It’s Black History Month in the United States, and AAR is celebrating by revisiting our DIKs by Black authors (of any country) reviewed since last February (to see previous Black History Month posts, visit 2022 and 2021).
Please enjoy!
Each year, in January, the AAR staff comes up with lists of their favorite books published in the previous year–this year, these lists have the tag #Best of 2022. For 2022, we chose 87 books–we’ve conveniently put them all into an Amazon storefront! Then, we ask each reviewer to choose their Best book of the year–here is this list. It’s a diverse list–there’s something for every romance reader. Enjoy!
Alexandra
Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan
Grab the tissues – Ryan’s latest book is about a divorced couple reuniting after a number of shared losses and grief. Yasmen and Josiah have two children and a successful restaurant, but their marriage is broken. Despite the strong feelings they’ve always had for each other, losing a child and a parental figure all at once caused issues […]
February brings an interesting mix of new releases to look forward to – contemporary and historical romances, women’s fiction and mysteries, with a couple of paranormals and sci-fi romances in there, too. Quite a few of these titles are out with the reviewing team, so look out for our thoughts over the next few weeks – and don’t forget to drop by to let us know which of February’s new release YOU’RE most looking forward to reading. As always, this is nowhere near a comprehensive list – so if there’s an author whose books you’d like to see included on future Coming Soon lists, please don’t hestitate to let us know.
It’s 2023, and time for a fresh start to the TBR Challenge year! This month’s prompt is “starting over”, and we both found great ways to explore that theme. Lynn read a contemporary category romance featuring a heroine in need of a fresh start, both personally and professionally, while Caz picked up a historical m/m novella featuring leads getting a second chance at their relationship. Whatever you’re in the mood for, fresh starts and second chances abound in romance, so dig in and start reading!
Her Hometown Detective by Elizabeth Mowers
“Starting over” is a popular theme in small town category romances, so that’s where I immediately started looking when I saw this month’s TBR Challenge theme. Her Hometown Detective by Elizabeth Mowers is an […]
I had a more than decent reading year in 2022. Looking back through my reviews I can see I’ve been lucky enough to read a lot of good books, but when I came to put this list together, I realised that while I’ve given a lot of B/B+ grades, I haven’t given all that many DIKs, which are the books I usually base my lists on. At least that has narrowed the field a bit and meant I haven’t had to struggle to whittle the list down, so I suppose… clouds, silver linings and all that!
Pack of Lies by Charlie Adhara
Charlie Adhara’s Big Bad Wolf series is one of my favourites, so I was really excited when she announced a spin-off was in the works. Pack of Lies is the first book in […]
This is the first time since I started doing best of the year lists at All About Romance that I didn’t have trouble coming up with my list. In years past, I’ve had too many books from which to choose. This year, it’s the opposite. I watched more TV (the food network, especially baking challenges, got a lot of my attention) and as a result I read less in 2022 (100 books for the year according to goodreads which is where I keep track of my reading). Of those books, several were published in previous years or were re-reads of older favourites. I don’t expect every year to be like this, but it was a nice change not to have to agonize over my choices. Here they are, in no particular order.
Tanked by Mia Hopkins
I read […]
Some years I have a “type” – the year of the contemp, the year of comedy. This year, the only thing consistent in my favorites is that they had very little in common with each other! I hope this list will be useful to people who like a variety of reads, because whatever you like, I’m pretty sure I made one of them a favorite!
Tanked by Mia Hopkins
The first time I read Hopkins, she made my Best Belated reads list because I didn’t catch her in her release year. I was NOT going to make that mistake again, and I had Tanked nearly as soon as it released. This working-class contemporary about a social worker and the third brother who helps run the Eastside Brewery in a gritty part of L.A. is full of heart, hope, […]
Well, here we are, kicking off our regular “Coming Soon” feature for 2023 with a look at the new releases for January. There’s a lot to choose from this month – let’s hope this is the start of a great year of reading for all of us!
As the year winds to a close, we get a prompt to read something “Festive” for the TBR Challenge. I love that the choice of holiday is open-ended. Over the years I’ve read Christmas, Hanukkah, Mardi Gras and more. We both found winning novellas this month, so whether you’re looking for something deeply emotional (Caz’s pick) or fun and sexy (Lynn’s pick), we’ve got you covered. What festive reads are you enjoying?
The Best Gift by Eli Easton
Eli Easton is one of those authors I’ve been aware of for a while but hadn’t yet read – until this year when I read three of her books and was, on the whole, fairly impressed. That made my choice for this month’s festive prompt fairly easy after I found a copy of her 2021 Christmas novella, The Best […]
It’s been a long year, y’all, but thankfully there were a lot of great books to read. Here are my favourites.
The Kiss Curse by Erin Sterling
I was surprised by how much I really enjoyed this, because I’m not really a fan of supernatural stories. But this rom-com was happy and sexy and charming, and full of addictive characters who kept the engaging plot moving swiftly. It reminded me a bit of Harry Potter, wherein the world of Graves Glen, Georgia is normalized with magic. There’s no great rift between the human and supernatural worlds; rather, they coexist effortlessly. Vivi Jones is one of the top witches in town and it’s her business to make everybody else’s business hers. Rhys Penhallow is the descendant of the witch family that imbued Graves Glen with its power source, and when the power […]