I was struck by a sentence written by romance novelist Adriana Herrera in the Washington Post this week. Herrera, in an article entitled The 10 Best Romance Novels of 2022, wrote: For me, this year has been a reminder that the personal is always political, and I’ve found myself reaching for romances with protagonists who…
Each day my inbox is full of emails about upcoming books romance readers might like to read. And, if publishers are right about romance readers–and who is to say they are or are not?–what we want to read are feminist romances. This week I received blurbs for an historical romance whose heroine works to smash…
Nora Robarts, aka J. D. Robb, is publishing the 56th book in her In Death series in January. We appear to have reviewed 42 of the Eve Dallas books (!!!), lastly in 2015 when Maggie gave book 41, Devoted In Death, a B. 56 books is about 50 too many for me. I like series,…
Next month, Eloisa James will publish The Reluctant Countess, the second in her Would Be Wallflowers historical romance series. James has published over 40 books and we’ve reviewed her 38 times. She’s gotten five DIKs, most recently with My Last Duchess, 24 Bs, six Cs, and 3 Ds. Her 2011 When Beauty Tamed the Beast–an…
I spend a lot of time looking at AAR’s stats. According to Google Analytics, 60% of AAR readers access the site via their phones and/or other devices. When users visit the site, the vast majority arrive there on the Home page. Next most popular are the Power Search, Author Profiles, New Reviews, and Steals and…
The final season of His Dark Materials comes out this December and the trailer has dropped. The thing is, I’m not sure I can take it. The conclusion of series, told in the final pages of The Amber Spyglass, wrecked me. I listened to the last chapters in the parking lot of my local grocery…
The AAR staff will soon begin pulling together their top romances of 2022 lists. I’ve been thinking about mine–I love these lists! My current top pick is easy–I’ve only given five stars to one romance published in 2022: Trish Dollar’s The Suite Spot. I love it as much as I love the first book in…
As Covid, more or less, recedes in its every day impact, people are socializing. All over the place. This makes me happy–as an utter extrovert I love get togethers. I’ve so missed gatherings and parties. I was recently at a soiree in my building and we started talking about great parties we’d attended. I confess,…
What’s the book you’ve read in the last six months that you simply couldn’t put down? For me, it’s Ninth House. Smart, engrossing and entertaining as hell. What about for you?
I was struck by a recent article prizing, in mysteries, psychologically complex characters over novels that were essentially puzzles… with tricky plots. In suspense reading, I am the reader who enjoys the latter over the former–if I had to pick. I love dense, complex, brilliant plotting in any genre. Anthony Doerr’s work astounds me–Cloud Cuckoo…
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