AAR spotlights more of our favorite reads from 2018
AAR staffers read and loved many of this year’s RITA nominees. We are happy for those writers and were delighted to feature their books in this post. We were startled, however, not to see any of the wonderful books by AoC (Authors of Color) we read in 2018 make the list of nominees. At least sixteen of the books we list here made our reviewers’ official Best of 2018 lists, and others, read after the deadline, would be included if we made the lists today.
These, in alphabetical order by author, are AAR’s staff top reads of 2018 by authors of color.
Rogue Nights (Anthology)
The quality of writing, the topics covered, and the inclusion of #OwnVoices and LGBTQ pairings all make this is a worthy addition to the 2018 list. It’s not uncommon for a collection such as this to have some strong entries and some weak ones, but every single story in here is worth reading.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Emergency Contact by Mary H. K. Choi
Because neither is completely comfortable opening up in person, barista Sam and college freshman Penny bond through text messages before they slowly start to interact in the real world. Neither grim nor hypersexual, this book breaks New Adult stereotypes and was a delightful read.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton
Our reviewer reports, “I was almost immediately engrossed in the author’s vivid descriptions of Cuba, both today and in 1959. The romance is lovely, and definitely adds to the overall beauty of the story. This author is someone whose work I’ll definitely seek out in the future.”
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
A Princess in Theory and A Duke by Default by Alyssa Cole
The first Reluctant Royals book, A Princess in Theory, is a fanciful modern fairytale about the prince of a make-believe African kingdom and his lost betrothed, whom he finds, beguiles, loses, and wins all over again. What could’ve been a clichéd plot is made magical by Cole’s writing, the authenticity of her research, and the depiction of characters who have interests and passions beyond their relationship with each other. If you’ve never read Cole before, or never read a lighthearted story by her before, do pick this book up.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes and Noble/Kobo
In the second book, A Duke by Default, socialite Portia Hobbs travels to Scotland to work in the armory of Tavish McKenzie. If you love a good meet cute/meet crazy, this book contains one of the very best. This tale of finding your place in the world combines poignant, meaningful moments with laugh out loud humor.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Dance All Night by Alexis Daria
This fun and flirty novella is a great addition to Alexis Daria’s Dance Off series, about a dance themed reality show and its contestants as they try to reach the pinnacle of success (tv fame and the glittering trophy). Featuring a smart and caring black heroine with an appreciation of the women who paved the way for her in the dance world, it’s also a hero in pursuit story.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Mirage by Somaiya Daud
This is a well written debut novel which covers violence, oppression, the quest for power and finding love in dangerous circumstances.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Do Over by Delaney Diamond
Diamond turns the typical billionaire hero trope on its head with this sexy romance about an heiress and member of a wealthy African American family and the copy assisting her after a break-in. They both have some relationship baggage to overcome in order to get their HEA but the author writes an engaging and compelling story with enough secondary characters to make one want to read more about the Brooks family!
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
The Wedding Date and The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory
If you’re a total sucker for the fake relationship trope, The Wedding Date is a delightful execution of it. Alexa agrees to be Drew’s plus-one to his ex’s wedding after meeting him in an elevator. The spark isn’t fake, though, and as they explore what it could mean in “real life,” the reader will fall for them as they fall for each other.A gem of a read from 2018 for sure.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
The Proposal is a sensational, charming, warm, sexy romance that gives all the feels. Carlos and Nikole are lovable, and our reviewer felt this was one of the best contemporary romances she had read in years.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Untouchable and Damaged Goods by Talia Hibbert
This is a treasure of a story where the protagonists, nanny Hannah Kabbah and her employer Nathaniel Davis, see each other with tenderness, awareness, joyfulness, and high regard. The protagonists are so self-aware of their strengths and failures, as well as their capabilities and weaknesses, that being allowed to spy on their thoughts in addition to seeing how they react with each other makes for a rich reading experience. Hibbert handles her characters’ mental illnesses and developmental challenges with a gentleness that allows them to talk about their experiences without fear of judgment. Mental illness takes different people differently, and in showing her characters’ challenges and disparate reactions, which aren’t magically erased or cured by their HEA, Hibbert allows her readers to see themselves in these characters’ struggles and triumphs.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes and Noble/Kobo
We also highly recommend Damaged Goods, Hibbert’s novella in this same series. This is a friends-to-lovers story with a pregnant heroine recovering from an abusive marriage. The hero is a dream and Hibbert handles the novella’s heavy topics with a debt and compassionate touch. It’s a DIK for us.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes and Noble/Kobo
The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
Smart, special, and wonderful, this novel elevates familiar ground – a socially awkward woman falls hard for a handsome and confident man – beyond the formulaic. Our heroine, Stella Lane, has Asperger’s. Because she refuses to allow it to limit her life experiences, she hires Michael Phan, a professional escort, to teach her physical intimacy. Everything about The Kiss Quotient – the clever cover, the wonderful story, the terrific writing – adds up. (That’s a little math humor for you).
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Mr. Hotshot CEO and Not Another Family Wedding by Jackie Lau
Lau’s OwnVoices stories embrace a Chinese-Canadian setting and, in Mr. Hotshot CEO, the role depression plays for the heroine Courtney. Bringing mental health issues into a romantic comedy might seem counter-intuitive but the author does a fabulous job of providing a funny, uplifting and authentic story, ripe with Chinese cultural family dynamics and a sexy romance to boot.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
On the surface, Not Another Family Wedding is the story of two people in their 30s discovering love after nearly 20 years of friendship and their romantic relationship unfolding against the backdrop of family drama. But the story is truly about relationships: relationships between the protagonists, between the parents, parents and children, siblings, extended family and love interests. It is a story of how you exist within yourself and with others and how every action of every person you interact with has repercussions, small and large, on you. With deep insight and delicacy, Lau navigates all the tricky human relationships in this book with an assuredness that is as entertaining as it is appealing.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Intercepted by Alexa Martin
This is a fun tale of adulting in the 21st Century, finding the love of your life, and football. The author, a former NFL wife, knows whereof she speaks and this sports romance rings with an authenticity that you don’t often find in contemporary love stories.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
From Twinkle With Love by Sandhya Menon
The protagonists, high school students Twinkle Mehra and Sahil Roy, are both shy and awkward, but support each other to overcome their self-consciousness. They develop from unsure, unassertive personalities into the confident, secure people they’ve always wanted to be. Twinkle is clearly happy pursuing her dream of changing lives through film, and this epistolary novel is written as a series of letters by her to various notable female film directors. Right from the cover all the way to the last page, the story shines with true feelings – moments that are effervescently joyful, sad, humorous, wistful, and loving.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Her Perfect Affair by Priscilla Oliveras
Oliveras delivered another heartwarming, family focused romance in her Matched to Perfection series. It’s an ‘oops, we made a baby!’ trope story, with a focus on the heroine’s Puerto Rican heritage. All of the books in the series have been winners.
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Block Shot and Long Shot by Kennedy Ryan
Featuring two bi-racial principal characters and set in the world of basketball, Long Shot starts off charming and lighthearted, and quickly segues into something significantly darker. Absorbing and wonderful and awful, Long Shot is that special novel that transcends the genre.
Buy it at: Amazon
Block Shot, book two in the Hoops series, stars Jared Foster, step-brother of Augustus West (the beta hero of Long Shot), and Banner Morales, the girl he briefly had and then lost in spectacular fashion. Block Shot is sexy and smart and sharp – just like its principal characters.
Buy it at: Amazon
Pas de Deux by Lynn Turner
The world’s fourth highest paid ballerina, Mina Allende, is recruited by choreographer and dancer Zach Coen to star in his upcoming musical/opera/dance performance The Lady in Red. Sexy, meticulously researched, and with excellent prose, Pas de Deux is a terrific contemporary.
Buy it at: Amazon
The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang
This fairytale/historical, set in late 1800s Paris, stars a prince who wants to feel beautiful in gowns and the designer/seamstress whose creative vision can bring his dreams to life. A wonderful graphic novel suitable for middle grades and up.
I was thinking that, in light of YH’s comment, we could have been slightly more specific than darker territory. CWs are always an issue of debate – especially when it could be a spoiler! – but I see and respect that we could have been a little more explicit in this blurb, where folks might not head to your review, which lays things out more clearly.
Also, my phone browser doesn’t let me thread things, so i’m sorry I keep starting new threads!
YH – I cannot speak for all of AAR – we are independent contractors, in a way – but I know this is an area I can and need to do better in. This book (Long Shot, for anyone unaware), in particular, has been talked about as an example of the need for CWs and we should have noted that in our post. I’m sorry if we caused you any pain.
Do you mean in this blog post?
As a survivor, I would have really appreciated if there was a content warning for exceedingly graphic sexual violence in one of these books. Is there some reason why AAR doesn’t provide content warnings for this? You all MUST be reading as much romance as I do, there is absolutely no way that you don’t know that this content is unusual and excessive. It doesn’t matter how good the book is, survivors should have a heads up before we engage with this content. It’s negligent in the extreme to not have a content warning for this work, unless you believe that reading romance in general is naturally going to put women at risk for physically reliving sexual violence at the same level that this book does.
Do better.
YH – I can’t speak to your experience and I am sympathetic to your feelings. I’m glad we have these comment sections to hear from our readers.
I think you are referring to my review of Long Shot in this post and I want to clarify my review.
I did caution readers in the review that this book gets very dark and I alluded to why. I did not include a more specific trigger warning for two reasons:
1. It’s a spoiler for the events in the story.
2. I deferred to the authors own (non-specific) blurb for the book:
*Some aspects of this story may be sensitive for some readers.
I hear what you are saying, and I understand your concern; I deferred to the authors own words for the lack of a more specific trigger warning.
I also think it’s important to say All About Romance DOES include warnings in reviews with sensitive content (different reviewers work it into the context of their reviews in different ways). It’s not always in italics in the subject heading. We are trying to be better. Always.
I definitely have Kennedy Ryan on my list of authors to read.
I would add Mariana Zapata’s Luna and the Lie, which turned out to be my favorite book from 2018. From Lukov with Love is really good too (2018).
Oh those are excellent suggestions Blackjack! I think Zapata is somewhat of an acquired taste (I’m still on the fence), and if you aren’t on the slow burn train, she’s going to prove challenging. But the writing is so strong & the stories are smart and interesting and…different. I can’t believe we didn’t include any of her books on this list! Big oops!
Zapata definitely seems to be an author people love or hate. She just works for me, and I actually did think that Luna and the Lie, which came out late in 2018 in December, is one of her best. That book gave me such a book hangover.
lol, not an oops from me! I am one of those “she is not for me” folks, but if anyone is really into slow-burn romances, they should check out both “Kulti” and “The Wall of Winnipeg and Me” because they are good examples of them. They drove me nuts, but they’re good on that trope.
I’ve discovered that I am actually really into the slow burn romances, and it is a skill that generally forces authors to develop relationships carefully and meticulously. Insta-love in a romance is generally something that will make me discard a book now.
What an interesting list. Some of them I’ve already read, as for instance Talia Hibbert’s books. I recommend her books, they are wondeful! BTW, Cleeton’s book is ‘NEXT year in Havana’, and not ‘last year’.
Bona – Have you read any of Kennedy Ryan’s books? They’re very different – but the style and flow felt familiar to me after reading Ms. Hibbert’s back catalog. I love books by both of these authors & I hope more AAR readers find and enjoy them too!
I’m currently reading Hook Shot by Ms. Ryan (it’s the third book in the Hoops series) & I’m having a VERY DIFFICULT time putting it down!
Apologies for the typo – it’s fixed now.
These are all great picks; I can recommend the other two books in Oliveras’ trilogy as well, they’re terrific.