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1. I did a quick count of how many I’ve read and the grades. I’ve read 26 on this list:
   A’s 8
   B’s 9
   C’s 6
   D’s 1
   DNF 2

   These were all read by 2020 or earlier and before I started reading mainly m/m romances. I had a quick look at my 5 star books on GR and I actually have a lot of historicals on my list, but most aren’t on this list. It could be that many were written after this poll, and the ones added in the past 4 years are majority m/m, although not all.

   I do feel like my tastes have always been out of sync with the majority of AAR readers (if the poll is representative), even before I switched to mainly m/m. It could be partly because I started reading romances seriously in my 50’s and my tastes were already heavily influenced by non-romance genres, like suspense and mystery, fantasy, and sci-fi. I love Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer, but that didn’t translate into a love of HR overall. Instead, my gateway to romance novels was through romantic suspense.

   Anyhoo- just musing. 🙂

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   1. Carrie, I’ve noticed that you and I are in the same boat. I also came to romance later, having read mostly literary fiction and women’s fiction before. I love Austen and Heyer, but a lot of HR doesn’t resonate with me. I rarely buy the big transformation from rake to devoted husband found in so many stories. I see Balogh’s Slightly Dangerous is on there, and that is just a badly done P&P ripoff, IMHO, and yet others seem to love it. So I am out of sync, too, but there are enough of us on the site who enjoy Contemporary and M/M and Sci Fi and Fantasy, etc that there are always books that grab my interest. I really hope the books to be added to the list will be a lot more diverse.

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      1. I didn’t start reading romance in a big way until the early 2000s – before that I’d read mostly literary classics, some WF, Heyer and the occasional HR (I first read Stella Riley’s books back in the mid-1980s). I think part of the reason why was simply one of availability – most of the bodice rippers of the 1970s and 80s were not available in the UK; even in the early 2000s, the only way I could get hold of paperbacks of Balogh, Quinn, etc. was via Amazon because they were imported.

         Still, my tastes probably used to align more closely with AAR readers than it does now; I read and reviewed HR pretty much exclusively for about ten years, but so much HR these days is 21st century people in period dress and I just can’t be doing with it any more.

         I’m disappointed that none of the 2 KJ Charles books on the 2018 list are listed here. A Seditious Affair remains one of the best historical romances of the last couple of decades and is one of only two books to which I’ve ever given an A+.

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         1. I wouldn’t fret yet. This is a historically heavy list. A Seditious Affair had only been out three years when we did this poll

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            1. But it is an historical romance, and it was in the top 10 in 2018.

         2. I was surprised A Seditious Affair wasn’t on there, too. I didn’t know it was in the top 10 in 2018, but it deserved to be. I wonder if the rise in the shear number LGBTQ romances and authors has driven this incredible series off the average m/m reader’s radar.

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            1. I usually love KJ Charles, but I confess, I did not vote for A Seditious Affair. While objectively I recognize that it’s a well-written story, it is not a favorite of mine. Sorry to let down the team!

            2. It’s okay *sniff* I’ll still talk to you 😉 I think the way actual history (the Cato Street Conspiracy) is woven into that story is masterful.

               I just did a re-listen of An Unnatural Vice which is up there with ASA for me. One of the best HRs of the last few years is Sally Malcolm’s King’s Man – another fantastic blend of actual history and romance.

            3. Another fabulous HR that is missing is Elizabeth Kingston’s The King’s Man. But not mm.

               So how do we get at least a handful of almost anything else on this list? Can we agree on a KJ Charles title? Or a romantic suspense author ala Gregory Ashe, Nicky James, Cordelia Kingsbridge, Dal Maclean, or ??? How about a paranormal author ala CS Poe, Harper Fox, Kaje Harper or JL Merrow? For contemporary, I’m pleased to see Beard Science still on the list. But where is Lily Morton’s Deal Maker or NW Walker’s Thomas Elkins or Red Dirt series, Helen Hoang’s Kiss Quotient, or anything by Beverly Jenkins?

               Does it make sense to run a few blog posts asking people to list their top 10 (fill in the blank subgenre) so we can discuss/inspire readers to remember some of those really great reads?

            4. This is not the list for the poll. This is just choosing what fifty books from the 2018 poll will go on the much larger poll for the next lisst.

               I will be writing about that process on Friday!

            5. The Kingston was published in 2015, so was eligible last time – and didn’t make it.

               I believe Dabney said back when she first started talking about the Poll that she would also be adding titles from AAR’s Best of List for the past few years, so a good number of the authors you mention will make the nomination stage simply because they feature in mine!

            6. It might be tough to all agree on the “best” KJ Charles, or even the best m/m historical romance, but I hope for at least a representative sample of excellent m/m titles will make the list. There are a lot of A-rated KJ Charles’ books I’d vote for! And I agree with Caz that Sally Malcolm’s King’s Man is exceptionally good! (I recommend reading the novella Rebel, first).

               I’ve given every C.S. Poe book in the Momento Mori series and her Magic and Steam series an A, so I’d vote for any of them. Same for the majority of book in Nicky James’s Valor and Doyle series. For Morton I’d pick Rule Breaker as my favorite, but Deal Maker is still an A read for me, so I’d vote for it. Same with any of the Thomas Elkin books. So there’s hope those who enjoy m/m romances, contemporary or historical, can unite behind a some of these wonderful books.

2. I’ve read 47 of these. The three I haven’t?

   Ravished, Devil’s Cub, and Frederica!

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   1. I’ve only read 28 of the 50 listed above. My first-priority tbr spreadsheet has crept over 3,200 entries, and my rereading percentage has gone down from almost a third of my reading to almost none.
      I have read Ravished 26 times, Devil’s Cub 16 times, and Frederica 14 times.

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3. I’ve read 35. And of that 35, I’d vote for about 12 or 13 – in some cases, because I think the ‘wrong’ book is on the list (eg. I love Frederica, but Venetia is even better; Act Like It is fab, but Pretty Face or Headliners is better – I realise that Headliners wasn’t released until 2020, so I hope it gets a look-in this time around).

   I haven’t read any of the other contemporaries on the list – m/f CR just didn’t and still doesn’t work for me often.

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4. I’ve read 24. I am so happy Jane Austen is still in there, even though there is no sex! She is still the gold standard for me. Not so sure about Jane Eyre, though. I was not a fan of that relationship.

   By my count, the titles have:
   3 Devils
   2 Lords
   4 Dukes
   2 Duchesses
   2 Rakes

   I bet the new books that will be added won’t be as heavy on titles, devils and rakes.

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   1. I’m OK with Jane Eyre although I’m not sure it’s a great romance. I loathe Wuthering Heights,

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      1. Re: Wuthering Heights, I loathe it too. Heathcliff is downright creepy and irredeemably messed up.

         BTW, Rachel Gibson wrote her take of Wuthering Heights (Truly Madly Yours) – which I thought was pretty decent.

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         1. Whoa–it never occurred to me the book was inspired by Wuthering Heights!

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      2. I really dislike Wuthering Heights – it took me several false starts to read it in my teens and I didn’t enjoy it enough to want to go back to it.

         I’m on the fence about Jane Eyre as well. I love the book, but I think if it had been published today, it would be categorised as women’s fiction seeing as it’s about Jane’s journey through life and her eventually finding love when she’s found someone who will love her as an equal.

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         1. Agreed about Wuthering Heights. It may be a toxic love story, but it’s not a romance. I don’t care for Jane Eyre though, and never thought it was romantic. The story really lost me when she “heard” him calling to her. SMH WF sounds about right.

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   2. Oh, I don’t know – it seems the majority of HR published in the last few years has at least one of those words in the title!

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5. I have read 47 of these books. The list appears to be heavy on historical romance which is my first love.

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   1. Mine too!

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6. I know it is what it is, and people love what they love and that’s totally cool. But I admit to being disappointed that there are so few contemporaries and that the list is absolutely dominated by “historical” (read: Regency) fiction. Not that I don’t love me some Bridgertons! It’s just a very interesting snapshot of what readers seem to prefer, or at least the ones who answered the survey.

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   1. Remember, this is just taken from our last survey. It’s not reflective of what we would pick now inherently.

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   2. I love some of the old HR a lot. So my favorites will show that. I do not read HR much now – if I want dresses and manners I veer to fantasy, today.

      But I rarely read a CR, or mm, or suspense romance book that transports me and delights me as much as Loretta Chase at her best. KJ Charles comes close, historical again.

      SEP did, but not her new ones. Good books, but not memorable enough to get on a best list. I am interested in some complexity, beyond the romance, but suspense is not my jam. Tearjerkers – big emotions in general – are wonderful to wallow in, but do not make my best list. I may nor engage with them next time, when emotionally in another mood.

      So, in a way, my current reading of good books does not make it on my best list.

      I am considering what to nominate and have a few non HR and no new HR.

      Maybe others feel the same?

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      1. I hope to see Mia Vincy on the list in terms of new HR; someone has mentioned Elizabeth Kingston’s medieval historicals, but they’re not exactly new, now! The King’s Man came out in 2015 but didn’t get a look-in last time. I know the Poll is the Poll and isn’t going to change, but I liked your idea of a cut-off point – there are some truly fantastic books published in the last decade that won’t get a look-in [spoiler title=”because”] because people are voting for old favourites out of nostalgia, even if they haven’t read them since they were published [/spoiler] .

         Favourites change over time – my list today would be different to my list in 2018, but that’s mostly because I’d be bumping off older titles to make way for newer ones I’ve enjoyed more.

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         1. I’m a little leery of saying why others love things.

            There is not a single romance I’ve read in the past five years that I love the way I love The Forbidden Rose or The Duke of Shadows. It’s not nostalgia that makes me adore them so. It’s that they are my favorites–nothing else wows me the way Bourne’s prose does.

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            1. Out of interest, do you have numbers on how many books have appeared on every list? (Or every list but one?)

            2. No but it would be easy to do. @nlibgirl wrote this on the original post:

               I’ve been through each Top 100 list over the years. The difference from one year to the next is interesting. In the first 2-3 years there were titles that appeared, disappeared and came back – but they are rare (e.g. Almost Heaven by Judith McNaught is on every list except 2004, Venetia appears in 2000, 2004, 2007 and 2013 but not 2010 or 2018). For the most part, enduring titles stay from list to list (e.g. A Kingdom of Dreams by Judith McNaught appears in 1998 and stays until 2013; Pride and Prejudice has been on every list from 1998 – 2018).

               It is easy to spot authors who enjoyed a spurt of popularity: JR Ward has 4 books from the Black Dagger series on the list in 2007 and they stay until 2013, when they’ve tapered off to two and only one in 2018. Suzanne Brockmann had 7 or 8 eight titles on 2004’s list but only three by 2007. There are a handful of authors who’ve made a Top 100 List only once (e.g. Lynn Kurland).

               Obviously all 100 titles were “new” in 1998, the first year the poll was conducted. A quick manual count of “new to the list” titles are as follows:

               1998 – 100 titles
               2000 – 46 new titles (I think readers were getting used to the idea of nominating)
               2004 – 36 new titles
               2007 – 29 new titles
               2010 – 21 new titles
               2013 – 18 new titles
               2018 – 33 new titles

         2. Yes, my cutoff idea was about myself, too. I was thinking how to “force myself” out of voting forever for my old favorites.

            I have paid attention to rereading: I want to choose books who still work for me today – to me, SEP oldies do not stand the test of time, same with Judith McNaught.

            But I still suspect myself of bias towards old loves.

            Anyway, interesting to think about. I am now consciously thinking who I want to propose as new books. Cat Sebastian’s “we could be so good” is one.

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7. The list includes just 3 books from 2016; nothing from anything later than that. The rest are pre-2016 and, of course, Austen is early 19th century and Heyer is early and first half of the 20th century. I wonder what that tells us? Was there a “golden age” earlier on? Or have tastes morphed away from the more “traditional” HR and CR with trends towards M/M, fantasy, steam punk, Korean and Japanese graphic novels etc.? Are most romance readers older and we haven’t many younger readers here choosing books for the list?

   And to Dabney, haven’t read Frederica!!? Do read it, you will be in for a wonderful treat! Definitely one of Heyer’s best. It’s one of my periodic re-reads.

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   1. Venetia, Faro’s Daughter, and Frederica are three of my favorites by Heyer. I’m in the minority in thinking A Civil Contract is one of her best. Honestly there are 8 to 10 Heyer titles that are close to my heart. 🙂 The Talisman Ring, Sylvester…

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      1. Agree re A Civil Contract, Carrie. It’s in my top 5 Heyers along with Frederica, Venetia, The Grand Sophy and Sylvester. 😉

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   2. I don’t think tastes have necessarily moved away from “traditional” HR – it’s just that most of the HR that’s published now just… isn’t very historical. Maybe AAR readers realise that which is why there are so many older HR titles on the list.

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      1. That’s not my take. I think people tend to, when you ask them to pick the BEST, pick what’s been around for a long time. On the AFI’s top 100 Films list, their latest version, from 2008, has ONE movie made in the 2000s and beyond and seven from the 90s.

         I think our list reflects a sense that these books have been around a long time and have been loved by many for a long time.

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   3. I just can’t get into Heyer. Don’t know why. I keep trying and I get 20% in and I’m bored. I think it’s because I’m shallow.

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      1. No, not shallow! Reading is like your bra: it either fits or it doesn’t.

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         1. Mostly this; but Heyer is also very “sweet”. If her characters even kiss before the end of the book it’s a win. Conciously or not, I think that affects some readers’ reactions to Heyer’s books.

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            1. I think it’s also that I read six thousands Cartlands in junior high and I have PTSD that irrationally transfers to Heyer.

8. I have read and reviewed all of those titles, and I think it’s a very good list to find books that can spark interest in any Romance reader. I didn’t enjoy some of them —for instance Gabaldon or Quinn—, or I would have chose a different one from the same writer, in certain cases. But I see why ALL of them are so appreciated. I would tell any romance reader to give an opportunity to any book among those fifty.
   There are two books that are five stars for me and I would include in that list, ‘The Iron Duke’ by Meljean Brook, and ‘A seditious Affair’ by KJ Charles. I don’t read Charles anymore, but that book is, IMHO, one of the best romances I have ever read.

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   1. For me, my five star reads from this list would be:

      The Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne

      Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas

      His at Night by Sherry Thomas

      The Duke of Shadows by Meredith Duran.

      I am bereft not a one writes historical romance any more.

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9. For the past 5-6 years, I have been reading primarily contemporary romance so it surprised me to find that I have read 40 books from the list. However, I think this is because I have been reading romance for 40 years and for a lot of that time, the majority was M/F historical romance. I’m looking forward to the poll.

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   1. Thanks! Everyone will have a chance to weigh in.

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10. “Welcome to Temptation, Jennifer Crusie, Romantic Suspense, 2004″

    Romantic suspense?

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    1. Clearly an old error. Thanks!

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