As the year 2023 starts to come to a close as we reach the first week of December, it’s time to look back at all the amazing books that have been released over the past year. This is where we showcase all the best books that romance has to offer!
So the Romance Choice Awards is a feature I do every year. Over the past few years, I have been very disappointed in the Goodreads Choice Awards that they release, because I feel like they only feature a specific selection of romance, and ignore all the rest. (the romance genre alone is a billion-dollar industry, and it’s massive so it tends to be so neglectful of the genre as a whole and is criminal in my opinion) and the winner this year was women’s fiction not even a true romance with an author that demeans the genre constantly; so I do my own feature here, I share the year’s top picks of releases, organized by subgenre and then you can vote your own choices. These books are from December 2022 to November 2023. The rules are you can vote for as many as you would like or even enter your own choices within the form available at the bottom of the post. And then towards the end of the year, I will post the results and you can see if your favorites have won!
Contemporary Romance
Romantic Comedy
Historical Romance/Historical Fiction
Romantic Suspense/Thriller
Sci Fi-Fantasy Romance
Paranormal Romance
Dark Romance
Erotic Romance
New Adult
Dang it! You’ve given me so many more books to add to my TBR!!
I know what you mean re: Goodreads awards. I think it’s hilarious that all of the 5-star reads I read for the year, never made the list.
Thank you SO MUCH for doing this!! xo
Good! I feel like a proud mama to get your TBR massive haha Yeah I only had one five star reach the finals which was the Liz Tomforde, but yeah it would never win in comparison to the Emily Henry which gets 3x more ratings than any regular romance have any hope of receiving. Hope you had fun voting and saw some of your favorites, if not, put it in the form and it will be counted. I am sure I missed some haha
Some really good books on your list. I never vote on Goodreads.
Yeah there are so many goodies for sure right? I miss what it used to be. I voted because it had one of my favorite books ironically. But of course didn’t win. I mean how can any regular romance book compete with a Emily Henry that reaches an audience to over 150K in ratings?
I love how comprehensive your list is! I wish I would’ve read Bad Luck Vampire to see if I loved it more than the others on the list. Sands writes the most fun Paranormal Romances. I’m off to vote. 🙂
haha yeah its pretty comprehensive! It takes a while to put together but so fun because I get to see how many books I need to read for the next year! I loved Bad Luck Vampire, it was so entertaining. So you definitely should pick that one up.
Fun to participate in the vote. So many great books this year.