Using Tags to Find Books You Love – Part 2

ByCaroline Russomanno Caroline AAR
22 Comments
Written by 

Last fall, I wrote a blog post about using tags at AAR, which you can find under the Vox Populi tab on the main website. (Using Tags to Find Books You Love) Everything I said in that post remains true, such as the lack of any kind of systematic purpose to my tags and the caution against using them for academic/statistical/analytical purposes.

If I haven’t fixed any of that, why do an update? Because I’ve added books to existing tags and added new tags altogether, and I want to share them with you!

The tags are sorted here first by category and then by date. The first cluster of tags is the original set, but if you haven’t checked them in a while, check again! I’ve added a lot of books, including books AAR has reviewed since last fall. The second, following the “Added April 2020,” are tags that have been developed since the original blog post.

I hope you find something you love here! And please leave a comment with your thoughts.

  • Have you used any tags to look for books, and if so, which ones?
  • Did you find a great read using tags?
  • What tags should we have?
  • Have we forgotten any great books that match a tag – an age gap story, a character who’s a medium, a romance set in the early years of the United States?

Let us know!

~ Caroline Russomanno

Diversity and representation: AoC (author of color), PoC (protagonist is a person of color), male/male romance, f/f romance, LGBTQ+ romance, Tropical Romance Book Club, disability, older couple, older heroine, Muslim, Amish, LDS, Jewish, neuroatypical

Content tags:  Christmas romance, tearjerker, funny, dogs, horses, sports romance, hockey romance, addiction,  tech romance, virgin hero, dystopian romance, working-class historical, film/tv making, environmentalism

Plot types: troubled relationship/troubled marriage, shipboard romance, road romance, Pygmalion, Jane Austen adaptation, fairy tale, Cinderella, epistolary, Beauty and the Beast, amnesia, Cyrano plot, shipwreck, gothic, unplanned pregnancy, mail-order bride (or groom),

Career and character tags: archaeologist, spy, doctor, nurse, journalist, photographer, actor/actress, law enforcement, artist, Olympian heroine, Olympian, writer, cons and frauds, bakery,  veterinarian, royalty, dancer, clergy, thief, thief heroine, designer,  STEM heroine, sex worker, immigrant, bodyguard, paleontologist,

Supernaturals: mermaid/merman, shifter romance, dragons, fairies, vampires, zombies, ghost, gods and goddesses,

Countries and Regions: Scotland, Canada, China, Australia, India, Caribbean, France, New Zealand, Mexico, Italy, Eastern Europe, Pakistan, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines, Egypt

Cities: Chicago, New York City, Toronto, Paris, San Francisco, Los Angeles,

Added April 2020: Las Vegas, Venice, Washington D.C., Vancouver, Detroit, Boston, New Orleans

States and Provinces: Texas, Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, Georgia, Alaska

Time settings: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome, Arthurian, The Anarchy Matilda of vs. Stephen, Norman Conquest, 1500s, Tudor, Elizabethan, 1600s, English Civil War, Georgian, Colonial US romance, American Revolution, Napoleonic Wars,  American Civil War, Reconstruction Era, Victorian, Gilded Age, 1900s, 1910s, World War I, 1920s, 1930s, World War II, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, Modern Historical (any novel set after World War II but not written at the same time)

AAR tags: DIKlassic, Top 100 Romance, novella, mini review

 

I'm a history geek and educator, and I've lived in five different countries in North America, Asia, and Europe. In addition to the usual subgenres, I'm partial to YA, Sci-fi/Fantasy, and graphic novels. I love to cook.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

22 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
hreader

Is there a mistaken identity tag under plots/tropes? I realized that lots of the romances I enjoy have the couple first meeting while one is pretending to be someone/something else. I’m not sure how to best phrase it for a tag?

1
Reply
Caroline Russomanno

I don’t have a mistaken identity tag – that’s a good idea! The two closest things I have are:

– Cyrano plot. This is books which play off of the old Cyrano de Bergerac story, where the characters have been exchanging letters (or texts, nowadays) with a different person. IE she thinks she was writing to her husband, who died at sea, but it was really the captain. http://allaboutromance.com/review-tag/Cyrano-plot/

– Cons and frauds. Most of this category is about con artists or forgers etc, but when someone is deliberately impersonating another person, I have put them here. Ex – Penny Reid’s Motion, where one twin pretends to be the other to cover for her sister, who is in jail. http://allaboutromance.com/review-tag/cons-and-frauds/

1
Reply
Caroline Russomanno

I’m starting that tag here, so do check back! http://allaboutromance.com/review-tag/mistaken-identity

1
Reply
hreader

I was thinking of books like Cordina’s Crown Jewel, by Nora Roberts, or Devilish by Jo Beverly

1
Reply
hreader

Bonus that the hero of Cordina’s Crown Jewel is an archaeologist!

2
Reply
Caroline Russomanno

That one looks less like “mistaken identity” and more as “in disguise,” like SEP’s First Lady. Maybe not a necessary distinction?

1
Reply
Hreader

Good point. Maybe it’s more complicated than I thought. It’s more that they are not specifically conning the hero like the Penny Reid twins. They are hiding or in disguise and have an encounter. Another one would be First Lady by SEP?

Also, the Jo Beverly above should be Something Wicked, not Devilish

1
Reply
hreader

Thanks for adding the tag!
Others:
Dating-ish by Penny Reid
Sex, Lies, and Online Dating by Rachel Gibson
Potent Pleasures by Eloisa James

2
Reply
Blackjack

In Mhairi McFarlane’s If I Never Met You, the hero pretends to be a playboy and player, but as we find out, he’s anything but. He has his reasons.

1
Reply
hreader

A favorite Serena Bell of mine is Yours to Keep, which could be tagged with immigrant (heroine) and physician (hero).

2
Reply
hreader

also, single dad

1
Reply
Caroline Russomanno

Thanks for the suggestion – we don’t actually have that particular Bell in our database.

1
Reply
elaine s

Maybe add London to the cities list? Practically every Regency ever written has it at least mentioned in passing.

0
Reply
CarolineAAR

That’s the reason I didn’t do London. It would take me dozens of hours and at the end of the day, I suspect there aren’t a lot of readers who say “Gee, I’d like to read a book set in London but I can’t find any.” That’s not the ONLY purpose of tags, but it’s a big one.

I am thinking Edinburgh would be my UK city pick. So many Scottish romances are set in the Highlands or on vague ‘estates’ so it wouldn’t just replicate the “Scotland” tag, and Edinburgh is a really neat city.

Thanks for writing in with an idea, though!!!

2
Reply
Nan De Plume

These are indeed amazing, but is there a way this post can be tucked somewhere in an easily accessible location on AAR? Like, could it have its own page or tab under Vox Populi? Because this post is so succinct and I would like other people to be able to find it without having to do a bookmark. This is way easier to navigate than other pages on this subject.

0
Reply
Dabney Grinnan

It does have its own link under Vox Populi as does Caroline’s earlier post.

3
Reply
Nan De Plume

Thanks! For some reason, it wasn’t showing up on my computer earlier. Either that, or I was looking in the wrong subsection…

You ladies do a fantastic job with AAR and are wonderful to put up with scatterbrained dingbats like me. :)

2
Reply
Chrisreader

These are great. Thank you for all the work that’s gone into creating them!

1
Reply
Kass

I ❤️ that you differentiate archaeologists from paleontologist.

2
Reply
CarolineAAR

Some people don’t?!?!?!?

2
Reply
Kass

Alas, way too many people don’t.

1
Reply
Blackjack

so, so different!

1
Reply