Welcome to the first of our yearly wrap-ups.

For the category of ‘Romance, Romantic Suspense and Erotica’ in 2016, a total of 247 reviews were submitted. These were of 154 books from 108 individual authors. The books were mainly written for an adult audience (148), with six labelled as ‘young adult’ (YA). You can see the complete list of romance books reviewed for the 2016 challenge on our Book Review page here.

Tied for the most popularly reviewed book, with seven reviews each, were Rachael John’s The Art of Keeping Secrets, Natasha Lester’s A Kiss From Mr Fitzgerald, Bronwyn Parry’s Sunset Shadows and Georgina Penney’s Summer Harvest.

art of keeping secrets johnsA Kiss from Mr Fitzgeraldsunset-parrysummer harvest penney

Next came C S Pacat’s novel, Kings Rising, with six reviews. Meredith Appleyard’s The Doctor Calling attracted five reviews.

pacat-risingappleyard-doctor

Five novels attracted four reviews each, including Lizzy Chandler’s By Her Side (thanks, reviewers!), Anthea Hodgson’s The Drifter, Victoria Purman’s Hold On To Me, Alison Stuart’s Lord Somerton’s Heir and Tessa Wood’s Love At First Flight.

Chandler By Her Sidehodgson drifterHold Onto Me Purmanlord-somertons-heir-stuartloveatfirstflight-woods

A number of authors had multiple books reviewed, including two of my personal favourites, Anna Campbell with six books, and Anne Gracie with five.

Among the YA books, the most popularly reviewed was Summer Skin by Kirsty Eagar (three reviews).

eagar-summer

The most popularly reviewed author for the 2016 AWW challenge was, by far, Rachael Johns. Eight of her books were reviewed, attracting a total of 19 reviews: The Art of Keeping Secrets (7 reviews), Outback Sisters (5), Outback Dreams (2), Outback Blaze (1), It’s Not You It’s Her (1), The Patterson Girls (1), Jilted (1) and Man Drought (1). Congratulations, Rachael!

Our most prolific reviewer – by a huge margin – was Brenda from Goodreads who reviewed a staggering 62 romances. Second was our very own romance round-up editor, Sam from Sam Still Reading (17), followed closely by Carol from Reading Writing and Riesling (16), and Jess from Neverending Bookshelf (15). Next came Eleni Konstantine from Eleni’s Library (11), Monique from Write Note Reviews (9), Veronica Joy (9), Lauren @ The Australian Bookshelf (8), Michelle from Beauty and Lace (7), Elizabeth Fitzpatrick (7), Bree Testa (7) and Coffee2Words and Debbish (both with 6).

I’d like to thank everyone who reviewed in this category this year. As you know, it’s the one most overlooked by mainstream media critics. Even a few reviews can make a huge difference for an author – especially if you put your reviews up on Goodreads and/or online bookshops in addition to your blog. They say even simple one-line reviews can be enough to elevate an author in the rankings.

So, again, on behalf of all the authors represented here, a very big thank you!

~

Also a huge thank you to Sam from Sam Still Reading for writing the romance roundups throughout the year. Next month, we have a new recruit taking over, Elizabeth Fitzgerald from Earl Grey Editing. Thank you, Elizabeth! Without volunteers like you and Sam, this challenge wouldn’t be able to keep going.

~

Snowy River Man ChandlerAbout me: Writing as Lizzy Chandler, I have two novels published as with Harlequin Escape, Snowy River Man and By Her Side. Snowy River Man came out in print in 2016 as part of the Country Secrets anthology with MIRA. You can find out more from my author website.