2006 Reader Poll is now closed

Our tenth annual reader poll for the best and worst of the past year's crop of romances opened January 16th, 2006, and closes at midnight, February 19th. Our first set of interim results went online January 30th; daily interim results were posted between January 31st and February 5th, and the final look at interim results just went online today, February 6th.

We are polling for the best and worst in 2005 romance reading - books eligible must have a first US publication date (copyright date) of 2005. This is a lengthy ballot and you may find it helpful to save it to your hard drive or print it out in order to study it before filling it out online and submitting it. Except where noted otherwise - ie, Best Chick Lit/Women's Fiction - these categories are various romance categories (Favorite Funny Romance) and sub-genres (Alternate Reality Romance). But as we do not like to dictate to our readers and in past years non-genre romances have won or placed in categories. Your votes are up to you.

Here's a table of all 2005 published books granted DIK status at AAR. This table was created from the "All Desert Isle Keeper Reviews" option on our Power Search page...it's possible that additional 2005 releases may be added during this poll; I'll update the table as necessary.

The results of this poll become more and more important in the romance community every year - we've read about them at the backs of books by more than one best-selling author. We would like this year's poll to be the best ever, so make your voice heard and cast your vote today! Remember that we'll close the polls at midnight, February 19th.

We scrutinize each ballot to prevent ballot-box stuffing and ask that you please vote only once, and only for romances that have on their copyright page a first published date of 2005 or "first US publication date" of 2005. If we believe a ballot is bogus, doesn't provide a name and valid email address, or contains too many votes for books published prior to 2005, the ballot in its entirety will be discarded.

The results are only as valid as ballots sent in, which means your vote is critical. And, when we receive multiple ballots listing the names of a few lesser-known authors in multiple categories, it presents problems for those of us validating and counting the ballots. While we do not discourage anyone from voting, we'd like to believe that the votes we receive are from readers (and authors wearing their reader's hats) committed to the choices they've made. In order to verify votes, we do ask for your name and email address, but will never post either online. You must vote in at least six categories for your ballot to be accepted. Please take your time filling out the ballot - include all the information requested. When asked for a favorite/least title, author, or character, you must choose just one.

Once you submit your ballot, you will be automatically returned to our home page.

If for some reason you get an error message when trying to submit this ballot, you can email your choices - (subject line: 2005 Annual Reader Poll).

Please remember: do not "waste" a vote by submitting a title with a copyright for a year other than 2005 or by voting "wrong" in a category - links are provided to explain how to avoid pitfalls such as choosing "Balogh's Slightly series" in the Best Series category, which, btw, is for the best in series/category book rather than the best series of connected books.