October TBR Challenge – Paranormals versus Suspense

October’s TBR Challenge prompt was to read either a Romantic Suspense or Paranormal Romance: AAR reviewers  Lynn Spencer and Caz Owens went for one of each.

Northern Lights by Nora Roberts

I’ve been a reader of romantic suspense for as long as I’ve been reading romance, so when I saw the prompt this month, I immediately decided I was going to go the suspense route rather than paranormal. Even though I’ve read a ton of suspense, both romantic and otherwise, I’ve somehow only scratched the surface of Nora Roberts’ giant romantic suspense backlist. This time around, I decided to read her 600+ page doorstopper of a book, Northern Lights.

Originally released in 2004, this novel details the adventures of an almost-but-not-quite washed up Baltimore cop turned rural Alaska police chief. His new post involves keeping order in the […]

By |2017-10-18T21:39:52-04:00October 18th, 2017|Categories: Caz AAR, Historicals, Lynn Spencer, Mysteries, Romance reading, TBR Challenge|Tags: , , |11 Comments
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Speaking of Audiobooks: November 2013 Audio News

DeadlineWe have general romance audio news today as well as an announcement from AAR. We also have something new for Speaking of Audiobooks – sound clips from several promising audios.

Speaking of Audiobooks Review News

You know all those audiobook reviews you have seen in the Speaking of Audiobooks columns through the years? There are hundreds and we have mourned the inability to search or even find a listing of those reviews we know are there but are seemingly just out of our reach. Oh, they are all still there, tucked away in a Speaking of Audiobooks column somewhere. Well, the good news is – things are a-changing.

Slowly but surely, we are moving those audio reviews into AAR’s review database. As with any review of a print book, you can now go into the Power Search and search by author or title. You can also choose to view our entire selection of […]

By |2017-06-23T08:30:35-04:00November 4th, 2013|Categories: audio books, Lea Hensley|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |16 Comments
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AAR Staff Top Ten Lists – Who Was Our Favorite Author?

borninfire On Monday, Dabney Grinnan took a look at the 23 different Top 10 lists the AAR staff had submitted over the summer, determining which books were consistent favorites. With 201 unique titles, it’s clear that tastes varied widely amongst our staffers, with only twenty-two books appearing on more than one staffer’s list.

But which authors do AAR staffers tend to prefer? Is there a consensus on who the favorites are? When the list is compiled, 121 authors penned the 201 unique titles that were listed as staff favorites, and while there were a handful of surprises, for the most part, AAR staff favorite authors seem to reflect that of the romance reading population as a whole.

If you look at the data, it appears that Nora Roberts is by far and away the staff favorite. She has eight unique titles out of 201 (4%). However, a single AAR staffer listed […]

By |2019-05-10T13:06:43-04:00October 9th, 2013|Categories: AAR Jenna, All About Romance|Tags: , , |12 Comments
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AAR Staff Top Ten Favorites – Blythe’s Picks

boundbyyourtouch I put off writing my top ten until the last possible moment for a variety of reasons. I wanted some time to think about it, but I knew even though I had lots of time I’d still be making choices at the last minute; it’s not unusual for me to make my Reviewer’s Choice top pick while I’m writing the column. I also decided my top seven fairly easily, and then got stuck on the final three. I agonized over which three deserved the final honors, and then ended up with some also rans. I’ve been reading romance for a long time, and that presented its own problems. Should I choose early, sentimental favorites, or more of the quality Johnny come lately offerings? Well, in reverse order, here’s my top ten (ish).

Also rans: Just for fun, my books that didn’t quite make the short list but almost did:

By |2019-05-10T13:07:50-04:00September 20th, 2013|Categories: AAR Blythe, All About Romance, Romance reading|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |24 Comments
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AAR Staff Top Ten Favorites – Alexandra's Picks

ravishingtheheiress Although I know other reviewers and staff have had a lot of trouble deciding upon their top ten romance novels, I have to confess it was mostly easy for me. This likely has something to do with the fact that I’ll be stranded on what is essentially a desert island for the next few months—that’s right, I’m off to college. There’s not much space in a dorm, so only the crème de la crème of my romance novel collection travels with me, and since many of those books have already been mentioned, it’s actually been fairly simple to whittle my list down to just ten.

Even so, I still have some books (like Julia Quinn’s Romancing Mr. Bridgerton or Laura Kinsale’s Flowers from the Storm) which I ache to write about and recommend. The books on my list have all been read and reread dozens of times. I take scrupulous […]

By |2019-05-10T13:12:42-04:00September 3rd, 2013|Categories: Alexandra AAR, All About Romance, Romance reading|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |13 Comments
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AAR Staff Top Ten Favorites – Haley's Picks

texasdestiny When I sat down to put this list together, I thought this would really be a piece of cake. Well, I was wrong. It turns out, I had more like a top twentysomething list and narrowing it down was not all that easy. Another thing I noticed is that so many of the books represented were some of the very first I ever read. My love of the romance genre began when I was a pre-teen and started pilfering books off my mother’s bookshelf. I knew she wouldn’t be happy with me reading them because I was so young, so I hid them under my bed or in the window seat. I got caught once while reading a book I loved, but now I can’t remember the title, and was told I was forbidden to read the romances. That didn’t stop me. I only grew more and more sneaky. […]

By |2019-05-10T13:11:59-04:00August 20th, 2013|Categories: All About Romance, Haley AAR, Romance reading|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |7 Comments
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AAR Staff Top 10 Favorites – LinnieGayl's Picks

seaswept As one of AAR’s three pollsters – along with LeeB and Cindy – I truly adore the Top 100 poll. Sure, it’s a lot of work, but it’s also fun to look at the ballots as they come in. I was excited when everyone at AAR decided to post their top ten romances as a lead-up to the Top 100 polling in October. But I was also a bit nervous. Since I’ve seen the ballots AAR readers submitted in 2007 and 2010, I know that my top ten romances are a bit idiosyncratic.

Like most of my colleagues at AAR, I decided to set up some rules for my Top 10. I’ve made no attempt to balance the list by subgenre. Nor did I limit my list to just one romance per author (as you’ll quickly see). But I did decide to list just one entry from each series or […]

By |2019-05-10T13:10:32-04:00July 2nd, 2013|Categories: All About Romance, LinnieGayl AAR, Romance reading|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |31 Comments
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AAR Staff Top 10 Favorites – Anne's Picks

defynottheheart My first thought when I heard about this was “Eek! Only ten?” These picks are in no particular order, and some make no sense when I look at them. But these were the books I often think of when I try to pick favorites — often because they influenced me so much. Sadly, some of the romances I loved the most have titles like “That old Silhouette where the hero helped the heroine recover from an abusive childhood. Or something. I think it was blue.”

If I left your book off the list, don’t feel bad. It might be one of dozens of runner-ups. Or maybe it was one of those books I’ve been trying to remember for years. Was your book blue?

1) Defy Not the Heart by Johanna Lindsey

This book broke rules and yet still managed to be classic Lindsey, without being classic Lindsey that involved Viking slave […]

By |2019-05-10T13:09:47-04:00June 18th, 2013|Categories: All About Romance, Anne AAR, Romance reading|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |9 Comments
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AAR Staff Top 10 Favorites – Heather's Picks

paradise When you’re a voracious reader, picking a top 10 is a daunting task. There are so many books that I’ve loved and in many different ways or for different reasons. Some may be because they’ve brought me to a particular sub-genre. Some I’ve loved perhaps because they struck the right note for me for where I was emotionally at the time I read them. And some are on my favorites list just because they have that certain je ne se quois that causes me to connect with the story and characters. Whatever the reason may be, AAR has brought me fantastic recommendations for many years thanks to the wonderful community of reviewers, pollsters, commenters, and visitors to our message boards.

My highly scientific method of decision-making consisted of going through my reading log and if a book made me squee with delight, I short listed it. Then I began the […]

By |2019-05-10T13:09:26-04:00June 11th, 2013|Categories: All About Romance, Heather S. AAR|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |26 Comments
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AAR Staff Top Ten Favorites – Jean's Picks

See, I knew that signing up for this blog would cause me a headache. How are you supposed to choose the top ten romances that rock your world? How? How? (At the back of my mind I have the Baha Men singing along, except it’s “How do you choose now? How, how, how, how?” Great. Hence the headache.)

Anyway, I figured the only way I can keep sane is a) recognize that I won’t hit them all, and b) acknowledge that if I am actually stuck on a desert island with only ten romance novels, I’d go crazy anyway, no matter what I chose. (Unless I chose, like, the Koran, Paradise Lost, and Journey to the West. Then maybe I’d not go all loopy.)

I decided that what I’d probably crave the most is variety, a little bit of every genre to suit every mood. It actually turned out to be relatively easy once I’d decided on this, […]

By |2017-06-23T08:30:45-04:00May 14th, 2013|Categories: All About Romance, Jean AAR, Romance reading|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |17 Comments
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