We’ve Got New Additions to our Special Titles List!

Today we’re pleased to announce that six more of the Special Title Lists have been updated: (1) Green Romance; (2) Friendships; (3) Best Enemies; (4) Cross-Dressing & In Disguise; (5) The Limelight; and (6) Two-Hanky Reads.

As generally happens, while checking out the submissions readers sent in we discovered a few problems with the existing lists. We’ve tinkered with the definition of the Friendships list and think you’ll find it to be more concise than in the past.

More major changes were made to The Limelight list. We haven’t changed the definition, “Romances featuring heroes or heroines who are in the performing or creative arts, such as actors, singers, artists, best-selling novelists, and dancers” but have deleted one of the sections of the list, “Politicians.” When looking over the list “politicians” just didn’t seem to fit — either in personality or vocation — with the artists, dancers, and novelists found on the list. But the submissions you sent in for politicians weren’t a waste. Over the next few months we’ll be starting a new list (ideas for titles, anyone?) that will feature romances with politicians (or their spouses or children) as the heroes and heroines. We’ve also added a section for “Fashion and Design” to the list as a number of fashion models and designers were submitted.

By checking out each of the revised pages, you can see that there are a lot of new entries — in a few cases about 50 additional books to check out. But as in the past, these are not all “new” titles, published since 2009 when most of these lists were last updated. While there are some new titles, there are also some classic romances that were never included in the lists. For instance, we’ve added a number of Mary Stewart and Georgette Heyer romances to the various lists.

And this brings us to our main message. Yes, updating the lists is a lot of work for us, but it’s a labor of love as well. Each of us has found new titles to read as a result of titles recommended by readers. Ah, and our dear readers. If this is work for us, it’s also work for a number of very loyal readers. While we won’t list your names, believe us that we have come to recognize you each time you submit titles. Each time new lists are open these readers do an incredible amount of work. They fill out all of the spaces in the ballots, providing us with links to reviews (and grades at other sites) as well as lengthy descriptions as to why each title should be added. You cannot begin to know how much we appreciate your help! Without all of you, the Special Title Lists would not be the vibrant, growing part of AAR that they are once again!

We plan to open a few more lists for updates later this week, but will then take the rest of the summer off for holidays, work, and other AAR responsibilities. But look for us to be back revising more lists this fall.

Thanks!

Cindy, Rike, and LinnieGayl