Prompt for this one is love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion and procreation.
Found this prompt harder than I anticipated given that romance is one of my all time favourite genres. How to narrow things down? Where to even begin?
So instead of picking books I’m going to highlight five auto-buy romance authors. I could easily do a top ten but it would be a very long post so maybe I’ll do another post in the future.
1.
When I began reading romance again I started with The Guild Hunter series because it had vampires and nooky. Fast forward ten plus years and I reread The Guild Hunter and Psy/Changeling books almost every year. Usually around the time a new book in each series is being dropped. Psy/Changeling is pretty much my all time favourite series. I’m still working on a mega post for the entire series. I may need another reread in order to complete it! It’s 20 books, going on 21, and there is always a point in the series where I race ahead and don’t take the time to work on the images I need for that post. Maybe this will be the year!
It’s safe to say that Nalini is one of my all time favourite authors, the minute she announces a book it gets pre-ordered. Shockingly though I’ve not read all her books yet. I own all the Rock Kiss and Hard Play books but haven’t read any of them. The main reason for that is, whenever I think Nalini I go to one of my beloved series. I also love having books of hers that I’ve not read. You will see that I’m a fan of hoarding books by authors I love.
2.
My go to romance author when things are just not going well and I’m overwhelmed.
KA has gotten me through some tough times and hopefully she’ll always do so.
The OG Kristen Ashley series is the Rock Chick Series. These are perfect books for escapism. Silly, fun and over the top they were the first contemporary romance I picked up after my long romance hiatus. They were a wonderful intro to the new contemporary journey I wanted to take. She has too many series and books to name them all, she currently has 75 books over 19 series and some standalones, novellas and a cookbook. The only series I’m not really interested in is the Honey Series and the only books of hers I have yet to read are The Three Series and Midnight Soul and Gossamer in the Darkness in the Fantasyland Series. My Goodreads shelf tells me I’ve read 80 Kristen Ashley books but I think I’m actually missing some.
3.
My Talia Hibbert journey began with A Girl Like Her (Ravenswood #1) and I was hooked. She then released Get a Life, Chloe Brown and became a new auto-buy author for me. The Roommate Risk is the only book of hers I’ve not read and as is my way, I’ll hold onto that until she releases a new book and then I’ll read that and leave the new one in reserve. I’m a mood reader but I’m also an anxiety reader so I need books I know will help me through a bad day at the ready.
I like Talia Hibbert for a verity of reasons, her style of writing suits me. I love that they are British romances, so not home but close to it, and I get to enjoy all her references (seriously in need of some non-US settings in my books to be honest) and I love that she has such positive representation of marginalised groups in her books. Chloe’s book in particular spoke to me and it was so surprising to see that I actually cried just for having it. Talia Hibbert is also the QUEEN of consent and I really, really hope it’s a sign of things to come in romance.
4.
I haven’t read all of her books but I loved ACOTAR so much (and the books I’ve read so far in the Throne of Glass series) that she has become an auto-buy author for me.
Fun fact, I started reading her on Nalini Singh’s recommendation. I also attended a Nalini online event during the pandemic that was for a Psy/Changeling Trinity book and was moderated by Sarah and it was epic. There have been a few things in Sarah’s books that gave me Nalini vibes and turns out they are little homages to Nalini who is one of Sarah’s favourite authors. To say she was excited to be talking to her was an understatement. I totally understood the excitement. I’d likely burst into tears if I talked to Nalini Singh!
A thing I really hate and I see it A LOT is that it seems to be common place for people to not like Maas. It doesn’t even feel like it’s her books that aren’t liked but the fact that she is popular. I hate seeing this happen as it is almost ALWAYS women hating on women and it’s hard enough as it is! Fair enough if you don’t like the books but I’d love if people weren’t so ugly about it. Seeing a woman who essentially writes romance becoming so well known and read is really cool and I can’t wait to see more of it.
5.
I had Kennedy Ryan on my TBR for a while before I picked up All the King’s Men Series in 2020. I shied away from her because I knew through lots of mutuals that she was ever so good at angst and the series I really wanted to read (Grip Series) was a doozy. I do love my angst but I need to be in the correct frame of mind for it. So I started with The Kingmaker (All the King’s Men #1) and Kennedy Ryan became a new auto-buy. That series also set me off down a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women rabbit hole. Read Highway of Tears: A True Story of Racism, Indifference and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls by Jessica McDiarmid if you have interest in this very real and horrific epidemic that few people acknowledge or talk about.
There are people out there who like to disparage romance and talk about it in terms of ‘mommy porn’. These people really have no idea what they are talking about but it makes them feel good to look down on what other people are reading. Romance is so multifaceted that it’s impossible to categories it but learning about social injustices among women is something that comes up a lot in romance and this is not the first time a plot from a romance book has led me to educate myself on a topic I didn’t know a lot about.
It’s only ‘mommy porn’ though right?
Anyways, I’ve a few Kennedy Ryan’s left for ‘rainy days’ and I feel the Hoops Series will be read soon. I’m saving Reel for winter. I can’t even begin to tell you why but that’s what my brain has decided! 😀
Oh and also, Kennedy Ryan is an epilogue queen (along with KA, which I forgot to mention) and she often releases separate epilogues after the book. Epilogues are one of the best things in romance in my opinion so I can’t tell you how much I love that she does it. They are always EPIC. Or EPIC-logue as I like to say! 😀
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