Many of you are also admitting, like me, that you love to work with romance readers but don’t read a lot of romance yourself, yet my post inspired you to try something new. This has led many of you to ask me what you should read. As I was prepping a different post for today, and answering your questions via email and Twitter in between editing, I realized I should probably post a few lists and suggestions here.
First, some of you don’t want lists or websites to find your own, you just want me to give you a title or two. Ok, so here are two I would highly suggest for any reader to try with a link to the Goodreads record: An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole or A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev. Both have enough frame that is not romance specific to draw in non-romance readers. But that being said, all romance novels are frame heavy, so if you have a frame or setting you really enjoy, you can probably find a romance set within it.
One of the biggest growth areas in romance is Male-Male Romance, and they're being enjoyed by all kinds of readers- men and women, gay and straight. Try Hot Head by Damon Suede [a favorite of my friend and romance expert Robin Bradford] or this crowd sourced list from fans on Goodreads.
Now for those of you who want longer lists and resources try:
- Smart Bitches, Trashy Books: The best overall site for all things romance and it is useful for the Romance expert all the way down to the newbie.
- Booklist’s 101 Best Romance Novels of the last 10 years
- Women of Color in Romance: this site has hundreds of book suggestions in every subgenre
- Romantic Times: Reviews, resources, article, awards lists, etc...
- Romance Writers of America: especially the awards archive
I am so glad my post got all of us in libraryland talking about Romance and how to serve our readers better. Now let's get the rest of the book world to do better too.
Tomorrow I will have that other post I was working on-- three of my reviews from the most recent issue of Booklist- oh and I have Jury Duty all day. That is bound to create some original blog material-- well, at least for the horror blog.
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