Happy Hanukkah, everyone!
It’s the second night of Hanukkah tonight!
My second night wishes for you: I hope your candles are beautiful, the latkes are crisp, and the sufganiyot don’t get powdered sugar all over your shirt.
It’s time for our second night giveaway!
For the second night of Hanukkah, we have a giant grab bag of books, and a $25 gift card to the bookstore of your choice!
That’s right, A Box of Books and Book Buying Money to go with it! We want to help you make your home library look like this:
I’ll be packing a large Priority Mail box with as many books as I can fit (and I am very, very good at Book Tetris) across romance sub-genres! There will be a little of everything: paranormal, historical, contemporary, fantasy – all the good things!
And you’ll also receive a $25 gift card to whatever bookstore you like most, so you can add to your mountainous TBR with glee and abandon!
To enter, please comment and tell us what author or creator you discovered this year that made your year better?
Standard disclaimers apply: We are not being compensated for this giveaway. Void where prohibited. Open to international residents where permitted by applicable law. Must be over 18 and prepared to dive into reading like it’s a ball pit made of books and you’ve got unlimited time and an immunity to paper cuts. May cause relaxation and bliss and discovery of new reading catnip.
Comments will close 20 December 2022 at or near 11:59pm ET, and winner will be announced shortly afterward.
Good luck, Happy Hanukkah, and thank you for being part of Smart Bitches!
Winner update: Congratulations to KatieD!
I am really glad to have found Abbi Waxman this year. Like a gentle breeze.
Victoria Goddard and got to meet her in person to get her newest book.
I discovered Mur Lafferty this year. I reread a lot of familiar cozy books this year as I finished my masters in speech-language pathology so I looked for known comfort.
Cat Sebastian and the Page & Sommers books
I am so glad to have discovered Jasmine Guillory – love her work!
Jeannie Chin’s Chinese American representation makes my reader heart so happy! Thrilled to have been introduced to her writing this year!
Lucy Score is an author I found this year. I really enjoy her books, her humor strikes a chord with me. She also writes an excellent newsletter.
A book I read this year that had me up all night laughing is TJ Klune’s The Lightning-Struck Heart. Not a new to me author, but I hadn’t read The Tales from Verania. So good!
Audrey Faye’s Ghost Mountain series, which really helped me through this year.
Aiden Thomas. I enjoyed Cemetery Boys, and look forward to reading more of their work.
New to me: Truth and Measure by Roslyn Sinclair — I didn’t know it was already famous in online form, but it definitely made my week last June!
I don’t want the prize (seriously if you pick my name, re-draw), but my author of the year was Claudia Gray! The Murder of Mr. Wickham was absolutely delightful.
Martha Wells. Okay, I live under a rock. But this is the year I read the Murderbot Diaries and — besides being really fun reads that everyone should try — they provided me with a mirror to understand so many things about myself that used to make me feel isolated or different. Thank you, Ms. Wells.
Please note that I received a book-buying gift card from SBTB earlier this year. I had to comment on this post to share my Murderbot love, but I am asking to be excluded from the drawing. Maybe you can pay for a chandelier in my library next year?
After seeing all the rave reviews I finally picked up Simone St. James’ The Sun Down Motel.
Celia Lake made my year that much better. I returned to her books again and again, appreciating them more with each reread.
Cate C. Wells’s books are basically crack for me. Normally I wouldn’t read shifters, or MC, or about people with truck nuts, but somehow she makes it work.
Not romance, but Natasha Farrant’s books brought me joy this year!
Hope I win so I can send this to a fellow booklover 🙂
I discovered the Hidden Legacy series by Ilona Andrews and it was a very enjoyable couple of weeks ! I’m saving the three next ones for next year
My discovery was Honey Phillips. I have been on a scifi romance kick and she has hit the spot.
Please don’t enter me in the draw. I am an e only reader and hope someone else will enjoy the box of books. Good luck all.
Very happy that I found Julie Murphy.
I finally read my first Diana Biller book. Why did I wait?!?
Gosh, this wasn’t a bad reading year overall, but it was not a good year for keeping track and it was not a great year for reading discoveries for me (unlike the Tessa Dare year, the T. Kingfisher year, etc). I’m going to say Charles Todd and the Ian Rutledge series was my favorite discovery of the year b/c I read them steadily through the summer and found them just the right mix of comfort and challenge. Reading them back to back with the very silly parody Blotto and Twinks books by Simon Brett was also interesting.
I will say, I can’t bring myself to like Todd’s Bess Crawford series. Both my parents are retired nurses and I’m very, very picky about how nurses are portrayed in fiction and Bess just doesn’t cut it for me. A little too much nobly wiping at sick men’s foreheads not enough dealing with bedpans and weird dark humor as a coping mechanism (but maybe that’s just me!)
Cate C. Wells: regardless of what romance sub-genre she’s writing (shifter, motorcycle club, mafia, contemporary), she excels at strong, self-aware heroines alongside heroes who want to do better but often lack the emotional bandwidth to do so without blunders. I’m looking forward to December 26 when her next shifter romance—THE LONE WOLF’S REJECTED MATE—arrives.
T Kingfisher for me. I’ve recommended “The Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking” to so many people. Also, TJ Klune.
I discovered Signe Pike’s novels about Languoreth, The Lost Queen and The Forgotten Kingdom. I am over the moon that the third novel in the trilogy is expected in the fall. Amazing storytelling!
Finally read The Last Hour of Gann by L. Lee Smith. It’s a marathon read but worth it.
Olivia Dade! Her Spoiler Alert series was like catnip yo me this year. It was just so lovely!
So so many new authors for this year, but T Kingfisher might be at the top of list! I read almost everything in her back catalog this year
I recently discovered the delightful Robyn Peterman’s books, and I snort while listening at work! I also repurposed one of my bedrooms to a library this past Summer, and more books are always a great thing!
This was not a great reading year for me, but one author who was able to grab my attention (and I know that I’m late to the party) was Roni Loren
Olivia Dade! Loving her backlist and new stuff.
AJ Lancaster absolutely delighted me with the Stariel series this year!
This year, I binge read all of Suleikha Snyder’s books. Big Bad Wolf set it off, but Tikka Chance on Me was my favorite.
I’ve always enjoyed Kelley Armstrong, and this year I discovered she has two more new-to-me series! That was a great discovery!
I’ve really enjoyed discovering Amanda Bouchet this year, based on a rec from this site!
Alice Oseman. I actually still haven’t watched the Heartstopper television series, but because it was so popular, I picked up the books from the library and I lost myself (and found myself) in that world for a few days. It was a really good reading experience. (And I’ll get to the show, too, eventually! That’s part of my plans for winter.)
Happy Hanukkah, Smart Bitches!
Another vote for AJ Lancaster’s Stariel series! I also enjoyed revisiting Theresa Romain and Rose Lerner—I’d read some of their books a number of years ago and was happy to re-visit these authors.
I found some great authors but I would pick T Kingfisher
I am a fan of romantic suspense and I discovered Toni Anderson. I don’t know how I never read her before, but once I did, I was hooked!
Rosemary Simpson’s historical mysteries were my discovery this year. I’m putting off reading the latest one because then I’ll be all caught up!
Laura Anne Gilman and her The Devil’s West series! Not romance but completely sucked me in.