Next up in our series of posts leading up to the Annual Poll are romances in two categories that touch readers’ emotions: romances that make you laugh – Funniest Romance – and romances that make you cry – Biggest Tearjerker. Last year’s winner in the Funniest Romance category was Julie James’ It Happened One Wedding,…
When I think about my life and art, I think first about music. There’s a soundtrack to my life–I have an annoyingly crisp memory for where I was when I first heard a song, no matter how dreadful the song. (Wildfire, I’m looking at/listening to you.)
Critics of romance novels often cite a long list of problems with the books and one of the most frequently used is that the books are formulaic. Some authors embrace that idea and give a guide to what they think of as “the formula” such as Paula Graves or Rita Clay Estrada and Rita Gallagher. Others like Anne Gracie heartily…
To be honest, my reading slacked off a lot in 2015. I usually read half again as much as I did this past year, a lot of which were forgettable at best, and absolute stinkers at worst. I didn’t have a “favorite romance published in 2015!” book this year, though there were a few that…
I have read several truly superb books recently–being on crutches has given me more time to read and I’ve picked, in general, a bunch of winners. The best book I’ve read lately is Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr of All The Light We Cannot See fame. While different in scope than the Pulitzer Prizer…
Dabney’s reads: I first read Chase Me in November and loved it. Just loved it. So, while stuck in a surgery center waiting room for most of a Friday morning, I read it again. And loved it again. (I’m not sure my fellow waiting room waitees shared my love. My constant snickering garnered many a long…
I look forward to seeing everyone’s responses. 🙂
I can’t open the quiz for some reason.
Here is a direct link to the survey.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RVPXT6K
Thank you!!
LOL at the ‘worst book’ question. Usually if I really am not enjoying something, I just DNF. Had to go back quite a few pages in the reading journal to find one that I had a lot of complaints about but still read the whole thing. 🙂
Genre was tough to answer! I have favorite authors who write historical and contemporary, but on balance I guess I have been reading more historical, so that got the nod.
Genre was tough for me too. I’ve read a lot of historical romances but also a lot of historical mysteries. I picked the latter category, but it didn’t seem quite right when I like both. Some of the historical mysteries have a central romance as well, but not all of them do, whereas all of the historical books I’ve read are primarily romances.
Well, it’s just for fun!
I agree about DNF-ing books that aren’t doing it for me (life’s too short), so I too had to go back through my notebook to find a book that I had finished but still disliked. I found one written by a new-to-me author (Shantel Tessier’s CODE OF SILENCE); I plowed on through to the bitter end, but I won’t be reading any more books by her. Perhaps if Dabney runs a similar questionnaire again, a question such as “What book surprised you by being DNF?” or “What book were you really anticipating that turned out to be a letdown or DNF?” might work for those of us in the habit of DNF-ing.
Good idea DiscoDollyDeb. Like you, I will abandon books that are not enjoyable, especially if they are written by authors who are new to me. However, if the book is written by an author whose past work I’ve liked, then I will sometimes force myself to finish reading a subpar book. So maybe a future survey could be about Books that you did not expect to be a DNF.
Genre was definitely a difficult question. I don’t really have one. But I’ve always found questions about my favorite anything difficult to answer. I guess I’m wishy-washy!
My pick for worst was a dnf, since I only dnf about 1 book in a thousand. Something has to be seriously wrong with a book for me to not finish it.
Genre was tough for me too, since I read most genres. But if I can find a good one (and a big “if” it is these days!) Historical Romance is my favorite. Give me a feisty Cinderella every time!
I don’t know is my answer to most of them. I’ve started and not finished so many books this year. I tried some of the new genres, like the “bully romance” and the “mafia romance” and found them so bad that I never want to be reminded of them ever again. College romance does nothing for me.
As for new authors? I’ve not discovered one this year. I kept going back to old favourites. This has been my year of the re-read.
I am right there with you!
I discovered NEW TO ME Essie Summers, Sophie Weston and (maybe last year) Mary Burchell.
Somehow, these old series romances fill a need right now – my guesses why:
I found it difficult to choose a category too. Ultimately I chose Historical Romance, because overall it’s been my favorite, but alas, long gone are the days when I could ace history quizzes because of all the facts I learned in romance novels. These days, though, I’m reading lots of Historical Mysteries, and I’m loving all the new authors I’m discovering!
I choose what is my favorite right now, and that is contemporary – although, since I currently read mostly series from 20-60 years ago, maybe that is historical??
I had to choose HR as my favourite genre as it’s been that for so many years and I keep hoping it’s going to get better again! But right at this moment, I’d include romantic suspense and some contemporaries, but m/m rather than m/f. I haven’t read any outstanding débuts this year (so far) but I’ve discovered Olivia Dade (I LOVED Spoiler Alert) and am going to try to pick up some more of her books. I usually have a pretty full reading schedule of ARCs and audiobooks to review, so I’d say well over 80% of my reading/listening is devoted to them.
My worst book was a D grade HR – in fact I had two of those according to my GR shelf.