Special Title Listings – An Update

When we embark on adding to one of our Special Title Listings, we are elated when there are lots of titles nominated, because, although it means spending several hours on the computer, it also means discovering fascinating new titles. Considering this, we are very glad that we got so many responses for our Unusual Professions and Met as Children Lists – 52 and 47 respectively. We are especially grateful that you volunteered so many details about the books, because that made it much easier for us to decide if a title fit the list. Thanks a lot!

The Met as Children list has more than doubled its number of titles. Considering it’s a very new list, this is not surprising, but still very satisfying. The titles that were nominated were mainly Contemporaries and European Historicals, with some Alternate Reality titles added, and some Georgette Heyer. As Medievals and Traditional Regencies are not much in fashion right now, this is not to be wondered at. Yet we hope that with the next time the list is opened, more people will fondly remember older titles with this theme and nominate them, so that the list gets more encompassing and includes more excellent oldies.

The 52 titles added to the Unusual Professions list represent many different romance genres and feature heroes and heroines with some interesting professions. Thanks to your submissions we’ve added a variety of business owners from a vintage ice cream van owner to a movie theater owner, to the owner of a boutique wine shop to a gun shop owner. We’ve also added heroes and heroines in a variety of fields including science and the arts.

We added 23 titles to the Opposites Attract list representing a large time period ranging from Georgette Heyer’s Devil’s Cub published in 1932 to New Life by Bonnie Dee (published in 2013). Nearly half of the new additions earned a DIK at AAR. The introduction to the list describes the titles as ones featuring “couples that no one would think would be good together – yet they are. Their diverse personalities, ideas, and tastes converge to make their love life even more interesting.“ The new titles you submitted represent the full gamut of “Opposites“ including many differences in personality and lifestyle.

Then we get to (Not Your Usual) Conflict list and it became a touch overwhelming even with only 10 new titles to add. Knowing the definitions of the two sub-sets doesn’t make the categorization of the nominated titles easy to discern. As much as an external conflict may bring the hero and heroine together, the external conflict can also bring intra personal conflicts into the equation. An external conflict in an historical may be class differences but this would, presumably, involve personal conflicts for each character. Can they survive the consequences of a romance outside of society’s allowances? Is love worth giving up a lifestyle you have become accustomed too? So although the list is divided into two subsets, it’s very plain that many of the conflicts overlap each other in great romances. Basically, you can really overthink the whole situation and we realized the only route was to do our best to put the titles under the conflict that was more prevalent. Even with this as a guideline two titles by Elizabeth Hoyt ended up under both lists while the remaining eight titles were put under external conflicts.

If you wish to read more about this specific list you can refer to Laurie‘s News and Views Issue #23 under the sub title Help Please and also Laurie’s News and Views Issue #24 under Fox Paws & Other Pet Peeves.

Thank you to all readers who took the time to send in your lists of favorite books for each category. Look back here in early May to find four more categories opened up for submissions.

– Cindy, Rike, and LinnieGayl