The Best of 2018: Lynn’s List

Since I’ve been discovering series I missed the first time around, a lot of my happy 2018 reading experiences have been of the backlist variety. However, this was a good book year for me in current releases as well. One book I had long been anticipating turned out to be a DNF bust, but I found plenty of other treasures. I’ve listed my favorite first, but otherwise my picks are in no particular order.

Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley

I’d been looking forward to this book for over a year, and it was probably my favorite 2018 read. It’s romantic, and there is so much meat to the story that I find myself thinking about it months after having read it. This tale of a French prisoner of war assigned to board with a family in  New York can […]

By |2019-01-09T11:34:54+00:00January 5th, 2019|Categories: Best of List, Lynn Spencer, Romance reading|Tags: |15 Comments
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December TBR Challenge – Holiday Romances

For the final TBR Challenge of 2018, we get to have some fun with holiday romances. This time around, we both chose Christmas stories from the Harlequin Romance line, though the tones of our picks couldn’t have been more different. Whether you are in the mood for light and dreamy, or deeply emotional and dramatic, it looks like we have you covered with these two winning picks. […]

By |2018-12-19T07:27:16+00:00December 19th, 2018|Categories: Caz AAR, Lynn Spencer, Reading, Romance, Romance reading, TBR Challenge|Tags: |3 Comments
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November TBR Challenge… time to judge a book by its cover

We know, we know. All our lives we’ve been admonished to, “Never judge a book by its cover.” However, this month is the exception at TBR Challenge, where we have been challenged to read a book with either a very pretty or very ugly cover. We both went with covers that appealed to us – though the books inside those covers were a bit of a mixed bag. What kinds of covers do you like?

Wings of a Dream by Anne Mateer

I read inspy romances from time to time, and I have to admit that the often gorgeous cover art tends to draw me in. A disproportionate number of books in that genre are blessed with above-average cover art. While not a seamlessly perfect read, Wings of a Dream is an appealing romance/coming-of-age story, and I enjoyed the good parts far more than I cringed at the weaker ones.

Set […]

By |2018-11-20T16:42:33+00:00November 21st, 2018|Categories: Caz AAR, Lynn Spencer, Romance reading, TBR Challenge|Tags: |1 Comment
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October TBR Challenge – Mysteries, Suspense or Things That Go Bump in the Night!

We both went in similar directions with TBR Challenge this month. The prompt gave us a choice between paranormal and romantic suspense, and as it turns out, Caz and I both headed in the suspense direction. Caz chose a solid romantic suspense thriller with plenty of action while I went in a more humorous mystery direction. […]

By |2018-10-17T08:05:35+00:00October 17th, 2018|Categories: Caz AAR, Lynn Spencer, Mysteries, Reading, Romance reading, TBR Challenge|Tags: , , |5 Comments
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September TBR Challenge – Anyone for Historicals?

Some months the TBR Challenge leaves us scratching our heads and digging deep into our overflowing TBR piles to find a book that fits the prompt. However, this month is historical romance month, and both of us found ourselves with an embarrassment of riches from which to choose. While we both ended up with European historicals, Lynn picked an oldie-but-goodie from the 1990s while Caz went with an entry from a beloved series of more recent vintage. […]

By |2018-09-19T04:33:18+00:00September 19th, 2018|Categories: Caz AAR, Historicals, Lynn AAR, Lynn Spencer, Romance, Romance reading, TBR Challenge|Tags: , , , |16 Comments
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July 2018 TBR Challenge – Tropetastic!

The TBR Challenge usually includes a prompt at some time during the year which gives participants the chance to pick a book that uses their favourite trope. This time around it’s July’s prompt, and Caz and Lynn both went with historicals – one a second chance at love story and the other featuring a marriage-of-convenience.

Familiar Stranger in Clear Springs by Kathryn Albright

“Favorite Trope” month is always a fun TBR Challenge for me – there are a few tropes out there that are like catnip. This time around, I was craving a second-chance-at-love tale, so I pulled Familiar Stranger in Clear Springs, a 2016 Harlequin Historical, out of the stack. This one is a sweet, charming Western with an HEA I was happy to see. Definitely a successful read.

Tom Barrington and Elizabeth Morley first met in […]

By |2018-08-11T19:17:03+00:00July 18th, 2018|Categories: Caz AAR, Historicals, Lynn Spencer, Reading, Romance reading, TBR Challenge|Tags: |4 Comments
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June TBR Challenge – A Comfort Read

The “comfort read” prompt for this month’s TBR Challenge can be a tough one, as often the books that spring to mind are those well-read tomes to which we come back time after time… which doesn’t help to shave anything off our massive TBR piles. So instead, Caz and Lynn turned to favourite authors, and came up trumps with a couple of excellent reads.

Keeper of the Swans by Nancy Butler

I read the wonderful Prospero’s Daughter by Nancy Butler for a reading challenge prompt a few years back, and at the time, lamented that none of the author’s books were available digitally.  So I was delighted last year to discover that the situation is gradually being remedied; a handful of her historical romances are now available in e-formats, and I hope that […]

By |2018-06-20T10:31:12+00:00June 20th, 2018|Categories: Caz AAR, Lynn Spencer, Reading, Romance reading, TBR Challenge|Tags: , , , |2 Comments
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“I couldn’t put it down…” What was YOUR last unputdownable read?

The unputdownable read…  it’s kind of the holy grail of books, isn’t it? That book that hooks you in on the first page and doesn’t let you go until the last; the book you enjoy so much that you can’t stop turning the pages even as you wish you could read more slowly because you don’t want it to end, and the book you immediately have to shout about to all your friends – whether in person or on Social Media.  We’re all lucky enough to come across THAT BOOK from time to time, and the AAR team got together to talk about the book we read most recently that we simply couldn’t put down.

Anne

I Joined a Teen-age Sex Club (Yes, that was an actual title from a story published in 1951!)

This is a compilation of essential romance […]

By |2018-06-04T05:43:13+00:00June 4th, 2018|Categories: AAR Shannon, Anne Marble, audio books, BJ Jansen, Caz AAR, Dabney AAR, EmAAR, graphic novels, Keira Soleore, Kristen D, Lisa F, Lynn Spencer, Maggie AAR, Re-reading, Reading, Romance reading|Tags: |55 Comments
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May TBR Challenge – Contemporary Romance

Sometimes in doing the TBR Challenge, we learn more about our reading habits than we realized. Since the May TBR Challenge prompt is contemporary romance, I went combing through my stacks – and came up almost empty. Most of the single title contemporaries I buy are books that I want to read right that minute, so they tend not to linger in the TBR. After dithering a bit, I settled on Irene Brand’s 2008 release, Love Finds You in Valentine, Nebraska. I remembered liking a few of Brand’s inspie romances when I was about twelve, so I decided to give this a whirl.

My twelve-year-old self might have enjoyed this book, but as an adult? Um…train-wreck would be a good term to use here. I actually read it in one sitting, but as I read, […]

By |2018-05-15T18:07:08+00:00May 16th, 2018|Categories: Caz AAR, Lynn Spencer, Reading, Romance reading, TBR Challenge|Tags: , , |3 Comments
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