This summer is the Summer of Love at NPR Books – all summer, they’ll be celebrating and highlighting romances, and they’d like to know your favorites!
We’re bringing back our famous summer reader poll this year, and as the days get longer (and the nights get hotter), we think it’s the perfect time to celebrate romance.
Whether you love historicals, paranormals, inspirationals, young adult, Amish, romantic suspense, contemporaries (or, like some people around here, you’d be perfectly happy never leaving the Regency), we want to hear about it! And with your help, we’ll spend this summer putting together a great big bonbon box of 100 delicious love stories.
To nominate your favorite books for consideration, head over to their Google form and fill it out.
Guidelines? OF COURSE!
- There is a five title limit — “But don’t hesitate to nominate a book that you know someone else has already picked. We’ll tally your nominations and take note of the most popular titles.”
- It doesn’t have to be brand-spanky new, and it doesn’t have to be specifically designated as a romance, either.
- Series that are short – three or four books – should count as a single nomination: To qualify as a collective work, the books in a series must be written by the same originating author or authors, and must tell a more or less continuous story — usually about a consistent group of characters. If it’s a very large series — like Robyn Carr’s “Virgin River” books, or Brenda Jackson’s “Madaris Family” saga — feel free to nominate your favorite title as an individual work.
The poll should be open for the next ten days, up to two weeks. And the final list of 100 will be curated by a panel of experts (which I’m on! I cannot even. THERE ARE NO EVENS AVAILABLE TO BE CANNED FOR REALS) and revealed later this summer. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to reveal the other panelists, but they are most awesome.
I hope you’ll drop your favorite nominations in the form and send them over. What books do you think should be included? (Feel free to discuss in the comments but please, don’t forget to nominate them at the NPR form!)
Julie Anne Long’s Pennyroyal Green series is really getting into “very long” territory at this point, but my god, it’s so good. I recently found a stash of them that I purchased during a big sale but forgot I owned, so I’ve been working my way through, and between nonstop squeeing and laughing until I cry, I’ve been pretty much fangirling all day every day. I just finished How the Marquess was Won yesterday, and it was so delightful. The heroine is smart, informed, and witty, and the hero is driven but not asshole-ish about his ambition (for the most part). The only thing that bothered me was the back-stabby nature of most of the female interactions.
But I’ve loved every single title in the series so far (starting A Notorious Countess Confesses today, and I’m freaking excited), and if you’re looking for a fabulous long historical series to spend your summer exploring, I can’t recommend this one enough.
“THERE ARE NO EVENS AVAILABLE TO BE CANNED FOR REALS”
You are HILAIRE. I thought I was over the various unable-to-even constructions and yet this one delighted me. BRAVA TO YOU, SISTER.
That was fun and five is woefully too few, but I enjoyed participating. Really looking forward to the results.
Can I get that picture on a mug, please?
Five? Five!! I don’t know if I can do this. Darkest London is up to book six. Is that too many to nominate as a series? Or Meljean Brook’s Guardians which, while complete, has eight? Can’t we just nominate an author. Will there be a life time achievement award? I’m sooo jealous that you get to be on a panel of awesome experts.
Stupid question time, do you fill out the form 5 different times?
Limiting to 5 is always hard. Then there’s the do I nominate something I love that rarely makes these type of lists or stick with books I also love which are more popular question? Decisions, decisions.
It doesn’t seem like the NPR site is counting entries…vote early and often, friends.
It was really hard narrowing it down to just 5, but somehow I managed. Here are my 5 (already submitted to NPR):
1. Romancing Mr. Bridgeton by Julia Quinn I just love the chemistry between Colin and Penelope and I think its awesome that the “plain Jane” character gets the guy she’s always dreamed of, but never though would ever look at her.
2. Three Fates by Nora Roberts. This is my absolute favorite romance novel, which of course I’ve mentioned multiple times on here. 🙂 Like the Quinn novel, one of the main characters is also considered a bit of a “plain Jane” even if she really isn’t. My favorite scene is where Tia’s friend shows up and finds her with all these people she doesn’t know and immediately thinks that they’re taking advantage of her friend.
3. The Sweetest Thing by Jill Shalvis. I love a reunited lovers story and Tara and Ford’s is one of my absolute favorites. I’m probably due for a re-read soon.
4. The Three Sisters Island Trilogy by Nora Roberts. Of the three, my favorite is Heaven and Earth, but all three are so good.
5. Out of the Shadows by Kay Hooper. It is the 3rd book of the Bishop/SCU series (the original final book because it was only supposed to be a trilogy) and I just love it. There are psychic FBI agents, a psychotic killer, and an awesome reunited lovers romance.
I probably used very broad definition of romance when I nominated.
I nominated Three Sisters Island also, as well as the In Death series. Then I went with Romancing the Duke by Tessa Dare (it was such a clever read to me, with all those nods to modern fandom in there), Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell, and Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins (I just finished it a few days ago, so it was fresh in my brain).
I listened to a mashup on NPR the other day of some guy doing a ton of impersonations reading Shakespeare – including a really good Garrison Keillor impersonation – and I’m having fits thinking about GK reading a romance out loud on Prairie Home Companion … what do you think, Maiden Lane Chronicles? Or Lynda Aicher Bonds of … series?
So I nominated mostly whole series to get the most out of 5 – Cecilia Grant’s Blackshear Family, Elizabeth Hoyt’s Maiden Lane, Lynda Aicher’s Power Play, Amy Raby’s The Fire Seer, (and my own book His Road Home because, why not?)
I’m thinking about going back and adding Julie James since it’s not really limited to 5, apparently. What I need to do is actually open up my nook and LOOK at the books I’ve been reading. I have to go back and add Jane O’Reilly – Indecent Exposure and the related books. Seriously, if you read those at the beach, your ereader will melt down. You need to be indoors in a cool environment.
I could be at this all day.
AHEM, SOME of us are following THE RULES and limiting ourselves to FIVE even though it is PAINFUL and even though it is POSSIBLE to CHEAT but we are CIVILIZED PEOPLE. (I mostly chose series to dull the pain slightly.) The only thing that distinguishes us from the apes is our ability to choose five books. Or accessorize. I forget.
Crystal, I liked Lola and the Boy Next Door, the next book in the Anna and the French Kiss series, even more than the first! In part because I’m a sucker for San Francisco stories (I also like Jenn Bennett’s historical-paranormal San Franciscan stuff!) but it’s also just ridiculously, swoonily romantic.
I picked Tessa Dare’s Spindle Cove series, Robin LeFevers’s His Fair Assassin (YA) series, Elizabeth Hoyt’s Maiden Lane series, Virginia Kantra’s Children of the Sea (paranormal) series and my #1 fave Sherry Thomas, Tempting the Bride. I waffled about Girl of Fire and Thorns, another YA series I adore, but ultimately I decided that the romances were more central to the LeFevers series.
I adore Eleanor and Park, too, FROWNY. Also BITTER about not being able to include Patricia Briggs, Kristen Callihan’s Firelight (haven’t liked the other books as much), Bec McMasters’ Kiss of Steel (again, haven’t liked the others as much), and because I so rarely like contemporaries, Ride with Me by Ruthie Knox and/or After Hours by Cara McKenna, two VERY different books that are just SO well-written.
I flipped a coin on a few and limited myself to one book per author (so went with an In Death title rather than any number of NR titles I could have submitted).
Heart of Obsidian (Psy/Changeling series) by Nalini Singh
Deadly Game by Christine Feehan
Exclusively Yours (Kowalski series) by Shannon Stacey
Trust Me by Jayne Ann Krentz
Memory in Death (In Death series) by JD Robb
But there are so many great choices I left off. 🙁
Well, since Marjorie was SO ALL CAPS FROWNY I used Mr. Richland’s alternate email to nominate more.
Ha! He is nominating Jane O’Reilly’s Indecent series and he doesn’t even know it!
@Anna Richland: I used my mom’s e-mail for a second round of five too! Mine were all historical, but my mom nominated sexy contemporaries like Julie James’ books. 🙂
This sounds like fun to participate in. It will be hard narrowing down my choices though.
@Dread Pirate Rachel, you are going to have such fun, because “A Notorious Countess Confesses” is awesome, but make sure you didn’t skip “It Happened One Midnight”. Those may be the 2 best books of the series, which is saying a lot because they’re all excellent.
I actually picked old classics for my 5 NPR picks. “The Duke’s Wager”, “Gaudy Night”, “Mr. Impossible”, “Cordelia’s Honor” and I forget what else.