and Gabi Nam Rating: 4 stars This August saw the release of the third installment of Rainbow Rowell’s manga version of Fangirl, my absolute favourite of her books (did I just buy a fancy tenth-anniversary edition, even though I own it in three other formats, NOT counting the mangas? You betcha). Cath is still struggling at college. Her writing partner Nick steals the story they’ve been working on together and makes her seem unreasonable for being upset […]

Heartbreaker by Sarah MacLean

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What I do remember of this novel is that there’s a lot of context that’s vaguely anachronistic (e.g., lots of characters who have leeway to travel alone and cause all sorts of mayhem) but it’s all in service of a good cause. I always root for MacLean heroines, as you can see by the speed with which I finished this one (less than a day, and that might have been in travel as well). This one also sticks out to me as being quite spicy […]

https://cannonballread.com/2022/12/heartbreaker-wicherwill/

“Large groups of powerful men have little reason to make change.”

Heartbreaker by Sarah Maclean

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CBR14 Bingo: Heart (it’s right there in the title, and this is a romance) Adelaide Frampton was once the unappreciated daughter of one of the East End’s most notorious criminals, which led her to acquire a number of illegal skills that now come in handy as she frequents London’s high society posing as the unassuming and plain spinster cousin of a duchess. She uses her time on the sidelines of ballrooms and society events to observe and acquire information and can also put her top-notch […]



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