Eagerly Awaiting? Not So Much.

Each month Rachel sends all AAR staff a list of upcoming books (wonderfully prepared by Bessie), and asks us to select our “eagerly awaiting” books. Our choices then appear here about a week later. For me, eagerly awaiting means I’m either going to head to the bookstore the day the book comes out, pre-order it at Amazon for delivery to my Kindle the morning it’s released, or be first in line with a hold on the book at the library.

I always look forward to getting the list, as it gives me a heads-up about books by many of my favorite authors that I didn’t know were soon to be released. Many months, I actually struggle to limit myself to three or so books, as there may be five or more romances I’m eagerly awaiting.

This time, a strange thing happened. Last week, Rachel sent the list for April 2009 releases. I went through it almost immediately, but didn’t see a single romance I was eagerly awaiting. I figured I must have missed something, so went back through it again. The second time, I did find one romance that I am eagerly awaiting, Karen Kendall’s Take Me Two Times. I enjoyed her Take Me If You Can last year, and this is the second entry in the same series. But that’s it, no other romances.

The only other books on the list that I’m genuinely eagerly awaiting are mysteries by Diane Mott Davidson and Susan Wittig Albert. Now these two authors’ mystery series each have had a nice romantic thread developing over time, but they are definitely not romances. There are some other romances on the list for April releases that sound interesting and that I may eventually read, but I can’t say I’m eagerly awaiting them.

I was curious to see what my fellow AAR staff members picked for their eagerly awaited April releases. Maybe I was missing something. Sure enough, a few staff members listed several books they were eagerly awaiting fairly quickly. I’ll have to admit I had either not heard of the authors they listed, or if I had, noted that they were historical romances. Since I only very rarely read historical romances, I usually don’t even bother to look in that section.

A number of other AAR staff members simply sent back emails indicating that there were no books that they were “eagerly awaiting” on the list. While this made me feel a bit better – I clearly wasn’t missing out on some big romance – it also got me to thinking. Is there something different about April?  

I did a couple quick power searches at AAR for books published in April in both 2008 and 2007, and discovered there weren’t any books in those lists that I would rate as an A. I then looked back through my reading records for the past few years, and couldn’t find any A’s among the books I read the last three Aprils. In contrast, January and February usually seem to be good months for me.

Are there some months that you traditionally look forward to for romance releases, or does it vary from year to year? More importantly, are there some “must read” romances on this list – other than historicals – that I’m missing out on?

-LinnieGayl

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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