It’s the final round….
The final round in the Goodreads Choice Awards is up and, guess what guys, it does not include AAR’s most recent winner which, with 16 of the 61 votes cast, was Emerald Blaze by Ilona Andrews. (Your second choice was A Rogue of One’s Own–12 votes–followed by Spoiler Alert–9 votes.) There are now ten choices, one of which will be the Goodreads’ Readers Choice Romance of the Year. (Last year it was Red, White, and Royal Blue.)
So, what’s your choice from the final list? (Here’s the link.)
I have read two of these books. The Switch by Beth O’Leary which I liked, but not nearly as much as The Flatshare and The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez which was on sale at the time and sounded interesting enough. It ended up being alright. The first half I liked a whole bunch, but the second was a bit exhausting. Calling either of these novels the best romance book of the year feels just wrong.
Take A Hint, Dani Brown and You Had Me At Hola are on my TBR list as I enjoyed Hibbert’s Ravenswood series and books 1 and 2.5 in Daria’s Dance Off series, but that doesn’t help me much now.
I just don’t feel like I can vote for anything.
The only one I’ve read is “Beach Read”. I loved the concept of the two writers switching genres, but in the end I liked but did not love the execution. A book I read this year that I did love was Kate Clayborn’s “Love Lettering”, but it’s not on this list so I can’t vote for it.
The only one of these I read was The Switch and I didn’t actually care for it that much. Plus, I did not actually consider it a romance. More like romance adjacent.
I was only able to vote in 2 categories anyway. Young adult and humor. That’s typical for me though. I read in a lot of genres but usually not what ends up on this contest.
Boyfriend Material has a huge fanbase and will probably win, but Take a Hint, Dani Brown deserves it.
I had to look up Colleen Hoover as I’d never heard of her and found she writes Young or New Adult genre books – which now doesn’t surprise me as agreeing with Elaine, based on my age, I’m just not interested. And may also explain her ability to draw out the votes as that demographic is more inclined to use electronic media.
BTW I didn’t vote as I haven’t read any of the finalists. I had read the Ilona Andrews, but didn’t vote earlier as it was the ONLY one I’d read and that doesn’t count as a favorite anything.
Too bad you haven’t put a “none of the above” tick box. Haven’t a clue about the books on this list and agree with Dabney that HR authors must be very sad. Or maybe I am just getting old and stale? I wonder what correlation there is between the age of the reader and the genre they prefer.
Here’s a clue: take a look at the poetry nominations. Margaret Atwood must be almost offended to be in some of the company.
HR authors everywhere are sad. But maybe it’s a bit of a wakeup call?