Like last year, I’m going to share some notes on my reading before popping the full list of all the books I read this year in here.

I read 106 books this year, including 4 picture books/easy readers. As with last year, I overwhelmingly read romance. This is about twice as much as I normally read, which can be attributed to two things: how propulsive so many romance books are, and the fact that I was freelancing and only doing that minimally from January through July. This left a LOT of time for reading. I read two or three books a week in that period. I’ve slowed down to my usual one a week since beginning my part-time school librarian job in August.

I did deep dives into the backlist of Kresley Cole and Sarah MacLean, thanks to the podcast Fated Mates. This podcast has been the greatest influence on my choice of what to read this year. I read a lot of old X-Men comics reading along with the book The Best There Is at What He Does: Examining Chris Claremont’s X-Men. I’m still in the middle of that project, which I started after watching X-Men ‘97. I think I’m going to pick it back up soon.

In just the past couple of months, I have really found my way into fantasy romance. My favorite and the series that really got me here is Milla Vane’s barbarian fantasy romance series, A Gathering of Dragons. It answers the question, “What if grimdark, but romance?” which is not something I thought I would want when I first started this tear of romance reading but actually is exactly the thing I want right now.

Here are all the books I read this year:

Trial of the Sun Queen A Fate Inked in Blood Bull Moon Rising Swordcrossed A Heart of Blood and Ashes The Beast of Blackmoor Killer Underwear Invasion! Nobody's Baby But Mine A Caribbean Heiress in Paris Some Writer! Heaven, Texas Lord of Scoundrels Captives of the Night The Truth About Him Everything I Left Unsaid You Had Me at Happy Hour The Pairing The Villa The Lion's Daughter If I Stopped Haunting You Operation: Cover-Up Hungry Bones Knockout Heartbreaker Bombshell Love, Come to Me When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary When Grumpy Met Sunshine This Will Be Fun Indigo Hers for the Weekend Gentle Rogue The Knowledge Gap Tender Rebel Love Only Once Daring and the Duke Brazen and the Beast Wicked and the Wallflower The Day of the Duchess A Scot in the Dark The Rogue Not Taken The Price of Pleasure The Captain of All Pleasures If You Desire If You Deceive If You Dare The Devil of Downtown Here We Go Again The Prince of Broadway The essential X-Men The Rogue of Fifth Avenue The Essential X-Men Volume 2 Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover Essential X-Men - Volume 1 No Good Duke Goes Unpunished One Good Earl Deserves a Lover A Rogue by Any Other Name Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke's Heart Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing a Lord Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake The Familiar The (Fake) Dating Game You Should Be So Lucky The Witch Queen of Halloween The Player The Master The Professional Munro Wicked Abyss Shadow's Seduction Shadow's Claim Sweet Ruin Dark Skye Suddenly You The Kiss Quotient Matilda MacRieve Lothaire Preferential Treatment Dreams of a Dark Warrior Demon From the Dark Pleasure of a Dark Prince Deep Kiss of Winter You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop Kiss of a Demon King Dark Desires After Dusk Dark Needs at Night's Edge Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night No Rest For The Wicked A Hunger Like No other The Truth About Dragons Two New Years Nacho y Lolita/Nacho and Lolita Fox Has a Problem Dreaming of You Then Came You The Charm Offensive New Adult A Dish Best Served Hot A Proposal They Can't Refuse In the Case of Heartbreak Love Requires Chocolate The Frame-Up Never Been Kissed Get a Life, Chloe Brown A Touch of Stone and Snow