We’re kicking off our Best of 2020 with our bestselling sales! From today until Saturday, we’re featuring the books that you all bought in record numbers through our affiliate links (thanks so much for that). This isn’t a definitive list as we’re only including books that are still priced at $3.99 or less.
We also have the Best Reviews, Best Cover Snark, Best Books, and Best Podcasts of 2020!
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The Blacksmith Queen
RECOMMENDED: The Blacksmith Queen by G.A. Aiken is $1.99! This was my one pick for hilarious reading in our Ready Set Go. I also gave this an A-. Seriously, it’s so much fun:
The Blacksmith Queen is a bloody, feminist romp that exudes girl power in all forms, and I’m envious of its fantasy girl squad.
When a prophesy brings war to the Land of the Black Hills, Keeley Smythe must join forces with a clan of mountain warriors who are really centaurs in a thrilling new fantasy romance series from New York Times bestselling author G.A. Aiken.
The Old King Is Dead
With the demise of the Old King, there’s a prophesy that a queen will ascend to the throne of the Black Hills. Bad news for the king’s sons, who are prepared to defend their birthright against all comers. But for blacksmith Keeley Smythe, war is great for business. Until it looks like the chosen queen will be Beatrix, her younger sister. Now it’s all Keeley can do to protect her family from the enraged royals.Luckily, Keeley doesn’t have to fight alone. Because thundering to her aid comes a clan of kilt-wearing mountain warriors called the Amichai. Not the most socially adept group, but soldiers have never bothered Keeley, and rough, gruff Caid, actually seems to respect her. A good thing because the fierce warrior will be by her side for a much longer ride than any prophesy ever envisioned…
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Hearts on Hold
RECOMMENDED: Hearts on Hold by Charish Reid is $3.99! Catherine gave this a Squee review:
Really, if you like sweet, sexy heroes who are completely supportive of their heroines, and if you like smart, ambitious heroines who are really good at what they do, and if you love libraries and teasing and friends and kindness, not to mention innuendo that manages to be both silly and seductive at the same time, then you will love this.
What happens in the stacks stays in the stacks…
Professor Victoria Reese knows an uphill battle when she sees one. Convincing her narrow-minded colleagues at the elite Pembroke University to back a partnership with the local library is a fight she saw coming and already has a plan for. What she didn’t see coming? The wildly hot librarian who makes it clear books aren’t the only thing he’d like to handle.
When a tightly wound, sexy-as-hell professor proposes a partnership between his library and her university, children’s department head John Donovan is all for it. He knows his tattoos and easygoing attitude aren’t quite what she expected, but the unmistakable heat between them is difficult to resist.
And then there’s the intriguing late fee on her record. For the Duke’s Convenience… A late fee and a sexy romance novel? There’s more to Dr. Reese than she’s letting on.
John might like to tease her about her late fee, but when he teases her in other ways, Victoria is helpless to resist. Mixing business with pleasure—and oh, it is pleasure—always comes with risks, but maybe a little casual fun between the sheets is just what Victoria needs.
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Strange Love
RECOMMENDED: Strange Love by Ann Aguirre is $2.99 at Amazon! However, it looks like there are plans for this one to make it to other ebook retailers next year. Elyse loved this one and gave it an A:
Strange Love by Ann Aguirre is a shining example of just how good a romance novel can be, even if the hero has mandibles, and I recommend everyone go read it now.
He’s awkward. He’s adorable. He’s alien as hell.
Zylar of Kith Balak is a four-time loser in the annual Choosing. If he fails to find a nest guardian this time, he’ll lose his chance to have a mate for all time. Desperation drives him to try a matching service but due to a freak solar flare and a severely malfunctioning ship AI, things go way off course. This ‘human being’ is not the Tiralan match he was looking for.
She’s frazzled. She’s fierce. She’s from St. Louis.
Beryl Bowman’s mother always said she’d never get married. She should have added a rider about the husband being human. Who would have ever thought that working at the Sunshine Angel daycare center would offer such interstellar prestige? She doesn’t know what the hell’s going on, but a new life awaits on Barath Colony, where she can have any alien bachelor she wants.
They agree to join the Choosing together, but love is about to get seriously strange.
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A Wicked Kind of Husband
A Wicked Kind of Husband by Mia Vincy is $3.99! This features a married couple who wed out of convenience living two separate lives until they are forced back into each other’s proximity. I’ve heard really good things about this book and for a time, it was recommended a lot on social media.
It was the ideal marriage of convenience…until they met
Cassandra DeWitt has seen her husband only once—on their wedding day two years earlier—and this arrangement suits her perfectly. She has no interest in the rude, badly behaved man she married only to secure her inheritance. She certainly has no interest in his ban on her going to London. Why, he’ll never even know she is there.
Until he shows up in London too, and Cassandra finds herself sharing a house with the most infuriating man in England.
Joshua DeWitt has his life exactly how he wants it. He has no need of a wife disrupting everything, especially a wife intent on reforming his behavior. He certainly has no need of a wife who is intolerably amiable, insufferably reasonable … and irresistibly kissable.
As the unlikely couple team up to battle a malicious lawsuit and launch Cassandra’s wayward sister, passion flares between them. Soon the day must come for them to part … but what if one of them wants their marriage to become real?
Hilarious, heartrending, and hot, this standalone Regency romance tells the story of a marriage of convenience between opposites.
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I loved A Wicked Kind of Husband by Mia Vincy, as well as the other two in the Longhope Abby series. Highly recommended on audio with the fabulous narrator, Kate Reading.
I DNF’d Strange Love. This book didn’t work for me. I couldn’t figure out the target audience, but it wasn’t me. A 20 something human female and her dog are accidentally taken by an alien seeking a mate. The young lady seems amazingly sanguine about the abduction and her future as a possible mate for a sweet insectoid alien, even as she must compete in sometime dangerous trials to be allowed the honor. I tried to go along with it until descriptions of what sex is like for the alien, which, honestly, just got squicky for me. The book, at least the first half, seems to be trying for a mostly humorous feel. YMMV.
The Vincy is so worth it.
The Longhope Abbey series has been on my comfort reread list 10x this year. A Wicked Kind of Husband may be my favorite, it has this certain magic to it. I am also quite in love with the covers of all three books – the bright colors wash over me. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.
Strange Love was one of the best I’ve read this year. So good, in fact, that I recommended it to my picky college-age daughter, who read it in one day and then thanked me profusely for the rec.
A Wicked Kind of Husband and the other books in the series were $3.99 when I bought them, and are all $3.99 right now, so I think this is the normal price. What really saves money is that the audio books are $1.99 each on whispersync.
A Wicked Kind of Husband is such a great read. It is interesting, sexy and hilarious! the other books in the series are god too but this one was my favorite. I have read it several times.
Hearts on Hold is lovely – I adored both of Charish Reid’s books, actually (The Write Escape being the other one). There were two secondary characters in Hearts on Hold that I thought were being set up for their own book (that I really would love to read), but it seems as if Reid is going off in a very different direction with her next book. Both of Reid’s books are complete standalones, with no shared characters.
@Stefanie Magura Whispersync is how I bought the Longhope Abby series. That made each ebook plus audiobook $6, which is an amazing prince. You don’t have to have an Audible account to use it, either. I do have one, but our Amazon prime is under my husband’s email, and when I buy whispersynced books, I just log into Audible with his email and password instead of mine.
BTW The Magpie Lord by KJ Charles is free on Kindle right now, and the audiobook, which is fantastic, is $1.99. The rest of the series is $3.99 on Kindle with $1.99 whispersync auiobooks.
Strange Love is the kind of alien romance where the alien does NOT look like a human with blue skin/horns/etc. The hero made the book for me. He is so sweet and honest and earnest. I enjoyed his journey from underdog with worth issue to in love with a terribly ugly female, and the confidence it gives him. He’s loving, he’s supporting, and he can’t believe his luck in having the heroine in his corner. He’s adorable.
Outside of the hero and heroine though, every character reads like a prop; they are so lifeless it’s a bit distracting. The world-building also feels more like a sketch than a cohesive world. But everything needed to support the couple’s romance is there, so it’s good. And there’s a talking dog, one every alien treats like it’s a sentient being on par with the human, so yeah… funny moments. Not a perfect book, but at that price, it’s a good bargain.
In the end note, the author mentions a scientific article (“In Brazilian Cave Insects, Females Have the Penis”) and absolutely had to use this set up in a book, she felt 😉
Why is it the books I’m attracted to are only available on Amazon ☹️? I refuse to support them on any platform.
I loved A Wicked Kind of Husband! I also adored Vincy’s most recent book, A Dangerous Kind of Lady, which is also $3.99. It’s got some Things To Say about how men turn women into prisoners of their own limited expectations that I was thrilled to see, because way too often so-called feminist historical romance blames individual women for the roles they’re forced to play to survive in a patriarchal society instead of blaming the patriarchy itself.
If you’re interested in either, I also really like how Vincy does content warnings—they’re on the copyright page of the book and available in the free Kindle sample, so they’re both easy to find and avoid depending on preference. I love that more and more authors are including content warnings in the book itself.
Regarding Strange Love, can someone tell me what the sex scenes are like? The book sounds fun but if the sex is too squicky I may have to pass.
@AnnieKate I bet the content warnings are due to a huge plagiarism scandal last year (Scarlett Pinkham I think?) Marriage of Convenience is one of my favorite romance tropes. If there are a masked ball and a house party…I’ll be in heaven 🙂
The Mia Vincy is brilliant. It has wit and intelligence and fun (the hero has secretaries for everything), but it also has poignance and characters who are complex and hide heartache under their banter. I loved it.
@Erika: the sex scenes were not highlights for me so I’m a bit fuzzy on the details. What I remember: since the females of the species have the penises, the hero has a pouch that the heroine fingers; she uses his chitin for friction. I wasn’t squicked, but it wasn’t a turn on either. For me, it was just another way the two fit surprisingly well together, each getting aroused by someone so foreign to them.
@Arijo: Ok thanks. Doesn’t sound like a deal breaker for me. Especially since the rest of the book sounds interesting.
@Annie Kate, I thought A Dangerous Kind of Lady was brilliant. In the audio, Kate Reading voices the tension and strain of the heroine perfectly. You can feel her efforts to hide her pain and fear. It’s not what I call angsty so much as incredibly emotional. It was a A+ read for me, and I don’t give those frequently. I was so happy to find Mia Vincy this year.
Hearts on Hold looks good. The manbun on the hero on the cover is not appealing though, at least to me! Eek.
I remember reading the review of Strange Love, but it wasn’t something I was in the right mood for at the time….seems like what I’d like right now! I went to buy it and looks like the second book in the series comes out in a month & is also on sale.
So the weird/funny thing? In the “products related to this item” there is a book called How to Build the Perfect Robot Lover with an unambiguous Arnold as the Terminator upon first arriving in 1984 illustrated on the cover. Cover Snark territory…? Also the author’s bio is a rant about how bad other authors are and how cool he is. Just, wow…
@Sydneysider: Hearts on Hold is a really good read. I also recommend her first book, The Write Escape. As for this cover, I like a good manbun, but this one ain’t it.
@Penny I found that Robot book the other day, and several writing friends said that bio is How Not To Make Friends. I can’t *imagine* putting down so many potential allies like that.
@Varian Ross seriously! So very bitter and angry…