It’s that time of year again and we’re pleased to announce the books featured in seven out of our eight categories!
Our categories this year are Contemporary, Historical, Novella, Series/Category, Paranormal/Fantasy/SciFi, New Adult, and Novel with Strong Romantic Elements.
The eighth category will be filled with the top eight books as nominated by you. Yup. You nominate the books you think should be included that aren’t listed right now.
If you’re looking to nominate a book, fill out the form to enter your nominations. The form will close Saturday, March 12th at 12pm EST.
I should also mention that both Ilona Andrews (after her stunning win last year) and Beverly Jenkins (she’s on an awesome vacay!) politely requested not to be included this year. So keep that in mind while nominating!
The book nominated can be digital or print, but please, wherever possible, use the ASIN or ISBN number for the PRINT edition to minimize duplicate entries.
PLEASE NOTE! The book MUST have a copyright date of 2015. No exceptions, no reprints. No paperback version of 2014 hardcovers.
For those who are new to the DABWAHA madness, here’s an intro to this year’s competition!
Contemporary
The Royal We by Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan
Suddenly One Summer by Julie James
Asking for It by Lilah Pace
The Bollywood Bride by Sonali Dev
Good Time Bad Boy by Sonya Clark
Fearless by Lauren Gilley
Opening Up by Lauren Dane
Playing Dirty by HelenKay Dimon
Paranormal/Science Fiction/Fantasy
The Other Side of Midnight by Simone St. James
The Diabolical Miss Hyde by Viola Carr
Grave Phantoms by Jenn Bennett
The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black
Of Noble Family by Mary Robinette Kowal
The Highest Tide by Marian Perera
Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
The Land of the Beautiful Dead by R. Lee Smith
Novella
“The Warlord and the Nightingale” by Jeannie Lin
“The Sport of Baronets” by Theresa Romain
“A Pirate for Christmas” by Anna Campbell
“Craving Flight” by Tamsen Parker
“Let It Shine” by Alyssa Cole
“Luminous” by AE Ash
“So Sweet” by Rebekah Weatherspoon
“Waiting for Clark” by Annabeth Albert
Category/Series
Anticipation by Sarah Mayberry
Dirty Talk by Jane O’Reilly
Sleeping with Her Enemy by Jenny Holiday
Act Like It by Lucy Parker
Taming the Legend by Kat Latham
Playing by the Greek’s Rules by Sarah Morgan
Bound to the Warrior King by Maisey Yates
Lonely Shore by Jenn Burke and Kelly Jenson
Historical
Forever Your Earl by Eva Leigh
A Treasure of Gold by Piper Huguley
Only a Kiss by Mary Balogh
The Drifter by Anna Schmidt
A Fashionable Indulgence by KJ Charles
Lady of the Imperial City by Laura Kitchell
Unnatural by Joanna Chambers
Doing No Harm by Carla Kelly
New Adult
Lonely Hearts by Heidi Cullinan
Chase Me by Tessa Bailey
In the Middle of Somewhere by Roan Parrish
Under the Lights by Dahlia Adler
The Deal by Elle Kennedy
Ride Steady by Kristen Ashley
Trust the Focus by Megan Erickson
Jefferson Blythe, Esquire by Josh Lanyon
Novel with Strong Romantic Elements
The Other Daughter by Lauren Willig
Love is Red by Sophie Jaff
Tiffany Girl by Deeanne Gist
Half-Resurrection Blues by Daniel Jose Older
A Desperate Fortune by Susanna Kearsley
Last Song Before Night by Ilana C. Myer
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
One Good Dragon Deserves Another by Rachel Aaron
UPDATE: Reader nominations are in!
Reader Nomination
Sutphin Boulevard by Santino Hassell
True Pretenses by Rose Lerner
Shards of Hope by Nalini Singh
Southern Spirits by Angie Fox
When a Scot Ties the Knot by Tessa Dare
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Vision in Silver by Anne Bishop
The Duke and the Lady in Red by Lorraine Heath
Start planning your brackets and brushing up on your trash talk!
You always come up with a carefully thought, diverse and interesting list, and this one’s no exception. I’m croggled that True Pretenses is not on there, though; did you forget that it was a 2015 book since it came out on January 13?
I’m getting a message that the nomination form is currently private and cannot be viewed by the public?
Fixed! My bad – silly check box. Should be good to go. Sorry about that!
Can we only nominate one?
I nominated “Call on Me” by Roni Loren, one of my favorites from 2015. It’s part of her “Loving on the Edge” series, but can definitely be read as a stand alone.
Sorry. Of course just saw the answer in bold. *Sigh* Never ask questions before coffee.
@Vasha: That’s why we have reader noms! We had a whole butt ton of awesome nominees and trust me, it was hard to whittle everything down.
Thank you for including Taming the Legend! I’m so honored!
I’m with @Vasha on True Pretenses by Rose Lerner, so I’ve nominated it. It was one of my faves of last year. Fingers crossed!
Now I’m off to scroll through my Kindle and remind myself of the other books I loved last year. What a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon!
Nominated Kulti, Dumplin, and Simon vs.The HomoSapiens Agenda.
I read ALL THE TIME. How is it that I’ve only read three books on the entire ballot?
Where’s “When a Scot Ties the Knot” by Tessa Dare? I am officially advocating for that nomination!
Nominated “Radiance” by Grace Draven. One of the best, if not the best, that I read last year.
What do we do with a book like “Dukes Prefer Blondes” by Loretta Chase??
It is very technically a 2015 publication (29 Dec 2015)–but almost everyone read/reviewed it in 2016.
So is it a 2015 book or is it a 2016 book?
This reader needs to know soonest, before I fill out my nomination ballot.
@Barb in Maryland: I’d say it’s safe to nominate since it was technically published in 2015. I don’t think it matters when people started reviewing it.
@Jan: Unfortunately, Radiance isn’t eligible since it has a 2014 copyright. 🙁
Also, if you’re using the ISBN for print books, you want the ten-digit number.
@Barb in Maryland @Amanda I’m pretty sure the end of December makes it a 2016 book in publishing dates. Publishing dates are different—just ask SB Sarah. And in former DABWAHAs it’s been a “next year” book.
And I totally agree that Grace Draven’s Radiance is awesome, but I’m concerned that it was a free online serial in 2014, at least according to Goodreads. It was then pulled (no trace of the serial lingers, all links point to the published version) and published in January 2015. How does DABWAHA handle this? Does the free serial (that there’s no trace of) count as previous publication?
I went with Controlled Burn by Shannon Stacey and Rock Hard by Nalini Singh as they were my two favorite books from last year.
I’m nominating Taking the Heat by Victoria Dahl–everyone else go nominate it too! I love that book.
How was Act Like It a category romance and not simply a contemporary romance? It wasn’t published within a category/series line; it was just published as a regular Carina Press release, without any of the requirements that a category romance has to operate under. Is it a matter of length, because there’s more that defines a category romance than that.
Yes! Yes! I want Grace Draven’s Radiance in there as well. Amazon lists publishing as January 2015. Otherwise it should have been in last years race. How can we make this happen?
I just had to add DECEPTION by D.B. Reynolds to the Paranormal category. she is often overlooked and her Vampires in America series is just fabulous!
OK, let me see if I can answer all the questions. Please let me know if I miss one.
1. This year, for eligibility, the copyright date has to be as of 31 December 2015. The strange inconsistency of a book being copyright for 2016 but coming out the last few days of December is completely baffling (Thanks, publishing!) so for the tournament, books copyright in 2015 are eligible.
2. In the case of Draven’s Radiance, the copyright date in the version available is 2014. Therefore, it is not eligible.
3. In the case of Dukes Prefer Blondes, the copyright date is January 2016, and therefore it is not eligible.
4. Act Like It is included in the category romances due to word count and length, as well as the singularity of the plotline. Also I love it and it’s going to win because my completely invalid bracket will say so.
@Jen I nominated Taking the Heat earlier! As well as Everything I Left Unsaid by M. O’Keefe. Taking the Heat was my favourite 2015 book.
Many thanks to those who nominated Radiance! Though it’s ineligible for nomination, I appreciate the vote of confidence. 🙂
Sarah, maybe changing the verbiage in the criteria above will avoid any confusion when copyright date isn’t in the same year as publishing date. At the moment SBTB states: “The book MUST have a publication date of 2015.” Changing it to “copyright date of 2015” may resolve that confusion.
@Grace – duly noted. Thank you!
My pleasure. 🙂 And good luck to all the nominees!
I nominated books by Avery Cockburn (PLAYING FOR KEEPS), Emma Chase (SUSTAINED) and Devon Monk (CRUCIBLE ZERO). Any takers?
What fun! I nominated Dark Horse by Michelle Diener
I also nominated Heidi Cullinan’s Carry the Ocean.
I think my single favorite of last year, though, was Heather Rose Jones’s f/f fantasy romance The Mystic Marriage. Worked better as romance than fantasy, maybe, but what a love story.
I’m downloading Radiance now, so Grace, all the appreciation for your book is being heard!
Thank you, Vasha! My apologies for briefly deviating from the thread’s principle topic, but if you like f/f fantasy-romance, I’d like to recommend an old book that came out in 1990 called Gossamer Axe by Gael Baudino. It’s fantasy with f/f romantic elements, and what a gorgeous love story Baudino weaves through the fantasy. The book is out of print and sold on Amazon for a hefty price. If, however, you ever see it for a more reasonable price point, I encourage you to pick it up. Lovely, lovely tale.
I love this time of year, brackets I actually understand plus I always come away with names of new to me books that I somehow missed last year.
Yikes! I feel unprepared for this year. I recognize only about half of the books nominated.
I just nominated: The Highwayman by Kerrigan Byrne, Sustained by Emma Chase, The Hooker and the Hermit by L.H. Cosway and Penny Reid, and Shards of Hope by Nalini Singh.
Ahhh I’m so sad The One In My Heart by Sherry Thomas wasn’t nominated. I don’t know why that book got to me so hard, but I think Sherry Thomas is so good about writing both the love and anxiety of romance.
Also Naomi Norvik’s Uprooted is severely underrated as a romance too. One of my favorite fantasy works of the year, it kind of captured both the terror and beauty of old russian fairytales and also turned the tables on that classic “grumpy older man/young woman” trope.
I really wish I could nominate Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant. So okay it was about war and memory and blah blah blah, but it was also about the love between a very old couple who just want to enter the afterlife together. Also worth reading, but not really a romance is Robert Bennett Jackson’s City of Stairs. There is a romance in the sense that it’s about a couple of former lovers (mild spoilers) coming to the realization that despite being basically soul mates, he’s not straight.
Ohh also, Dukes Prefer Blondes was published December 29th. Not sure how that would fall underneath the rules.
@Linda: It was published 12/29 but the copyright date is 2016. So we’re making a note to next year!
Taming the legend,complete awesome book!!! A book you won’t put down! Yay I loveddddd it!!!!
Another vote for When a Scot Ties the Knot and The Highwayman –plus The Duke and the Lady in Red. I cried buckets.
So many favorite books listed this year – its like choosing your favorite child and then pitting them in a cage match against your other favorite child!!
Love the addition of reader favorites – for those few books that were missed from this years nominations.