the Wayback on Wednesday: Attractive Men

By |2021-07-07T15:04:00-04:00July 7th, 2021|Categories: Characters, Heroes, Rike AAR|Tags: , |

(originally published on November 28, 2008)

Last week, I talked to two stunningly attractive men. There I was, happily married and all, just talking to them, and came out with my toes tingling and a broad smile on my face because that’s how hot they were. Because this happened within two days, it got me thinking about what made these men so very attractive. One is a colleague, and admittedly he is tall and dark, but he is definitely balding and deals with this by shaving his head. The Jean-Luc Picard look, if you want. So he is passably good-looking, if you like that style, yet what makes him breathtaking is not his looks, but the way he deals with you. His gift is true attention to people.

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Midweek minis

By |2017-06-23T08:30:07-04:00September 14th, 2016|Categories: Dabney AAR, Kristen D, Maria Rose, Mini reviews, Rike AAR|

Here is another round of our occasional series of mini reviews.  This time Emily, Kristen, Maria Rose and Rike share their thoughts on some recent reads.

Emily’s Reads:

The Fixer by Jenny Holiday
Jenny Fields is on a crusade – she’s trying to save an historic art building on her college campus, convinced saving it will get her into Columbia for graduate school. At a staff meeting one of her colleagues on the college newspaper suggests they try to get a famous artist alumni on-board to promote the cause. The gossip columnist suggests Emmanuel Curry, who recently had a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  To date, he’s been unwilling to be interviewed for the Examiner, but Jenny has an idea on a different way to approach him.

Matthew Townsend is a senior art prodigy, with a moody and solitary reputation.  More […]

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Publishing FIVE revised Special Title Lists

By |2017-06-23T08:30:07-04:00August 16th, 2016|Categories: LinnieGayl AAR, Rike AAR, Special Titles Lists|

A long time ago in a far-off galaxy … you nominated some books for five of AAR’s Special Titles Listings. And then … nothing. Several months of nothing, and then more than a year. We apologize most sincerely. But – we are glad to announce that finally the revised versions of Scots & Irish Romances, Teachers and Governesses, Villains, Beta Heroes, and Favorite Funnies are online.

The main reasons for this delay are two: Last year, all of us who work on the Special Titles Listings were struck with a hefty dose of real life. Nothing bad, but a lot of stuff that was extremely time-consuming. So with a sigh, we put aside our work on the list. And then came the period during which material was being prepared for the new site. We felt we’d prefer to publish the revised lists at a point when the new site was […]

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DIKlassic: Song of Seduction by Carrie Lofty

By |2017-06-23T08:30:08-04:00June 9th, 2016|Categories: DIK, DIKlassic, Rike AAR|Tags: |

Grade: A-

Sensuality: Hot

Publication date: June 2010

European historicals set outside Great Britain are rare, and those set in countries other than France, Italy, and Greece are close to extinct. Carrie Lofty’s Song of Seduction is set in 1804 Salzburg, and merely reading about it got me salivating. It proved a rich meal: Tightly written, well-researched, and as moving and romantic as I could have wished. […]

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Your Special Title Lists Team Hasn’t Abandoned You!

By |2017-06-23T08:30:20-04:00May 18th, 2015|Categories: Cindy AAR, LinnieGayl AAR, Rike AAR, Special Titles Lists|

imageWe’re happy to announce that this morning we’re opening four Special Title Lists for new submissions. That’s right, your Special Title Lists’ team hasn’t abandoned you. The lists that will be open for the next two weeks are: (1) Beta Heroes; (2) Marms, Teachers, and Governesses; (3) Favorite Funnies; and (4) Villains.

Beta Heroes: When we began updating the Special Title Lists in late 2012, we asked AAR readers to pick their favorite lists; Beta Heroes was near the top. The romances in this list feature kinder, gentler heroes, the kind of men who will change your flat tire, open doors for you, help your kid with his homework, and bring you soup when you are sick. They are the antithesis of the testosterone-filled chest beaters found in many earlier romances.

Marms, Teachers, and Governesses: Last updated in March of 2010, the romances in this list […]

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Two New Categories Are Open in our Special Titles Listings

By |2017-06-23T08:30:21-04:00February 20th, 2015|Categories: Cindy AAR, LinnieGayl AAR, Rike AAR, Special Titles Lists|

Now that we’ve revised the more popular Special Titles Listings, we are left with a number of the smaller categories that appear to be less in demand, but still interesting to some. So as we open them for new submissions, we considered these lists among ourselves, wondering what is attractive and what is less attractive about them.

For the Love of God is a list that suffers from the fact that titles which fit here are not so easy to spot. Many of the romances featuring characters for whom religion plays a major role are firmly anchored in the inspirational arena. They tend to center on the Christian faith and the main protagonists’ relationship with God, and actually this relationship is of equal importance as the actual romance. In many of these romances great emphasis is placed on a character being “saved” by his or her renewed faith. This is all well and good, but to find these titles […]

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Four Special Titles Listings revised

By |2017-06-23T08:30:21-04:00February 16th, 2015|Categories: Cindy AAR, LinnieGayl AAR, Rike AAR|

When we collect nominations for the Special Titles Listings, usually we greet the individual submissions with an affectionate moan: We love the new titles, but we grumble a bit at the work of looking up the books online, preparing the new entries, possibly even browsing through them to make sure they fit the category.

This time around, there was a change: Because we opened the lists just before Christmas (we might have known …), there were very few submissions at first. We panicked a bit, and went off to nominate some books ourselves.

In my (Rike’s) case, this meant literally walking up and down my bookshelves, browsing through the titles and desperately trying to remember where there was a full-figured heroine, or a guardian who fell for this ward.

After I’d stopped panicking it was actually a rewarding exercise. I opened some books I hadn’t had a closer look at in years, and rediscovered some oldies. In addition, I impulsively bought […]

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AAR’s Buried Treasure Picks for 2014

By |2017-06-23T08:30:24-04:00January 16th, 2015|Categories: Best of List, Buried Treasures, Caz AAR, Dabney AAR, Lee AAR, Lynn AAR, Maggie AAR, Rike AAR, Romance|Tags: |

AAR art4Each year, the AAR staff picks their favorite Buried Treasure–a book that ran under the radar or that we think many readers may have missed. Last year’s list–which you may read here–featured books by Tessa Bailey, Caroline Linden, and Jay Bell, just to mention a few.

This year, several staff members felt they hadn’t encountered a Buried Treasure, so our list this year is a little shorter than last year’s. Here are the picks from the staff who did indeed find unheralded gold.

TKFCaz: I’ve already mentioned my Buried Treasure as being one of my favourite books of 2014 –  The King’s Falcon by the British author, Stella Riley.  She’s been a favourite author of mine since the first book […]

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AAR Picks the Best of 2014

By |2017-06-23T08:30:24-04:00December 31st, 2014|Categories: AAR Jenna, AAR Shannon, Anne Marble, Best of List, Caz AAR, Dabney AAR, Haley AAR, Heather AAR, Lee AAR, LinnieGayl AAR, Lynn AAR, Maggie AAR, Melanie AAR, Rike AAR|Tags: , , , |

(This column will not be the only piece we run on the best books of 2014. We will still run a separate Buried Treasures piece and several staff members will be sharing their lists of the best books they read this year.)

Each year, we ask the AAR staff to pick one book as the best romance published this year. Here are our picks for 2014:

MiMaggie: Mambo in Chinatown by Jean Kwok was my number one read of 2014. I loved the Cinderella nature of the tale, the unique look into Chinese-American culture, the heroine Charlie and her irrepressible spirit and generosity and the gentle, hopeful nature of the love story. So few books do a good job of capturing what it’s like to be a first generation American but this novel, reviewed here,  captured it perfectly.

Lea: WILaYWhat […]

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We’re Opening four Special Titles Listings!

By |2017-06-23T08:30:24-04:00December 19th, 2014|Categories: Cindy AAR, LinnieGayl AAR, Rike AAR, Special Titles Lists|

BMWe hope you are all having a lovely time baking holiday treats and choosing gifts for the your friends and family. Hopefully there is also some time left for reading (although we know from experience this is not always the case in December). With everything being a bit busier than usual, we have decided to open this month’s Special Titles Listings late enough to extend until after the holidays. We’re hoping that if not straight away, you will find a moment to nominate some titles in the more quiet days.

When we looked at the lists this time, we realised with some astonishment that almost all of them have been opened and revised since we took up this task a bit more than two years ago. This means we will be able reopen some of the more popular lists quite soon. In the meantime, here are four more lists that have […]

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