Reading the 2024 Goodreads Romantasy Choice Awards
This may be absolutely bonkers of me considering how many reading goals I've set for myself going into the end of the year and into early next year (for reference, I started a second blog about traveling via books), but as of writing this, the Goodreads Choice Awards Nominees of 2024 have been released and it has been ages since I feel like I've done a deep-dive into what is out there in terms of romantasy. And I've been reading romantasy since before it was called that! (To the younger readers and newer readers of the genre -- yes, "romantasy" is a relatively newer term.)
I also always just love a list of titles for awards because I find it can be easier to read than looking at blocks of book covers, so I wanted to make this list putting them all in one spot.
Here's to me reading all the romantasy nominations "so you don't have to" (said with saccharine sarcasm). And then I'm going to do a subsequent post, which will likely be finished early next year, where I do my own rankings of these books. I'm going to update that list of rankings though as I go along so that it is as complete as possible. Cheers!
** In the below list of titles, I've noted when the nominee is not the first book in the series. If there is a note only about that, that means I'm up to speed on the series and will be reading the nominee. If I'm not up to speed, I'm only going to read the first book because if I don't like that one, I'm not going to continue with the rest of the series. **
- Phantasma by Kaylie Smith
- A Touch of Chaos by Scarlett St. Clair (Not book 1)
- A Promise of Peridot by Kate Golden (Not book 1 -- I'll be reading A Dawn of Onyx)
- Zodiac Academy: Restless Stars by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti (Not book 1 -- I'll be reading The Awakening)
- Fate of the Sun King by Nisha J. Tuli (Not book 1 -- I'll be reading Trial of the Sun Queen)
Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer (Not book 1 -- I'll be reading Assistant to the Villain) - Quicksilver by Callie Hart
- Gold by Raven Kennedy (Not book 1 -- I'll be reading Gild)
- The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst
- The Games Gods Play by Abigail Owen
- Faebound by Saara El-Arifi
- Blood of Hercules by Jasmine Mas
- Born of Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout (Not book 1)
- Honey Witch by Sydney J. Shields
- House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas (<-- This one's going to win. Calling it now. Not book 1)
- A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft
- The Veiled Kingdom by Holly Renee
- A Crown this Cold and Heavy by Stacia Stark
- When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker
- A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen
My Hesitations & Concerns:
Lots of other reading goals
I already referred to this in the beginning paragraph, but I started a second blog where I plan on reading books that can mentally take me to places I want to travel to, but can't afford to. I'm really looking forward to that blog as much as I love this blog! Starting up a new blog though, while also returning to writing in this one, is honestly very intimidating. I've kept up reading, so I'm not ~very~ worried about that... but it's the writing these blog posts that can take quite a bit of time and I don't want to skimp on these posts because then that's shit quality and I don't want to be that person.
Some of these titles I already know I don't love
Oof... I don't know if people are going to come at me because of this but... I already tried to read the Zodiac Academy once and I just struggled with the first half of it so bad that I put it down and didn't return. But there's a HUGE fan base for it so there must be something there. Maybe at the time I was reading I was just really distracted or simply not in a good place? If a book couldn't hold me through a time like that though, especially a romantasy book, I still hold some reservations about it. 1000% still willing to give it another shot though!
Scared some are just riding the coattails of successful trends, which annoys me
Over the years, this has REALLY become one of my biggest pet peeves -- books where you can tell they're really just trying to benefit off the success of other titles or the tropes in them. And then they're half-baked or over-marketed and heralded as "the next Sarah J. Maas" or "the next Jennifer L. Armentrout." I really, really get annoyed by this and I'm incredibly worried that with the reductive readership of online popularity that there will be titles in this list that I simply will get frustrated with because of a lack of true originality.
On the whole, I'm looking forward to this! I can't wait to see how this turns out!
Thanks for reading!!
Xo
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