2016 was the year I wrote more and read less. I’d have thought reading fewer books would make me easier to please but the opposite proved true. Not many books knocked my socks off in 2016. The ten on this list did.
The Trespasser by Tana French
I’ve been a devotee of Ms. French’s complex, character-driven mysteries since I read her first, In the Woods, almost ten years ago. While my favorite is still Faithful Place, The Trespasser is next on that list.
As I wrote in my review, I devoured the book. The prose is vivid and assured and Ms. French’s pacing and plotting expertly done. Her characters are among the realest I’ve read and oh how I hope to encounter all of them–Moran, Conway, Breslin, O’Kelly and the rest of the Murder Squad–again.
The Hating Game by Sally Thorne
There’s a reason seven AAR reviewers put this contemporary on their Best of 2016 Lists. It’s everything we say it is: sparkling, sexy, witty, funny, and compulsively readable. Josh is my pick for hero of the year and even the setting, which many of criticized for being locationally vague, worked for me. (I thought this love story could be unfolding anywhere and that gave it heft.) I just finished reading the book for the third time and, yep, I still think it’s a treasure.
Marrying Winterborne by Lisa Kleypas
I am startled this book isn’t on more of our staff’s Best of 2016 Lists. I thought it was wonderful. In my DIK review of it, I wrote: Marrying Winterborne has everything I could want in a romance: Appealing leads, great secondary characters I can’t wait to see more of, a convincing love story, wonderfully torrid scenes, elegant prose, and a wry sense of mirth.
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Twenty five thousand readers at Amazon are not wrong.
This 2014 Pulitzer Prize winner is a five star, tell the world about it, for gods’ sake just read it book. I listened to it–the audio by Zach Appelman is heart-breakingly perfect–and for two weeks resented any time I couldn’t live in Doerr’s world. Just writing about it now makes me long to experience Marie Laure, Werner, and the walled city Saint-Malo again for the first time. We routinely draw a distinction between great reads and great literature. All the Light We Cannot See is both.
I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh
In her very impressive debut novel, Ms. Mackintosh gave the world a page-turner thriller. AAR’s Kristen picked it as her book of the year and called it enthralling. I’d add remarkably suspenseful and genuinely shocking. If you like cunningly crafted psychological suspense novels, this book’s for you.
Edge of Obsession by Megan Crane
I feel about Edge of Obsession the way I felt when I met my husband. He neither looked nor–as described by my roommate–sounded like my type. I was wrong about him and I was wrong about Ms. Crane’s book. This was one of the funnest reads of my year. As I wrote in my DIK review, It’s dystopia as written by Buffy which means I, of course, loved it. This is–and I mean this in the best way–a smart sexy trashy read.
A Duchess in Name by Amanda Weaver
This was not my year for historical romance. With the exception of Marrying Winterbourne, releases by my favorite authors didn’t wow me. I picked up Ms. Weaver’s book on the basis of Twitter recommendations and, wow, was it a joy. It’s a marriage of convenience/big misunderstanding love story with a sexy but initially unlikeable hero and a heroine whose inner strength saves them both. I loved it and I give Ms. Weaver props for making a trope I’ve read a hundred plus times seem new and surprising.
Against the Wall by Jill Sorenson
Ms. Sorenson’s leads, Eric and Meghan, first appeared in the very good Edge of Night. There they were teenagers with a class gulf too great to overcome. In this book, the distance between them is still vast and their path to an HEA unlikely.
This might be my favorite book by Ms. Sorenson. I love Eric and Meghan as a couple and as individuals and feel the limitations Eric’s past placed on his future are realistically portrayed. This is a book full of tension–sexual and suspenseful–and I couldn’t put it down.
Plus, the use of birth control in this book should win an award. At the very least, I’d offer it as one of the best in contemporary romance. People, this is how it’s done.
Oral History by Lee Smith
Ms. Smith first published this book the summer after I graduated from college (in 1983). I read it then and longed longed longed to be a writer of Ms. Smith’s power. Since then, I’ve read it at least once a decade and did so again this past January. It’s not perfect–the ending is a bit rushed–but it’s damn near close.
It’s the story of an Appalachian family over several generations. Ms. Smith brings each member rawly alive as each tells his or her story. Oral History is just that and each time I read it I am again struck by the power of Ms. Smith’s rural mountain voices.
Since this book, Ms. Smith has established herself as one of the American South’s greatest living writers. For me, this book show why.
Loud is How I Love You by Mercy Brown
This (as well as the second book in the series Stay Until We Break) are DIKs at AAR. I like both books but I love this one. In my review I wrote:
Ms. Brown explores in temporally brilliant detail what happens when you fall in love with the person you can least afford to fuck things up with. Travis, Emmy, and their bandmates Cole and Joey are fully rendered musicians—I spent much of my mid-twenties hanging out with indie bands and I promise you this is what is like. The road trips, the sound checks, even the drinks on the house are so authentically an indie band in the 1990s that reading this book is an immersive experience, one that I desperately didn’t want to end.
There will be readers frustrated by Emmy’s inability to see that, sometimes, you get the dream and the dreamboat. But Emmy’s love limiting fears are grounded in something so inherent to her as an artist, as a female artist in a male dominated world, that I had faith she’d find a way to love and to sing.
Impenitent social media enthusiast. Relational trend spotter. Enjoys both carpe diem and the fish of the day.
What a great list!! So many books, I want to try, especially, as you guessed it, “All the Light We Cannot See.” I usually put Pulitzer and Booker prize winners on my list. Looks like I missed this one. Thanks for bringing it up!
Not having Winterbourne on my list was a complete oversight. Would have given it an honorable mention, but HR kind of slipped off my radar last year. Since I agree with so much of the rest of your list, I’m going to give the ones I haven’t read a go – even the Crane, which looks super outside my wheelhouse.
It was outside my realm as well. But I really have enjoyed two out of three of those books and the worldbuilding is cool.
Just downloaded the Sorenson and Weaver!
Both are excellent!
I did not enjoy the Haring Game. It all seemed so childish to me and I have grown quite tired of the insecure girl (at 28!) a man can ” ruin”. And being only in Lucy’s head was very limiting for this reader. I actually think I would have enjoyed being in Joshua’s head instead.
I liked The Hating Game a lot, but I think first person POV can be hit or miss. I liked being inside Lucy’s head but I would have appreciated being privy to Josh’s thoughts during parts of the book.
I really enjoyed Marrying Winterbourne, but found the plot regarding Rhys and his ‘nemesis’ to have been too contrived, which is why it didn’t make my list.
I still haven’t read the Amanda Weaver, but I really must. I liked the other books in that trilogy, but everything I’ve seen and heard points to this being the best one.
I didn’t read Marrying Winterbourne because I didn’t make it past a few chapters into Cold-Hearted Rake. But I’ve been thinking of giving both of them another try before Devil in Spring comes out because I really hate reading series out of order or only reading one book in a series (unless it’s the first book). I know, I know. I’ve wasted soooo much time reading books that I didn’t like just because they’re part of a series, so I have to let this go eventually…
Cold Hearted Rake didn’t do a thing for me either.
Would you say it’s helpful to read CHR first, though? I thought I’d seen in a couple of reviews that the set-up for the relationship in MW happens in CHR, but I could be thinking of a different book.
It’s helpful, but probably not essential. However, I thought the growing relationship between Rhys and Helen in CHR was one of the best things about it. I’m normally someone who can get frustrated when an author diverts attention from a main couple in order to set up the next book, but that wasn’t the case with this one – it just made me eager for their story.
Eh. I think it works fine as a standalone. The couple from the earlier book is mentioned several times and Helen and Rhys definitely got started in CHR.
Amanda, I gave up on _Cold-Hearted Rake_. Then I tried to read _Marrying Winterbourne_ and found it very difficult to get into as it starts where the first one left off. So, after about 100 pages, I DNF’d it too.
Amanda, I really liked Cold-Hearted Rake, but couldn’t finish Marrying Winterbourne. I felt like their story was majorly explored in CHR and they didn’t a whole another book in MW. Devil in Spring is a whole different book. I’d read Devil in Winter for backstory.
Well I desperately wanted to like All the Light We Cannot See since it is set in St. Malo, a city I visited a few years ago, and a friend highly recommended it. But it was just way too wordy for me. I kept thinking “get to the story already.” I never finished.
I Let You Go DID keep me guessing. That was an excellent story.
Let me just say again that Best of lists – reading them, making my own – is one of my favorite parts of being a reviewer/fan of All About Romance. I just love the diversity of people’s choices – and being surprised by so many of the books that appear. With the exception of all the love for The Hating Game, the lists are so diverse. I love to see new lists.
I think All the Light We Cannot See ranks up at the top of best books I’ve ever read – though since it wasn’t published in 2016 (was it??!! did I even check?!?!), I decided not to include it in my own list. I cried and cried and cried and cried through the ending – and even remembering it now, could probably shed a few more tears over it. I still have questions about what happened in the cave – do you? Our book club also universally loved this one.
I’m not sure I would rank the Crane book as highly as you – but it was surprisingly addictive & I quickly picked up the next two & enjoyed them just as much. I’ve already pre-ordered book 4, so. I hope more people discover this series. It’s such a departure from my life – escapism at its best (and dirtiest).
I just need to bite the bullet and read the Mackintosh book – it gives me sad eyes every time I click instead on a romance in my kindle TBR. This week. Probably. Maybe!
So is this book a romance? It’s still frustrating for me not to know what these books are.
All the books are linked to online stores or our reviews (if they exist) – if you want to know more, just click one.
That one has no review if I click on it, just Amazon. And I can’t figure out from that whether or not this book is going to depress me. It would be so helpful to me if these reviews would be coded even just HEA-non HEA. I get that you’re all volunteers and I’ve defended and appreciated that you do this work for us. I don’t think users can tell you how to run the site at all. But I wish you’d type 3 or 6 letters in addition to your reviews. As it is, I only bother to read the reviews in these lists that have obviously romance covers.
Which book are you asking about?
On my list, all are romances with an HEA with the exception of All the Light We Can Not See, Oral History, The Tresspasser, and I Let You Go.
It was All the Light. Thanks for the clarification. May be a good book but it’s not for me right now then.
I’m hoping Marrying Lord Winterbourne will be a highlight for me, too. I’ve heard wonderful things, but I just didn’t get it read in time for 2016 “Best of” lists!
Can anyone list a chapter or scene in The Hating Game with a funny conversation that I could reread to see if I see the humor? (Don’t use page numbers, since they vary between ebooks.) I have asked this several times when the book has been praised, and so far nobody has answered.
Mark – I don’t know what to tell you. In my review for AAR I mention a few scenes I particularly loved but really? For me & a lot of other readers, the whole book is funny. And delightful. And charming. And terrifically romantic.
But if you don’t feel the same – there’s nothing wrong with that. I just read a book we gave a DIK to, and I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t decided to review it separately, it would have been a DNF for me. I just straight up didn’t get it.
Some books work for a lot of people and some don’t. Let The Hating Game go…
I agree with Emily. If you read the book and didn’t really like it, someone picking out a specific scene or conversation isn’t going to change your mind. In fact, I can’t think of a time when someone has changed my mind about a book I disliked by telling me their favorite scenes? I’ve only ever done this on my own, maybe by reading it a few years later or in a different mood or at a different time in my life. It’s okay not to like a book that everyone else liked!
Agree that if you didn’t find this funny, that’s okay. I didn’t either and was just mostly irritated with the h/h throughout, so I didn’t put it on my best (or anywhere close) list. But humor is such a subjective thing that it’s no surprise that it works for some and didn’t for others.
Mark,
It’s witty. This scene, for example, is funny, somehow sexy, and uses language in a way I find very entertaining.
Well, I answered you, Mark, in a previous thread when you asked this question and at some length. The book is funny throughout rather than one single page or scene. It’s especially funny in the first half when the two are combatants at each others’ throats. The humor is sardonic, underhanded, subtle at times and engages in repartee and one-upmanship continuously. It just sounds as if the book didn’t appeal to you, which is fine with me. Humor like all emotions is subject to individual tastes, understanding and perception.
It is the many posts saying they liked repartee that stump me and led to my request. Repartee is defined as “conversation or speech characterized by quick, witty comments or replies” (OAD). That is what I didn’t see in the book.