The Best of 2016: Lee’s List
I tend to read a lot of historical romance and women’s fiction, and my list reflects that.
I discovered a new author in Kara Isaac, who wrote two books this year. Her début novel, Close to You, is about an English major who gives tours of the Tolkien movies filmed in New Zealand. Along the way, she becomes intrigued by an American guy traveling with is uncle who thinks his nephew knows all about the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit books. Our heroine catches him out. This was a very entertaining story.
A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas surprised me and left me wanting the next book immediately. Ms. Thomas definitely has a way with characters and plots and knowing about Sherlock Holmes and Watson from the TV show made the book even more fun to read.
Match Me If You Can by Michele Gorman revolves around a dating site where employees try to find the best possible new match for couples who are breaking up. There are three main characters who are single or married or looking and one is taking care of her Down Syndrome sister, who is a fantastic character.
A/BN/iB/K
Kelly Bowen’s Duke of My Heart is the first of her Season for Scandal series. The feisty heroine, Ivory Moore is awesome. I’m very much looking forward to the new book coming next year.
The Little Shop of Happy Ever After (known as The Bookshop on the Corner in the US) by Jenny Colgan made me smile a lot because it was all about books and those who love to read and want others to learn to love books as much as the heroine Nina does.
Simone St. James continues to write spooky historical fiction and this year’s release, Lost Among the Living, was gothic-y and intriguing.
Taylor Jenkins Reid always has an interesting concept for her stories. In One True Loves, the heroine loses her husband in a helicopter accident and remarries. Years later, her first husband returns after being lost for so many years. Good stuff.
A funny read was Anna Bell’s The Bucket List to Mend a Broken Heart. Our heroine finds her ex’s bucket list and thinks if she accomplishes everything, she can win him back. But some of the items on the list are way out of her comfort zone.
Kristi Ann Hunter’s An Elegant Façade deals with a Georgina Hawthorne, a young woman who must marry because she has a dark secret. This book is the sequel to Ms. Hunter’s A Noble Masquerade, which won a RITA award.
The Name I Call Myself by Beth Moran is an inspiring story about a young woman who thinks she has met the man of her dreams and once they are married she will able to take care of her emotionally damaged brother. But along the way, she joins a choir and learns a lot more about herself and how to deal with her past life going forward.
So many of these look delightful and I’ve only read a few! Just headed over to grab Match Me If You Can and discovered it’s on Kindle Unlimited, so that’ll be the first read. The price tag on the Kara Isaac puts it a little out of budget right now, but I’ve added it to the TBR anyway. Thanks for all these great recs!
I borrowed the Kara Isaac book from the library so that might be an option Kristen.
The Bucket List to Mend a Broken Heart was so funny I’ve added it to my list of favorites for the year. Thanks so much for your list.
Anna Bell’s books really make me laugh.
The Kara Isaac book is in my TBR pile. I’m a Tolkien nerd. I’ll move this one higher up in my list :)
Ms. Isaac also wrote another book this year set in Oxford and influenced by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Thanks everyone for the comments. Simone St. James’s books are scary but you can’t stop reading them.
I loved the St.James book, too. So many of the books on your list are in my TBR. I think I need to get reading!
Okay, I may go over to AAR’s review of Duke of My Heart and post there, too, but seeing it on so many “best of” lists, I got it from the library and just finished it last night. I had already read book 2 in the series (A Duke to Remember) and had thought it pretty good. I liked the characters in DoMH better. I would rate DoMH a B.
SLIGHTLY SPOILERISH OPINION FOLLOWS:
The ending fell apart for me, from the heroine having lots of unprotected sex with the hero, even though she knows he’s leaving and this relationship won’t be permanent (so if there’s a child, he won’t be around to help raise it), to the part where he has spent most of the book feeling horribly guilty about family matters but ultimately plans to leave again without trying to fix them. My respect for the hero plummeted, despite the HEA.
I also liked A Duke to Remember more than Duke of My Heart, albeit for different reasons. The problem you mention (about a lack of concern for pregnancy out of wedlock which carried a HUGE stigma back then) is, sadly, something that crops up in many historicals and always makes me shake my head.
I loved Lost Among the Living and An Elegant Facade. I have Bookshop Around the Corner on my wishlist as well as A Study in Scarlet Women. Your entire list actually looks great to me so I will be adding a lot to my TBR!
I was really happy to see _Lost Among the Living_ on your list, Lee. I loved it and found it Gothicy and creepy but also very poignant and melancholy too. It unsettled me on a deeper level than many of her books do and I think it’s because of the tense marriage at the center of the novel. I cannot wait to read St. James’s new book this April.
I plan to read _A Study in Scarlet Women_ very soon.