A Blast from the Past Post: the AAR 2006 Annual Reader Poll
Here’s another Blast from the Past from March of 2006.
Enjoy!
AAR 2006 Annual Reader Poll
(For 2005 releases)
“Jump link” to Accompanying ATBF Column […]
And the winners of the AAR Annual Reader Poll 2016 are….
This year’s Annual Poll results are finally here. We thank the many many readers who responded to our survey. The format of taking nominees and then creating a ballot with the top vote getters was a success. Our hard working pollsters–thanks LinneGayl and Lee–tabulated thousands of votes. We plan to run our poll similarly next year.
We will make a few changes, however. It’s clear that allowing books to nominated in multiple categories can create a situation where one author and/or book wins big time. Which is what happened this year. (This will make you happy if you love Nalini Singh which, clearly, many many of our readers do.)
Here, then, are the winners of the 2016 Annual Reader Poll.
NOTE: Honorable mentions have traditionally been given when a book receives at least 80% of the votes of the winner.
Best Romance
Winner:
Winner: And the Nominees Are….
Several readers asked for a list of the nominees in this year’s Annual Reader Poll. Here you go!
And if you’ve not yet voted, please do. Here’s the link.
Best Romance
Radiance by Grace Draven
Archangel’s Enigma by Nalini Singh
Mistress Firebrand by Donna Thorland
Rise by Karina Bliss
Seduction Game by Pamela Clare
Shards of Hope by Nalini Singh
A Seditious Affair by KJ Charles
The Legend of Lyon Redmond by Julie Anne Long
It Started With a Scandal by Julie Anne Long
Favorite Funny Romance
My Kind of Wonderful by Jill Shalvis
Suddenly One Summer by Julie James
When A Scot Ties the Knot by Tessa Dare
The Friend Zone by Kristen Callihan
Truth or Beard by Penny Reid
Rock Hard by Nalini Singh
Dukes Prefer Blondes by Loretta Chase
Act Like It by Lucy Parker
Favorite Tear-Jerker Romance
Shards of Hope by Nalini Singh
The Duke and the Lady […]
Annual Poll Update: It’s a Runoff!
When AAR conducted its first Annual Reader Poll for the best in romances published in 1996 things were a lot different on the web. AAR was one of the few online sites devoted to romance readers’ views, and one of the only sites to offer reviews written by readers. Facebook was limited, there was no Twitter, there were no blogs devoted to romance, there was no goodreads, Amazon was in its infancy, there were no eBooks, and romance authors had yet to take to the web in full force. All of this limited the information – the buzz – available to romance readers, meaning the readers who voted in the first AAR Annual polls were exposed to a more limited set of romances. My how times have changed.
Over the past few years as we’ve tallied the votes in the Annual Reader polls we’ve noticed more and more books nominated in each category, often making it difficult to name a […]
The AAR Annual Readers’ Poll
The annual AAR Reader Poll is open!
We’re pleased to announce, for the 20th year in a row, the AAR Annual Reader Poll is now open! We hope you will help us take a look back to find the best romance books the year 2015 had to offer.
The AAR Annual Reader Poll began with the best romances of 1996, and ever since then, readers have used the poll results to guide them to some of the best romances published in the past year. But for the poll to be helpful, and truly represent as many AAR readers as possible, we need you to vote! Many readers use various guides to fill out their ballots. Some AAR readers keep spreadsheets of their reading year, while others utilize such online sites as Goodreads for their records, making it relatively easy to fill out a ballot. If you haven’t kept a spreadsheet or reading chart (and there are just […]
The Best Romance Short Story/Novella of 2015 So Far Is……
After a rather unexpected long break for some real life events, I’m ready to start again with our series of posts about the best of romances published to date in each of the AAR Annual Poll categories. Next up, is the Best Romance Short Story or Novella. Voting in this category used to be very easy; run through all of the anthologies you’d read during the year and pick your favorite story. Then along came eBooks, and with them a seemingly ever-increasing number of novellas. Some days it seems as if virtually every popular author – and every up-and-coming author – is writing a novella that’s either a prequel to their next book, an epilogue to a popular book, or a complete standalone. And with the increase in novellas, voting in this category has become a lot more complicated.
Last year’s winner in the Best Romance Short Story or Novella was a novella, by Cecilia Grant. That book is easy […]
Annual Poll Focus: Best Historical Romance NOT set in the U.K.
Last month we published the first of a series of posts leading up to AAR’s Annual Reader Poll for the best of romance published for the first time in 2015. Each post will focus on one of the Annual Poll categories (see here for last year’s winners) The first post featured the best of Romantic Suspense, and readers had a lot of great recommendations for books we should read.
Next up in this series is the Best Historical Romance NOT set in the U.K. (in other words, every place but England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland).
Sherry Thomas won in last year’s poll for My Beautiful Enemy. I used the same strategy as last time, and did a series of power searches at AAR to see which non-U.K. historical romances first published in 2015 had received grades of B- or higher by AAR reviewers. This search was a bit […]
Speaking of Audiobooks: An Audio Take on AAR’s 2014 Annual Poll
Note: Our “For the New Listener” feature appears below our Annual Poll discussion.
It’s evident to participants in AAR’s Annual Poll that the results are based on the reader’s enjoyment of the print version of each book (although it’s not ever implicitly stated). But does a winning book’s inclusion on the resulting Best 2014 Romance Novels list indicate the best in audiobooks as well? Well, sometime yes and, unfortunately, sometimes no. A narrator has such a strong influence on the audio version of any fictional book that they can lift the overall audio grade to a higher level or lower it significantly.
That’s what today’s column is all about. We’re taking a look at AAR’s 2014 Annual Poll winners (the print versions) and reviewing the probability of such a winning status in their existing audio formats. Just which winning books can you comfortably search out […]
AAR Poll Winners and the Test of Time
Commenters in the forums posed an interesting question: How do AAR Annual Poll results hold up over time?
I went back to explore the winners and honorable mentions for Favorite Romance for the first five years, figuring those gave enough distance to see which books remain popular today. I used subjective measures (do I feel like these books still get buzz?) and the objective data in the AAR 2013 Top 100 poll (do winners each year continue to beat other books released that year, or have other books surpassed them?). Please note that each poll reflects books published the previous year (ie the 1997 poll is for books published in 1996).
1997 Poll (1996 books) 
Favorite Romance of […]
The Poll Results Page… in case you missed it!
| Best 2014 Romance Novels | ||||
| Best Romance | It Happened One Wedding, Julie James | |||
| Best Contemporary Romance | It Happened One Wedding, Julie James | |||
Best Romantic Suspense | River Road, Jayne Ann Krentz | |||
| Best Paranormal Romance | Shield of Winter, Nalini Singh | |||
| Best Romantic Science Fiction | The Kraken King, Meljean Brook | |||
| Best Romantic Fantasy Fiction | The Winter King, C.L. Wilson | |||
| Best Historical Romance Set in the U.K.Honorable Mentions | Only Enchanting, Mary Balogh Rogue Spy, Joanna Bourne Three Weeks with Lady X, Eloisa James The Suffragette Scandal, Courtney Milan | |||
| Best Historical Romance Not Set in the U.K. | My Beautiful Enemy, Sherry Thomas | |||