Happy New Year!
Where did that year go????
As always, enjoyed chatting and discovering books with you all, hoping to continue doing so with old friends and welcome in a few new ones.
It always takes me until February to really get going and settled in, because every year I can't help but commit and join in with reading challenges and buddy reads that I know are coming up a month in advance but do nothing to prepare for. I also do nothing to prepare for my end of the year awards and question if I even want to do them, but I'm trudging on as at least I enjoy looking back on and thinking again about what I consumed.
I read 100 books this year (GoodReads Year in Review) which is a little low for me but after that year and how busy I was, we are counting it as a win. It was a very average reading year as my average rating was 3 stars (that means I Liked It) and I had three books I gave 5 stars (none of them were romance and I hate that). I still show up and leave the dance with romance but I'll do some waltzing with other genres.
My Halloween Bingo play was pathetic this year but considering it was a Presidential election year and one I cared a whole lot about and ran myself ragged outreaching, maybe it's amazing I even covered as many squares as I did. I forgot that I didn't even do a closing post :(
Wendy's TBRChallenge I only missed three (?) months on, which I think is the best I've ever done. Seriously, this is one of my favorite I do, the gems I've found for this Challenge!
I did Twimom227's Romance Reading Challenge for the first time last year and enjoyed it so much, I'm doing it again (you know me and Bingo games). I almost managed a blackout, all but two squares, Bingo Card
My goal was for a Buddy Read a month, but I think I missed two or three months as things got busy, my goal again! I'm getting a good start on this goal, as Laurie Bark at the Ghouls was kind and awesome enough to invite me to a Horror Discord and their January Buddy Read of This Cursed House by Del Sandeen.
We're not going to talk about my goal of accepting less ARCs. But I've got a 0 showing for how many Accidents ARCs have you accepted this year.
I hope nothing but the best for everyone this coming year and I will be out there trying to make it happen, please join in, in anyway you can. Love & Solidarity to you all
Onto the awards,
The books eligible for my Roms, can be published in any year, they simply had to be read by me in 2024. There will be the usual 9 categories, Favorite Cover; Favorite Secondary Character; Favorite Scene; Favorite Quote; Favorite Leads; Favorite Couple; Favorite Contemporary and Historical, and Favorite of 2024. Again, hopefully reflected in the new awards name, as I participate in Halloween Bingo, some horror books could sneak in there, along with other genres I read; basically any book I rate or discuss on GoodReads is fair game.
Without further ado, let me kick off the award show today with Favorite Cover, I try very hard to not let how much I liked or disliked the actual story affect this one, all visual judging a book by it's cover here :)
*Click on the cover for my review if I wrote one and if I didn't, you'll be directed to it's GoodReads page
The Roms
Favorite Cover
Nominees:
1. You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian
This cover is sporty, Baseball Man!, flirty combative, Baseball Man is talking with a reporter!, and places you in the NY setting, Statue of Liberty sketch!. I'm sure Derek Guy could tell you all the reasons I can tell it's historical by their attire but I'll just say, I feel it. This cover is fun and it's immediately telling me this is a Queer Sports Historical Romance. Wild concept, a book cover that's working to accurately inform the reader about what's happening in it's pages.
2. Blood & Mascara by Colin Krainin
I don't read a lot of noirs but I fairly swooned at how much this screamed one. The dark silhouette of the detective, the dame (there's always a dame!) crying, and with the pop of red because there's a murder (there's always a murder!). Let me just rub this smoke and scotch out of my eyes. This cover makes me hear some form of deep, dark jazz music. I barely read the synopsis before I was one-clicking this one.
3. Meet Me in Tahiti by Georgia Toffolo
Whoever decided on this sunset, tropical-ish color scheme, I hope you got a bonus. The colors have me feeling some island heat and breeze placing me in the setting. The way the two characters are distance but facing each other tells me they're starting off apart but they don't want to stay that way. Also, you can never beat representation.
4. Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie by Jackie Lau
It's just so cute! If rom-com had a representative, I'd want it to be this cover. From the title to the two characters sitting on a piece of cherry pie and a cherry, this cover is telling me that there will be fun, flirty antics to be had in it's pages. And food!
5. Jewel Me Twice by Charish Reid
I don't even know where to start to say how much this cover is For Me. Action romances are MY JAM. So to have Jewel and Thief right there spelled out on the cover, two dressed up combatives, who I know are going to be eventual lovers, well, WANT. Also, this may be one of the "Intense Dork" moments of mine, but the fact that his sock is red, gah! It screams Wild Card to me and then see it opposite how far her dress slit is but still showing off that leg, Y'ALL. This cover is screaming action, sexy, come at me I'll meet you, tension.
6. Phantasma by Kaylie Smith
If you're new here, I love Romance AND Horror. So, this cover, YES. Roses and a skull? I'm a simple creature.
7. Deja Brew by Celestine Martin
Ok, so this is cartoon, not immediately my favorite and it's done in, what looks like to me, very simple outlined drawing. But you know I like seasonal vibes, so the pumpkins and coloring are nudging me. What grabbed me though and The Reason it made my nominees list, That Look between the two characters. Honestly, more emotion there than some books tried to create for me in 300 pages this year. Drawing stick people is a challenge for me, so when I ask HOW do they accomplish that emotion in a seemingly simple drawing, I mean HOW???
8. The Legend of Meneka by Kritika H. Rao
I'm finding I like a sense of movement on my covers and I feel swirled up in this one. I've seen another look for a cover for this book and it erases the powerhouse Meneka from bold, center stage and I Do. Not. Like. Look at this goddess! I believe she can seduce and bend anyone to her will with this cover.
9. Wild Bells to the Wild Sky by Laurie McBain
A paradise island, a parrot, a jaguar, a thumb making it's way up a titty, WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT??? I may hate what's inside Bodice Rippers at times but my god do I LOVE their covers.
10. Oceansong by C.W. Rose
My little yearning heart is a mess for the way their arms, hands are reaching out for each other. They way they're in different worlds, Landwalker and Merman, and he seems to be floating away from her against his will, YEARN.
11. The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton
If you guessed this was a space romance, well, you're with me in how much I like that this cover immediately portrays that. Sidenote: I feel like space romance/opera is a subgenre I like a lot but somehow never seem to get to a lot of, I need to work to change that. The floating in air, darker around them with a brighter lighted focus on them, gives the feeling of vast space but two people coming together in it. Talking about them back-to-back, it feels like a version of Oceansong to me now. Colliding and reaching for.
Winner:
Jewel Me Twice by Charish Reid
Oh my god, is this because of that sock?!? Look, I don't know what to say but I feel like it could be the clencher. I'll say it again for new people here, this could all be called the "Intense Dork" awards.
Sexy, wild card, combative, I can more than meet you, vibes has this my favorite book cover of the year.
What was your favorite cover of 2024?
Stay tuned for Favorite Secondary Character...
Oh man, you're so good at this! I want to try now, but I'm afraid I'll just be all, "duh... pretty color is pretty."
ReplyDeleteThank you, it's some nature with that Intense Dork gene I mentioned and some nurture with years of schooling training me to observe and breakdown with hopes of understanding, with maybe a touch of fluff up this word count/number of pages with some word salad muscle memory.
Delete"That's pretty" is a universal understand and definitely valid! Would enjoy seeing what covers you found pretty this year 😊
How fun! I do like the cover of The Stars Too Fondly a lot - it's fun. I don't really pay attention to covers since most of my reading is electronic or audiobook. That's too bad, I know. I only read one physical book - The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year. The cover was cute.
ReplyDeleteYea for Bingo - hopefully you will get them all this year.
I saw the cover of that and put it on my tbr immediately, lol.
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