My AAR ballot

[jmc_bks]

After much frustration, here's my ballot.

	Title	Author
1.	Persuasion	Austen, Jane
2.	Shards of Honor/Cordelia's Honor	Bujold, Lois McMaster
3.	The Blue Castle	Montgomery, L.M.
4.	Naked in Death	Robb, JD
5.	Welcome to Temptation	Crusie, Jennifer
6.	Over the Edge	Brockmann, Suzanne
7.	Bad for Each Other	Hathaway, Kate
8.	One Good Turn	Kelly, Carla
9.	Bitten	Armstrong, Kelley
10.	Montana Sky	Roberts, Nora
11.	With This Ring	Kelly, Carla
12.	Innocent in Death	Robb, JD
13.	My Lady Notorious	Beverley, Jo
14.	A Civil Campaign	Bujold, Lois McMaster
15.	Remembering Blue	Fowler, Connie May
16.	Born in Fire	Roberts, Nora
17.	Wolf in Waiting	Flanders, Rebecca
18.	The Truth About Forever	Dessen, Sarah
19.	Beguilement	Bujold, Lois McMaster
20.	Bet Me	Crusie, Jennifer
21.	Harvard's Education	Brockmann, Suzanne
22.	Demon Moon	Brook, Meljean
23.	Reforming Lord Ragsdale	Kelly, Carla
24.	My Best Friend's Girl	Koomson, Dorothy
25.	The Far Pavilions	Kaye, M.M.
26.	Truly Madly Yours	Gibson, Rachel
27.	Off the Record	Haldemann-Time, Matthew
28.	Marian's Christmas Wish	Kelly, Carla
29.	Born Confused	Hidier, Tanuja Desai
30.	Finding Laura	Hooper, Kay
31.	Son of the Morning	Howard, Linda
32.	Imaginary Men	Banerjee, Anjali
33.	The Accidental Duchess	Benson, Jessica
34.	Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married	Keyes, Marian
35.	Hazard	Beverley, Jo
36.	A Summer to Remember	Balogh, Mary
37.	Anyone But You	Crusie, Jennifer
38.	The Cubicle Next Door	Mitchell, Siri L.
39.	To Love and to Cherish	Gaffney, Patricia
40.	The Lady's Companion	Kelly, Carla
41.	When Venus Fell	Smith, Deborah
42.	Here's to the Ladies	Kelly, Carla
43.	Sushi for Beginners	Keyes, Marian
44.	Anne of the Island	Montgomery, L.M.
45.	Shattered Rainbows	Putney, Mary Jo
46.	Courting Miss Hattie	Morsi, Pamela
47.	Sloppy Firsts & Second Helpings	McCafferty, Megan
48.	If Andy Warhol Had A Girlfriend	Pace, Allison
49.	It Had to Be You	Phillips, Susan Elizabeth
50.	Thunder & Roses	Putney, Mary Jo
51.	Rising Tides	Roberts, Nora
52.	Midnight Bayou	Roberts, Nora
53.	Angel Rogue	Putney, Mary Jo
54.	The Viscount Who Loved Me	Quinn, Julia
55.	Northern Lights	Roberts, Nora
56.	A Place to Call Home	Smith, Deborah
57.	Vows	Spencer, Lavyrle
58.	A Promising Man	Young, Elizabeth
59.	Blood & Chocolate	Krause, Annette Curtis
60.	A Knight in Shining Armor	Deveraux, Jude
61.	The Gamble	Spencer, Lavyrle
62.	Garters	Morsi, Pamela
63.	Devil's Bride	Laurens, Stephanie

I started out with ~70 books, then the list grew to about 90.  I ended up trimming a lot of books off because, although I love them, I love pieces of them, rather than the whole.  For example, Brockmann's Force of Nature and Hot Target were on my original list...because of Jules & Robin; the whole books were good but not DIK's otherwise (for me).  Same with several Nora Roberts books -- I love Cam in Chesapeake Blue, but thought that was the weakest book of the series otherwise, and I didn't really *love* Sea Swept the way I loved Rising Tides...so it came off, too.  I treated Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings as a single entry because I can't separate the two.

I wonder, too, if proximity didn't make a difference.  I was wowwed by Mitchell's The Cubicle Next Door relatively recently and it is fresh in my memory, so it made the list.  I'm not sure if it would if the poll occurred later.

Let's see, what trends do I see?  Clearly I'm a fan of Nora Roberts/JD Robb (7) and Carla Kelly (6).  Bujold, Crusie and Putney ring in with 3 books each; the Bujold and Crusie weren't a surprise to me, but the Putney was, because I haven't read any of her recent stuff or been tempted to try it.  Jo Beverley, Suzanne Brockmann, Marian Keyes, and L.M. Montgomery each only have two books on my list, which is surprising given how much shelf space they take up.  Morsi's Americana books were autobuys for me (hence two votes) but I haven't read her contemporaries; same with Deborah Smith's southern set books -- the last few have been ~meh~ for me.  The Spencer books I like are not the ones that most readers adore -- frankly, Morning Glory is my least favorite book by her, but everyone raves about it.   Only one Linda Howard on there, one Rachel Gibson, one Julia Quinn, one Stephanie Laurens.  No Julie Garwood, no Diana Gabaldon, no Loretta Chase.  A couple of werewolf books, but not a single vampire on the list.  ETA:  I take that back!  Colin in Demon Moon is a vampire, so there is one on my list.  More historicals than I anticipated, some YA and chicklit.