We call this annual column The Best Romance Novels of a given year and it is, but with a caveat. Each reviewer picks a single book she thought was the best – defined as excelling all others. Thus this is a list of individual choices rather than a voted on list by the staff. […]
Like many an AAR reader, I was a child repeatedly decried as “lost in a book.” I am a swift reader and, while growing up, read a book every two days. In 2019, I read 87 books (for the first time) and reread countless others. And, fortuitously, I lost myself in many. […]
Every year when it comes time to make a ‘best of the year’ list, I find that there are two criteria that help me decide what should make up my top ten: 1) Do I still remember the plot and the characters? I read an average of 200-300 books a year and something I read early in the year may end up in a ‘best of’ folder at the time of reading but lose some of its luster as it gets surpassed by other books and 2) Would I enthusiastically recommend it to someone now? […]
Like many of my fellow reviewers, I’ve had a decent – if not outstanding – reading year. A quick look through my reviews shows a good number of B and B+ grades and a handful of DIKs, although my favourite genre – Historical Romance – made a pretty poor showing (again), with many of my previously “must-read” authors failing to deliver the sort of engrossing, emotionally satisfying stories I’d hoped for. Like last year, I’ve looked more and more often to other genres to feed my reading habit (!), and happily have found a number of other authors to add to that list. […]
2019 was my year of the B romance novel. Book after book it was a case of “I love everything about this story except. . . .” or “This novel was almost a DIK but. . . .” Fortunately, there were just enough exceptions to that list that I could come up with ten truly fantastic romances that I think almost anyone will love. […]
When it comes to romance, my criteria for greatness – or “best-ness” – is whether the story lingers with me. There are scenes or quotes that are so romantic and/or sexy that I can’t shake them and they’ll make me shiver happily when I recall them standing on a street corner waiting for a light to change, and make me think “oh, gracious, that’s life goals right there.” The books on this list are ones that lingered with me in 2019. […]
It’s always difficult to put together a ‘Best of’ list, and as usual I’m sure I forgot a few. But after much thought, here are the books which stood out for me this year. […]
2019 was full of great reads for me, and choosing my favorites was no easy feat. Even so, here are some of the best books I’ve read this year in no particular order. […]
Full disclosure – 2019 was a fairly light reading year for me. My TBR pile is still overflowing! When making this list, I didn’t refer to anything but my memory – which books were the most memorable. After all, that is probably the best criteria for making a “best of” list. […]
I’m not going to call my reading year a disappointment. It wasn’t. I liked a lot of books. Unfortunately, many anticipated big releases were disappointing, and I returned to old favorites when I was underwhelmed by my TBR. Some of those titles were just as good as I remembered; quite a few weren’t. Anyway, after this brief diversion, I was inspired me to read a few new-to-me authors, and I’m happily recommending three of them to you. […]