Incredible as it may seem, it’s December, which means it’s time for AAR staffers to look back at their reading year and pick out the books they consider to be the best of the year. We’re kicking off this year’s batch of “Best ofs” with Lisa’s list of favourites – look for more lists of 2019 favourites over the coming weeks.
The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite
This year was The Year Lisa Felt Seen By Mainstream Romance Publishers, and Cried a Lot over it. After years and years of dreaming about big sweeping romances between two women, this book delivered, with its story of a mathematician and an astronomer who fall in love.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Work For It by Talia Hibbert
This was also the Year I Fell In Love With Talia Hibbert’s Prose. I had a terribly hard time picking which Hibbert novel I wanted to put on my top ten list; suffice to say you should be reading all of her contemp work. But Work For It, with its gentle, slow-burn of a love story and its perfect capturing of two men overcoming their fears and pasts with the help of therapy, great friendship, awesome family and true love, takes the emotional cake. But seriously – read Talia Hibbert, you can’t go wrong with her.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
The Broken One by Ruth Cardello
A single mom with an adopted daughter falls in love with a man who’s still genuinely grieving his wife and late child in a way that feels real, heartbreaking and hopelessly human. The romance is fun, too, naturally, but these feel like real people experiencing real emotions, and for that Cardello gets the highest recommendation I can give.
Buy it at: Amazon
Puppy Christmas by Lucy Gilmore
One of the best feel-good romances of the year, and one of the best representations of disability I’ve read in a romance in awhile. A hearing-impaired girl, her jokey businessman father, and the woman who runs a physicality where service dogs are trained all find one another.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Man vs Durian by Jackie Lau
Jackie Lau always packs humor and verve into her romances, and this one – about a man who falls in unexpected love with a prickly heroine and dedicates himself to charming her family after spilling Durian ice cream in her lap – is my favorite among her 2019 releases. She’s another author who can Do No Wrong At All in my eyes.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
Queenie absolutely desserves every acolade it’s been getting in the press lately, from a Channel 4 movie adaption to a Waterstones Book of the Year nomination. Powerful, truthful, and bringing to light new feelings and truths with every click of the key, it’s perfection and must be experienced.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
A Beastly Kind of Earl by Mia Vincy
Funny as hell, adorable as hell, and charming as hell, Vincy continues to be a badass and write some of the best romance I’ve ever seen.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Dalliances and Devotion by Felicia Grossman
Without a doubt, my absolute favorite heroine of the year was the wonderful, impossible Amalia Truitt. And her hero’s pretty darn adorable, too.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Most Ardently by Susan Mesler Evans
I read a lot of Pride and Prejudice retellings and this, by far, was my favorite of the year, with a wonderful heroine/heroine relationship and great background characters (and if you want more of the same flavor of awesome, go read Ayesha at Last.)
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Ever Faithful by Karen Barnett
The best inspirational romance I real all year explored an interesting and rarely explored period in American history. The sweet, faith-laced romance that springs from time served in the Civilian Conservation Corps captivates and inspires.
Ok, so I just commented over on Em’s list about how much I depend on these Top Ten lists for great stuff I’ve somehow managed to miss . . . and here are way too many more! Thank you Lisa!
Waite, Hibbert, Cardello all on my tbr list. So is Evan’s P&P. BTW, have you read Pamela Aidan’s retelling of P&P from Mr. Darcy’s point of view? It was published as a trilogy (ugh!) but hopefully available at your public library. It is my favorite P&P remake/offshoot to date.
I haven’t! Thank you for suggesting it!
Puppy Christmas is the Kindle Daily Deal today!
Oh yay! Hope people grab it!
The Best of series is going to do brutal things to my TBR list. Puppy Christmas, The Broken One and Dalliances & Devotion added.
Whoot!
I wish Mia Vincy would produce paperback versions of her work so I could request them at my library. “A Beastly Kind of Earl” sounds like a lot of fun. Alas, I am one of those readers writers must hate, the kind that says, “If the library doesn’t have it, forget it.”
“The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics” is at the library however, as well as on my never ending TBR list.
And I have to wait for audio versions which sometimes never appear.
I just reviewed the audio of A Wicked Kind of Husband for AudioGals – and the author tells me that Beastly is on the way!
Wonderful news!!
I’m listening to it right now and enjoying every single thing about it. So, so good.
I updated tags on the AAR reviews linked to in this post, so if you’re looking for something similar to the books listed here, give the tags a try!
Of the ones on your list, I’ve only read Puppy Christmas, but I also enjoyed that one a lot.
Hope you’ll pick up some of the others!
Me too! I can’t believe how many of these books I missed. Can we put the year on pause to catch up with our reading??? Thanks for the great list Lisa!
Thank you for reading!
Jackie Lau’s Ultimate Pi Day Party will be on my list – I haven’t read Man vs Durian yet but I’m glad it’s just as good.
Other than that… I hate this list. Because I was down to one book on my “read before I pick by top 10” list and now I have to add like another six!!!!!
How funny is Ultimate Pi Day Party? Lucy Parker or Mia Vincy funny? It has been on my TBR as a potential romcom for a while, but I am yet to muster the enthusiasm to pull the trigger on it.
I recorded a humor score of 2.5 for The Ultimate Pi Day Party, so not enough humor to recommend just for the humor.
I find the top humor levels from Lau, Parker, and Vincy fairly similar (mostly 3 stars on my scale), though Parker has a 3.5 and Vincy a 4.
lau, jackie: grumpy fake boyfriend***
lau, jackie: mr. hotshot ceo***
lau, jackie: a match made for thanksgiving***
lau, jackie: not another family wedding***
lau, jackie: he’s not my boyfriend***
lau, jackie: man vs. durian***
parker, lucy: pretty face***.5
parker, lucy: making up***
parker, lucy: the austen playbook***
vincy, mia: a wicked kind of husband***
vincy, mia: a beastly kind of earl****
If you want a more complete basis for seeing if my taste in humor is anywhere close to yours, my complete list of books read with humor scores high enough to recommend is at http://www.ccrsdodona.org/markmuse/reading/romwhumorlist.html.
Thanks, but I am afraid we don’t have similar senses of humour, which is irritating, as that would otherwise be a magnificent resource.
I find What Happens in London and Ten Things I Love About You to be MUCH funnier than the 12 other Quinns I have tried while you consider them about the same, and you don’t distinguish between Lucy Parker’s books while I don’t consider Making Up to be a romcom at all.
In a word… BUGGER!
Wow, those are some lists! Thank you for sharing. Like seantheaussie, my sense of humor is slightly different, but it is so interesting to see what people find funny. Loved your essay about different ways to be funny too (situational, conversation, etc.).
Ultimate Pi Day was SO CUTE and funny! i loved it!
Although it didn’t quite make my top ten, THE BROKEN ONE was definitely in my top twenty. I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to other books featuring the hero’s siblings.
I can’t wait to read the next book in the series in January.
What a great list, Lisa! Thanks! Puppy Christmas by Lucy Gilmore is on my tbr pile and I just ordered Ever Faithful by Karen Barnett and downloaded The Broken One by Ruth Cardello.
Thank you!
I’m looking at Ever Faithful and a Puppy Christmas too.
Mia Vincy’s _A Beastly Kind of Earl_ was a page turner for me. It is adorable and funny, and it also includes a range of interesting issues, like early cannabis experimentation. I laughed a lot when characters kept inadvertently getting high and then confusing the naive heroine with their behavior. I hope I’m not the only one either who laughed when a secondary character comes out as a lesbian and the heroine confidently announces to an audience in the formal drawing room that such a thing is simply not a possibility. Eyes darting around the room as no one knows where to look — too funny. Such a sweet romance with lots of funny teasing and bantering! I’m impressed with Vincy’s skills and applaud her having two such good books back-to-back as a debut author.
Talia Hibbert is definitely on my list, and I plan to get to her soon. Her books just sound so appealing to me.
Great list overall with some interesting titles I hadn’t seen before.
The heroine’s response of “that’s not possible” to another woman’s coming out might be a sly reference to something Queen Victoria did (obviously decades after the time when Vincy’s story is set) when an anti-homosexuality bill was presented for the Queen’s signature: Victoria scratched through all the parts of the legislation that included women, saying that it was impossible for women to have “unnatural” relations with each other.
That’s a great reference!
Some people still think it isn’t possible! Talk about a narrow understanding and definition of sex…
If I could marry Talia Hibbert’s prose, I would do it.
Thank you! And that BKOE scene was iconic!
What a great list. Lisa. I see some familiar books between your list and mine. I think 2019 was a great year for Pride & Prejudice retellings. I am bummed I missed out on Susan Mesler Evans‘. I have added it to my list.
Thank you so much!
You should definitely read it; it’s a great treatment of the story.!