In Dolly’s DIK review of The Suite Spot she wrote:
Trish Doller is a great storyteller, and she has crafted a romance that’s easy to read. Her language is comfortable, the pace is perfect and the character development relatable and memorable. Everything about this journey is satisfying as Rachel and Mason make their way from friends to lovers. What started as a rope-a-dope disaster turns into a very mature, realistic, and relatable partnership between two people who needed each other. Adulting at its finest.
It’s a book about adults for adults with a wry heart large enough to ease most of the worries batting about your brain. It’s just lovely.
That’s my current pick–and it could change by the end of the year! I still have three more months of romance reading to do!
What’s yours? Why?
So far, THE LONG GAME by Rachel Reid has been my favorite romance of 2022. It concludes the love story of Shane & Ilya that started in HEATED RIVALRY (coincidentally, my favorite book of 2019). However, THE LONG GAME really cannot be read as a standalone, so I have to say HEATED RIVALRY, ROLE MODEL, and THE LONG GAME combine to make one epic love story (although Shane & Ilya are not the MCs of ROLE MODEL, Ilya is important to the story and some of the timeline is parallel to THE LONG GAME).
Another favorite this year was Allison Ryhmes’s debut romance, BROKEN PLAY, a sensitive exploration of marital infidelity. Any writer who can make a cheating spouse a nuanced (if not entirely sympathetic) character is worth checking out.
I also loved J. T. Geissinger’s PEN PAL, but that is more of a romance/psychological suspense/gothic horror mashup than a “standard” romance. But it certainly made my favorites of 2022 list.
It’s really difficult to pick a top favorite for me. My 5 star, A books (not ones rounded up from A-) published this year:
Farview by Kim Fielding (narrated by Joel Leslie), This is an absolutely lovely fantasy book made better by the fantastic narration.
Books 1 and 3 in Jay Hogan’s Painted Bay series- Off Balance and In Step. Book 2 is very good, too.
The Doctor by C.S. Poe (bk 3 in her Magic and Steam series, narrated by Declan Winters).
Elusive Relations by Nicky James (Book 2 in her Valor and Doyle series) MM authors are producing the best RS right now.
This list will likely grow since C.S. Poe has Subway Slayings coming out, and the next Valor and Doyle book is due any day. 🙂
It’s also interesting to note that some of the books I end up listening to or rereading the most aren’t my 5 star books, but are often those 4 and 4.5 star that become comfort reads. I’ve already listened to Proper Scoundrels by Allie Therin twice since it came out, for example. I rated it A-. And The Long Game barely missed a solid A (gave it an A-) but I know it will be one I revisit, just as I have Heated Rivalry and Role Model.
My favourite book so far has been Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score. It’s not a perfect book, but it made me happy and I’d like to read it again. I liked The Suite Spot a lot too, but it wasn’t quite a DIK for me.
So far, for books actually published in 2022, books by Nicky James, C.S Poe, Greg Ashe, Con Riley, Rachel Reid, Fearne Hill and Jay Hogan are all in contention. Picking just one “Book of the Year” is always problematic for me, especially as many of the authors I love are quite prolific.
I think it has to be Mia Hopkins’s Tanked for me, but Jesse Mihalik’s Hunt the Stars is a wonderfully tight second.
ooh, that’s a possibility for me too!
This happens every year: my favorite 2022 read(s) so far came from last year’s “Best of” lists and were both published in 2021:
CS Poe’s Madison Square Murders (fabulous blend of suspense, grumpy hero – but with a reason, and a little paranormal action).
Michelle Quach’s Not Here to Be Liked (Just a lovely YA. I’d have given anything to have such great women in my life during those teen years.).
But published in 2022, it is a tie between Eli Easton’s Fireman’s Carry (small town setting, large lovely family) and Lily Morton’s The Player (friends to lovers).
As note by Carrie G below, though, the second book in the Poe series mentioned above is about to drop. If it is as good as Madison Square Murders, it could end up being #1 for me this year.
What all four of these books have in common for me is that I’m attracted to stories with honest dialogue between the characters (no big miscommunication plots for me) and strong characters who can/do stand their ground. No wimpy or TSTL characters for me either.
I am SO glad you loved Not Here To Be Liked!!! That book is just exceptional and was my top 2021 read.
Yeah, it’s a fabulous book and if I were really pushed to pick only one from last year it might have been my #1 read of the year as well. Fortunately I don’t have to completely commit and rank order my favorites. 😉 I do wish I knew more young women to recommend it to.
I have much the same problem. Most of my 4.5-5 star books this year were published pre-2022. I’m often a year behind the current crop of books. I finally had to make a shelf on GR for books published in the current year so I didn’t have to sift through my entire READ list for the year to find the current ones.
I use LibraryThing to track all my reading, so it is really easy to quickly request a view of all books read this year, and then to sort by stars given and original publication date. I’m a pretty hard grader (the vast majority of my reads are 3 or 3.5 stars so the handful of 4 (or 4.5) stars are a handful of standout reads), so it is pretty easy to find my favorites.
I maintain two “Favorite books” lists: one for books published and read in the current year and one for books published in any prior year that I didn’t read until the current year. Right now I have four books on my favorites published in prior year list (all of them published in 2021): BOLD FORTUNE by M. M. Crane, HITTING THE WALL by Cate C. Wells, LONG WINTER/SIGNS OF SPRING (duet) by Rachel Ember, and BURN THIS CITY by Aleksandr Voinov.
Favorite contemporary: Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez
Favorite historical: A Scandalous Kind of Duke, Mia Vincy
Favorite sf or fantasy: The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy, Megan Bannen
Loved A Scandalous Kind of Duke. It made me reread the whole series, and they almost all held up.
I’ve got 18 books in my ‘Best of 2022’ folder on Goodreads so far this year, 5 of which were published in previous years so don’t count. My top contenders so far for book of the year are Tanked by Mia Hopkins, Fearless at Heart by Zoe York, and Proper Scoundrels by Allie Therin.
Proper Scoundrels will definitely make my top 10 or so. I’ve already listened to it twice on audio!
Bad news bear. Proper Scoundrels was published in December 2021.
Yeah, but it was Dec 28th (at least for the audio version) and that didn’t give anyone enough time to add it to 2021 lists, so I’m going to consider it 2022. 🙂
I remember having it on my review list as 28 Dec, then it was moved to 4th Jan… then back to 28th Dec. No idea why.
Historical Romance: Tracy Sumner – The Wicked Wallflower (Duchess Society #3), Alicia Cameron – Katerina and the Reclusive Earl (Sisters of Castle Fortune #3) and Jan Ashton & Julie Cooper & Amy D’Orazio & Jessie Lewis – A Match Made at Matlock: A Sequel to Pride & Prejudice
Contemporary Romance: Rachel Reid – The Long Game (Game Changers #6)
Fantasy Romance: Hailey Turner – The Prince’s Poisoned Vow (Infernal War Saga #1) and T. Kingfisher – Nettle & Bone
A number of my most highly anticipated 2022 reads just released or are still upcoming from C.S. Poe, Eden Finley, Rachel Grant, Noami Novik, Michelle Diener, Freya Marske, Kerrigan Byrne, Ilona Andrews and Kate Bateman
Nora Goes Off Script by Annabelle Monaghan is my favorite romance and Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus is my favorite book so far this year.
Contemporary M/M romance: the duology Hopelessly Bromantic and Here Comes My Man by Lauren Blakely. A British actor and an American author are the main characters and they have a second chance romance with the first book taking place in England and the second years later in America.
Contemporary romantic suspense (M/M): Elusive Relations by Nicky James. Has been reviewed at AAR. 2nd in the series. I liked book 1 but liked book 2 much more.
Contemporary M/F romance: The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by Elizabeth O’Roarke. A singer falls for her ex’s brother. Enemies to lovers trope.
Rom Com (M/M): Not That Complicated by Isabel Murray. Starts off with one of the male characters finding a dead body buried under the floor of his house. I think some might find the main character too silly but he did show some personal growth and I found the book amusing.
I haven’t read as many books as usual this year because my life has been a little chaotic, but I would say the ones that made me think “ooh, this is really good” are Husband Material by Alexis Hall, Pack of Lies by Charlie Adhara, Long Game by Rachel Reid, and I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston. I would probably pick Husband Material as the best just because it’s a romance that really made me think and had so much going on underneath its surface.
The Devil You Know by Elizabeth O’Roark
Wow. There are two books youall have mentioned by Elizabeth O’Roarke whom I’ve never heard of. I’m off to check her out! Thanks!
My favorite of the Devil Series is A Deal With The Devil (by O’Roark). I saw on IG that Keeley and Graham’s book is next, can’t wait.
I’m excited for it too!
I’d never heard of O’Roarke when I grabbed THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA because of its super-hot cover (his name is Xavi Cortes, if anyone is interested, lol). To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much, but I found a well-written and nuanced story of a woman falling for her ex’s brother and the different ways family dysfunction can express itself. I liked the entire trilogy, but TDATDBS was my favorite.
I really liked Drew. She was introduced in ADWTD and I was glad to see her get her own story in TDATDBS.
She’s a relatively new author, I think. I have only read her Devil series and the first (A Deal with the Devil) just came out in August 2021. All in the series have been excellent.