Another year, another list of books that I think others simply must buy and read to live happy, fulfilling lives. Or at least, to feel like they’ve read the best of the best of the year that was. This year I had a really hard time picking as the first ten months or so saw me perusing some truly amazing books. Here is my (whittled down) list of my favorite romances/romantic reads.
Every year when I’m ready to compile my best of the year list, I feel like I haven’t read anything for a year. That isn’t the case for 2018. I read a ton this year…it just wasn’t published in 2018. My reading habits took a shift from consuming almost entirely Contemporary Romance (with some Young Adult) to suddenly powering through the backlists of several Regency Romance bestsellers. I don’t know what happened! It did mean that my list for what I’d read that was actually published this year was shorter, but I have a handful I loved and want to share.
I know both […]
2018 has turned out to be kind of a tough reading year, not only for me, but for many of the readers in my life. Fortunately though, I’ve managed to read several stellar books amidst the mediocrity. Here they are in no particular order… […]
I’m really pleased to be welcoming author Sally Malcolm to AAR today. Back in August, her first m/m novel, Perfect Day, was published by Carina Press, and I was utterly enchanted by both the characters and her writing; the novel is a modern-day retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and yet, as I said in my review, Ms. Malcolm managed to keep to the spirit of the original while imbuing her characters with distinctive lives and personalities of their own. […]
The Romance genre holds a special place in my heart, but I tend to read across genres and I think my Best of 2018 really reflects that. Looking over my Goodreads history, it was easy to pull out reads that stood head and shoulders above the rest, and they happened to be a sampling from several different kinds of reads. […]
This has been an interesting year for romance. It was one where contemporaries have thrived, YAs have blossomed – but it’s been harder to find the right kind of historical. In reverse order, here are my favorite books of 2018!
YA has had one heck of a year; I can name at least six books in the genre I’d give an easy best of recommendation to. Lee’s book makes the grade for so many reasons, but the first is that it’s terribly absorbing and easy to fall into. A rip-roaring adventure that gives us the next step in Felicity’s adventures, this book is about self-discovery and self-assuredness. An asexual, aromantic heroine who dreams of becoming a doctor and finds her calling in the world at large, a lesbian […]
Are you always behind in your reading? Making a Best Books of The Year list is always a source of frustration for me, because so often, the best reads I had in any given year aren’t from that year at all. I want to celebrate them and shout about them, but if they’re not from 2018, they aren’t eligible for so many of our official posts!
I asked our staffers: what was your best belated read (BBR?) of 2018? Was it a famous book for which you’re really, really late to the party? A buried treasure you want to share with other readers?
Here’s what we came up with.
Adam Mandel appeared briefly in the two previous books of this series*–as a previous, brief love interest of the heroine’s in Addicted to Love, and as the best friend of the hero in Five Minutes to Love. In both stories, he was a player, a love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of guy. He wasn’t a terrible person, he just wasn’t interested in commitment. And professionally, his life was pretty easy as well. His father is the head of his own law firm, and Adam was guaranteed a spot there right out of law school. This guy’s life appeared made. […]
We’ve all heard the statistics: 70% of gift cards don’t get used. Your hard-earned cash sits in someone’s wallet till it expires, leaving both giver and receiver feeling a bit miffed. We often give gift cards, though, because we have no idea what to give the other person, especially when that other person is a teen. Well – AAR has a solution for that. We’ve put our heads together to recommend the best items for the finicky teen in your life.
For the reader:
