The Best of 2020 – Caroline’s List
The hardest part of any Best of list is frantically trying to read all the books on everyone else’s list to make sure you didn’t miss something. This is not helped when certain authors release fantastic books well into December (AHEM Ms. Alyssa Cole…) which you have to frantically get to before your deadline for list submission!
Queen Move by Kennedy Ryan
Who knew back in June that a story about a black female political kingmaker out of Georgia would prove so timely? Ezra and Kimba’s story is rich and intense, realistically messy, and romantically inevitable. While it feels a bit more like literary fiction with a happy ending, I’m glad to have that added to the bookshelves of Romancelandia. Romance is a richer genre because Ryan gave us this book.
Buy it at: Amazon, Audible or your local independent bookstore
If I Never Met You by Mhairi McFarlane
Laurie and her boyfriend were coworkers as well as a couple – until he broke up with her, and she learned that he was cheating and the other woman was pregnant. Laurie is left reeling, to the point that a proposal by office player Jamie to have a fake relationship appeals. This book is proof that tropes can be handled in a rich, thoughtful way by a gifted writer. I loved watching Laurie grow into a new version of herself.
Buy it at: Amazon, Audible or your local independent bookstore
Beach Read by Emily Henry
A romance writer and a literary fiction writer end up as next door neighbors for a summer, and since both are struggling with writer’s block and massive life changes, they challenge each other to experiment with the other’s genre. I liked how Henry explored issues of respect for writers of “women’s stories,” and the question of writing stories which affirm love when your own faith in it has been shaken. I do have to agree with our reviewer that the hero’s book’s ending frankly sucks, but I can live with a dumb paragraph when the rest of the book was so great.
Buy it at: Amazon, Audible, or your local independent bookstore
A Heart of Blood and Ashes by Milla Vane
I had this book to read as an ARC back in November of 2019, and I remember thinking, “How weird would it be if I just read one of my best books of 2020, and it isn’t even 2020 yet?” Lo, over a year later, this book held its spot. High adventure, a clever politician queen, thoughtful challenges to “alpha” masculinity, killer worldbuilding, and a deeply hot barbarian hero – what more do you need?
Buy it at: Amazon, Audible or your local independent bookstore
Bench Player by Julianna Keyes
Baseball is not my sport, so it’s extra significant when a baseball romance makes my list. Connor Whitman’s conviction for insider trading got him thrown off the Charleston Thrashers and into two years of prison, turning into a grumpy misanthrope. Ball-buster Thrashers PR manager Allison Whyte has to redeem him to the public in order to save her job, even if it’s too late to save Connor’s. I love a competent, professional heroine. Throw in a well-researched contemporary setting and great prose, and I’m there.
Buy it at: Amazon
The Hidden Moon – Jeannie Lin
I love Lin’s Pingkang Li mysteries, set in Tang Dynasty China, and it was a delight to return to that setting with Wei-wei and Gao. If you like procedural (not grisly) mysteries, cross-class romance, and settings you haven’t read a million times before, come explore the city of Chang’an with Jeannie Lin – but don’t start here; begin at the beginning with The Lotus Palace.
Buy it at: Amazon or your local independent bookstore
A Dangerous Kind of Lady by Mia Vincy
Arabella Larke’s society ice queen reputation can survive jilting by Guy Roth, Marquess of Hardbury, but she has no desire to marry the creepy, virginity-obsessed alternate her father demands she accept. Arabella turns to Guy to shed the virginity her fiance demands. Arabella’s pride and manipulative nature make her a disaster for Guy, who is desperate to be his own man – but at the same time, her social cunning makes her the only one who can further his scheme to obtain custody of his sisters from an embezzling guardian.
Buy it at: Amazon, Audible, or your local independent bookstore
How to Catch a Queen by Alyssa Cole
A romance heroine is rarely allowed to be ambitious, and a hero is rarely allowed to be weak. This doesn’t bother Cole, who gives us Shanti, a woman who taught herself to be a perfect royal bride, in a marriage of convenience with King Sanyu of Njaza, a man built out of depression, imposter syndrome, and a childhood full of emotional abuse. This book is nothing expected and everything wonderful.
Buy it at: Amazon, Audible or your local independent bookstore
Based on these books, I’m noticing that the themes that pulled me in in 2020 were
- clever, competent heroines
- books which used common tropes (marriage of convenience, fake relationship) but resolved them in uncommon ways
- couples who helped each other grow
If you can think of other books along these lines I might enjoy, please share them in the comments!
Thanks for sharing your list. Alyssa Cole’s book is on my must read list so I’ll be sure to check it out! My most favorite of the year was The Guy in the Middle by Kate Stewart. It is highlighted with all of my favorites in my Best Romance Novels of 2020 list!
For your themes, you have probably already read the first one I thought of: The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey is a wonderful 2004 Luna book, with a competent heroine who starts as a Cinderella. It is the first book in the 500 Kingdoms series, with The Tradition enforcing fairy tale tropes.
I love this book! I would recommend Spinning Silver and Uprooted by Naomi Novik. Both have extremely competent heroines.
I’ve read and loved both Novik books!
I have read all but three on your list and especially enjoyed If I Never Met you? Have you read any other of her books?
Not yet. I’m on hold at the library!
The only one on this list that I’ve read is ‘Beach Read.’ I liked it for its portrait-of-the-writers, not so much for the romance. I felt neither of the MCs were in the right place to be fully rational about a relationship and that framing their attraction as True Love was a way for both of them to avoid getting the counseling that they both desperately need. For this particular slice of their story, I didn’t buy the HEA. Barely a HFN. More like, ‘okay we solved the immediate problem, now let’s see if this thing has legs.’ Good book, but for me not a satisfying romance, which was what I wanted. :-)
The only one I’ve read on your list is Mia Vincy’s A Dangerous Kind of Lady and it’s definitely on my top 10 list of books published in 2020. I listened to it on audio, and Kate Reading’s narration was a masterpiece. Arabella’s incredible strength as she pushed through her fears vibrated off the pages. Both she and Guy are clever, talented and wounded. It’s a very emotional book and one I haven’t stopped thinking about since I read it.
Great list Caroline! The Milla Vane is on my list too :-)
I think there’s more overlap on our lists than I’ve seen in a while.
I’ll never get enough of clever, competent heroines!
I liked Eleanor in The Footman–she’s clever, competent, and kind without being a sap. And Julia Bennet whom I very much hope will get a contract for another book, has brilliant, heroines with agency and skill. In contemps, if you’ve not read Things You Save in a Fire, you might like it. Cassie is the bomb.