YOU MUST ADD YOUR CHOICES TO THE SURVEY. WE WILL NOT BE ADDING THEM FROM THE COMMENTS. We are slowly creating a list of books that will be on the final AAR Top 100 poll. The 2024 will be made up from four sources. We will take the top 50 from the results from our current poll asking which books from our 2018 list should stay. We will add all the books AAR reviewers have picked as THE BEST of from the past six years. We will also be soliciting our reviewers for any reads they are adamant should be on the list and will add books readers nominate in high numbers. Here is your chance to do the la ..read more

If you haven’t checked out Hulu/Disney+’s charming miniseries, The Artful Dodger, please find the nearest streaming device as soon as possible, because this one is a true gem, so good I’m giddy about finding converts to watch it. Released in November of 2023, the story picks up fifteen years after the ending of Charles Dickens’ classic Oliver Twist and follows the adventures of Jack Dawkins, aka the Artful Dodger, that clever leader of the gang of thieving children who taught Oliver the tricks of the pickpocketing trade. Having escaped from prison where he landed at the end of the book, Jack ..read more

I’m starting to see ads for the third season of Bridgerton and I’m not sure if I’m excited or not. I very much enjoyed Season One but struggled with the choices made in Season Two. Romancing Mr. Bridgerton is my favorite in the series and, thus far, the chemistry between Colin and Penelope has been underwhelming. Additionally, I have another concern: I’m a teeny weeny bit worried that Bridgerton’s world, one invented by Shonda Rhimes and Julia Quinn, won’t make sense to me. It might–it did in the first season. But, in the second season, its viability began to dim and I’ve been thinking about ..read more

As we begin creating the survey we’ll use to make a new AAR Top 100 list (2024), I thought we’d begin by assessing, in a survey, what current novels on the list readers think should stay and which should go. We’ve done this survey seven times since 1998. You can see all the results as well as analyses here. Click HERE to fill out the survey or use the embedded one below. Thanks! Create your own user feedback survey The post the ask@AAR: Which books, currently on the Top 100 list, should we include in the new survey? Which should we not? appeared first on All About Romance ..read more

When I’m with someone I don’t know that well and the conversation lags, I love to ask them: What’s your favorite movie? Most of the time, people think a moment and then say they don’t have a favorite movie but, if they had to pick they’d say __________________. Then they ask me for mine.  I say, well, that’s tough but, right now it’s probably ________________. My answer has changed over time–for years I’d have said The Sound of Music. For the past decade, I usually pick Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous but lately I’ve also thrown Body Heat (I could watch it just for Ted Danson and baby Mick ..read more

Dabney: What made you want to write a YA book? Lynn: I love that stage in life, at least on a fictional level. Real life young adulthood is so fraught and difficult and sometimes painful. But in a book, you can pull the best parts of being young and magnify them to tell the story of maybe how things should be, or you wish they had been. Too, kids in their late teens are old enough to have all of the feelings of an adult–love, desire, frustration, dreams–but young enough not to have the responsibilities of an adult. I’m not saddled with nagging questions like what am I going to make for ..read more

AAR has given DIKs to twenty-three books in 2024. Of those, fifteen are 2024 releases. They are: Simply the Best by Susan Elizabeth Phillips A Wild and Heavenly Place by Robin Oliveira Convenient Vows With a Viking by Lucy Morris & Sarah Rodi At First Spite by Olivia Dade Compass and Blade by Rachel Greenlaw Promises of Forever by Nicky James The Hunter by Tana French First Lie Wins by Ashely Elston The Ladies Rewrite the Rules by Suzanne Allain When Grumpy Met Sunshine by Charlotte Stein Embers in the London Sky by Sarah Sundin The Uncharted Flight of Olivia West by Sara Ackerman The Par ..read more

I Hate You, I Hate You, I Love You: The Enemies-to-Lovers Trope One of the hottest tropes across so many sub-genres of romance is the enemies-to-lovers storyline. You know the deal: couple meets, instant dislike, much antagonism, angry sparks turn to lusty sparks, maybe it wasn’t hate so much as… love? I’m a huge fan. But while this is one of the most appealing tropes, I also find it to be the hardest one to do well.  Case in point. I’m currently reading Erin Watt’s Paper Princess, which received an A- grade here at AAR. And I can see why. I’m completely engrossed and turning pages like ..read more

The thing about romance novels, it was always said, they had to have a happily ever after ending (or, perhaps, a happy for now ending.) Romance Writers of America still says this: Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.  A Central Love Story: The main plot centers around individuals falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work. A writer can include as many subplots as they want as long as the love story is the main focus of the novel. An Emotionally Satisfying and Optimistic Ending ..read more

Here are just a few of the March releases the world is chatting about. Are any of them on your radar? If not, what is? The post March releases! What are you excited about? appeared first on All About Romance ..read more