Janga's Top Ten Romance Novels of 2014

Those of you who know me personally or through my now-defunct blog Just Janga know that I am almost as addicted to list-making as I am to romance fiction. It thrilled my list-making heart when PJ asked if I’d do a top ten of 2014 list. I’ve read less this year than I usually do, but I still read well over three hundred books—about 80 percent of them romances. Since I generally don’t finish books I don’t like, most of what I’ve read I consider good reads, books that left me feeling that my time and my money (sometimes) were well invested. But even among good books, there are those that stand out, that earn not just a spot on my keeper shelves and highly-recommended raves but, if you will pardon me for waxing sentimental, a multi-starred place in my memory and in my heart.

One final explanatory note: Since it would probably take me until this time next year to complete this post if I ranked these books 1-10, I present them in their order of publication, indicating only my #1 book of the year.

1.      Sweet Disorder by Rose Lerner (March 18)

This novel, with its cross-class romance, party politics plot, and not one but two bad mothers who seem disturbingly real, is a treasure.  Phoebe Sparks, widow of a newspaper editor and printer, and Nick Dymond, a war veteran and the middle son of an earl, are likeable and flawed, their meeting is credible, and their relationship is based on more than libidinal urges. Set in the town of Lively St. Lemeston, the story offers a portrait of ordinary life in the second decade of the nineteenth century and shows the extraordinary relationship between two complicated people who earn their HEA. And I love that the title is taken from a Robert Herrick poem which Nick quotes at a meaningful moment.

2.  Three Weeks with Lady X by Eloisa James (March 25)

In 2009 when A Duke of Her Own, the concluding book in the original Desperate Duchesses series was released, I longed to know more about what happened to the illegitimate children of the Duke of Villiers, especially Tobias, the oldest of the group. When I asked if EJ would ever write Tobias’s story, she held out the tantalizing possibility that she would. Five years and the Fairy Tale series later, she gave readers Tobias’s story in what many think is her best book yet. Tobias, now Thorn, is more than his father’s son. He is a self-made man who earned his fortune, who accepts his bastardry, and who refuses to disguise a roughness that is natural to him but foreign to the polished Villiers. And he is matched with India, a designing heroine who uses her natural ability to turn chaos into order to buy her own diamonds and choose her own husband. She is perfect for him. This is, hands down, my best book of the year, one that I have already reread several times.

3.   Home to Stay, Terri Osburn (May 13)

I loved Anchor Island from my first glimpse of it, and I have only become fonder of it with each book in the series. But Home to Stay is my favorite. Will is a phenomenal heroine who demonstrates that love can heal even the deepest wounds and give the wounded warrior the strength to fight and win the necessary battles. But Randy is the reason this book is my favorite. A giant beta with a heart to match, he is my #1 book boyfriend of the year.

4.      To Scotland with Love by Patience Griffin ((June 9)

I owe this one to a recommendation from PJ. “Read it,” she said. I did and found it just as wonderful as she said. The title may suggest this is just another Scotland-set historical, but it is a contemporary romance with a journalist heroine, Cait Macleod, who retreats to Gandiegow, Scotland, her childhood home, after the death of her faithless husband and discovers Gandiegow is also the place to which Graham Buchanan, a reclusive movie star, has retreated. Cait is confronted with her own past, a complex hero who challenges her at every level, and a test of her morality. This is a beautifully written debut novel, easily my top choice for debut of the year.



5.     The Game and the Governess by Kate Noble ((July 29)

Noble gives her readers an intricate plot and a sizeable cast of characters in a story that is part romantic romp, part moral tale. Her hero Ned is totally unprepared for the realities of life without the privileges that he takes for granted. The taciturn, introverted Turner is no more prepared for the social responsibilities and lack of solitude that comes with Ned’s title than Ned is for the lack of status his secretary is given. Both men learn from the experience. Phoebe is a wonderful heroine who has a rare wholeness in that there is little distance between the beliefs she espouses and the way she conducts her life. However, it is the hero’s growth that is central to this story. Ned grows into a man with a keener mind, a sharper conscience, and a larger heart—and I loved watching his growth.

6.      A Love to Call Her Own by Marilyn Pappano (August 26)

I think it is impossible to read A Love to Call Her Own and not be moved by the experiences of these characters and root for them to find happiness again. Perhaps most significant is a new awareness of all the stories that lie behind the media coverage of casualties and memorial services and of the price paid not just by those who serve but by their families as well. Although this novel may move you to tears, it is more than a sad story. It is also filled with laughter, the warmth of friendship, the endurance of memory, and the resilience of the human spirit. It is also one of the best portrayals of stages of grief that I have encountered in fiction.



7.   Not Quite a Wife by Mary Jo Putney (August 26)

One of the things that I appreciate most in Putney’s fiction is that she is unafraid to create characters who have bodies, minds, and spirits. In a genre that typically ignores the spiritual (except for the Inspirational sub-genre), Putney has long woven stories with characters who tackle issues of faith and belief, most notably in The Rake, Thunder and Roses, and Twist of Fate (the third book in her contemporary trilogy, retitled An Imperfect Process in a 2013 reissue). She does it again with skill and insight in this book. The religious beliefs of the heroine Laurel are at the heart of this book, and there is nothing simplistic about her struggles.

8.     The Songbird’s Seduction by Connie Brockway (September 16)

An Edwardian-set romance that pairs a chanteuse and a professor in a romance that reminded me of The Lady Eve, My Man Godfrey, or Bringing Up Baby, and other romantic comedies from the Golden Age of that genre in film, this is another Brockway gem. Lucy Eastlake and Professor Ptolemy Archibald Grant have joined a long list of Brockway characters I adore. And, as usual, this author’s secondary characters are richly drawn and memorable. Every Brockway book I read serves to remind me why she has a long-established, permanent spot on my auto-buy list.




9.      In Your Dreams by Kristan Higgins (October 5)

The fourth book in the Blue Heron series, this book is filled with the things that make Higgins’s books perennial favorites: hold-your-sides funny moments, families with their quirks and kerfuffles and myriad manifestations (and sometimes failures) of love, and protagonists readers want to add to their circle of friends—plus, of course, puppy love for canine fans. Emmaline is a heroine in whom independence and insecurity are blended in fascinating measure, but it is Jack, who is saved from perfection by a twenty-year-old, life-altering wound, that makes this book a standout in the work of an author who has the knack for crafting keepers.






10.   Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover by Sarah MacLean (November 25)

It’s now official: Sarah MacLean is brilliant. This book is sweet, sexy, poignant, intelligent, and funny. Chase’s triple identity is smart, artful writing that makes this story distinctive from other disguise plots, and the fact that Duncan West is caught up in protecting bits of his own identity is a wonderful touch. I don’t believe the perfect book exists, but this one comes very close. It is a superlative conclusion to an outstanding series.

I have a difficult time cutting my list off at ten. If I had been doing a top 15, I would have included The Winter Bride by Anne Gracie (March 25), Between the Devil and Ian Eversea by Julie Anne Long (March 25), I Adored a Lord by Katharine Ashe (July 29), My Beautiful Enemy by Sherry Thomas (August 5), and What a Duke Dares by Anna Campbell (August 26). Each is an extraordinary book that helped to make this year a memorable one for this reader.

~Janga

(Some of my comments are self-plagiarized from my reviews of these books.)

PJ here! I love your lists, Janga. Thank you so much for sharing them with us here at TRD. 

Readers, I'm giving away a package of books that includes Janga's top book of the year, Three Weeks With Lady X by Eloisa James and her top debut, To Scotland With Love by Patience Griffin. (U.S. addresses only) So tell me:

What are your top books of 2014?

Top Historical Romance?

Top Contemporary Romance?

Top Romantic Suspense? Paranormal? Womens Fiction?

Have you read any of the books on Janga's list?

Do you keep a list of the books you read?

Let's dish about our best of 2014!