2009 Australian Romance Readers Awards – Winners

(The Drakos Baby, Book 2) Books like this are the reason I stopped reading category romance in my mid-20s. I hope I don’t come across too many more of them in the near future. DNF.

(Pregnant Brides, Book 2) There’s nothing earth-shattering about this story. I didn’t hate the hero or the heroine, but that might be damning with faint praise.

This book proves that finely tuned character development and emotional honesty can turn even the most maligned clichés in romance fiction not just into an enjoyable read, but a story worth savouring.

(Elder Races, Book 1) The Elder Races series has become my BDB replacement. It’s totally cracktastic.

A satisfying romantic suspense with a capable heroine. The romance lacks intensity, but a decent mystery plot keeps the pages turning.

(The Bennetts, Book 5) Sexy, angsty and deeply moving, this story is everything we love about category romance. Oh, and the heroine? She’s the tycoon. This one’s a keeper.

Mills & Boon conventions aside—yes, he’s a tycoon, she’s totally hot and they don’t use a condom—the heroine and hero of this book are rarely predictable. I only wish it could have been longer.

Twilight lends itself to the shoujo manga format much better than in prose or in film. Young Kim’s renditions of the characters are disarmingly gorgeous, but even they can’t redeem Stephenie Meyer’s story of destructive co-dependency. And then there’s the font.

(Scarabaeus, Book 2) Not quite as compelling as the first book and the romance is underdeveloped, but still a satisfying conclusion to the Scarabaeus duology.

(Iron Seas, Book 2) It’s rare in romance to find an uncompromisingly strong heroine and even rarer to find a hero who understands how to love such a woman. This book gets it just right.