Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion.

Baronness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Matthew Haldeman-Time’s Off the Record.

Suzanne Brockmann’s Heart Throb.

LaVryle Spenser’s Morning Glory.

Georgette Heyer’s Venetia.

Anne Eliot and Frederick Wentworth in Persuasion. FAR more romantic than Sense & Sensibility (though I love that book, too).

Keep Pride & Prejudice.

Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane--Gaudy Night (and the other novels involving Harriet, but especially GN).

And can I add a vote for a non-book? B/c, um, Mulder and Scully?

Sonnets from the Portuguese.

Beatrice & Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing.

The Anne of Green Gables novels--Anne & Gilbert. And the Emily novels--Emily & Teddy (and Ilse & Perry, to a lesser extent).

Oh, and my only sad contribution: Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials.

(Ha!! Confirmation word? Married84)

I’d have to add Jennifer Cruisie’s Bet Me to this list. Of course keep the Austens. I’d also add Jo Beverley’s Shattered Rose.

LaVyrle Spencer’s Morning Glory

Celeste DeBlasis’ The Proud Breed

I’d add to the list Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and The Windflower by “Laura London” (Tom and Sharon Curtis).

Sayers, Gaudy Night and Busman’s Honeymoon

Bujold, A Civil Campaign

Elizabeth Peters, Trojan Gold and Night Train to Memphis (Sir JOhn and Vicky push my buttons a million times harder than Peabody and Emerson do.)

Crusie, Welcome to Temptation

There are other books I find romantic, of course, but those are the ones I find myself going back to time and again.

Bloody hell, this is hard to narrow down, I keep on adding so I’m going for historicals romances only.  The ones I keep going back and rereading them, wish they were in all in ebook format so I could carry them around with me as I travel:

The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

Devil’s Desire by Laurie McBain

Lady Vixen by Shirlee Busbee

McNaught: Perfect
Garwood: For the Roses
Roberts: Honest Illusions, Dream Series
Gregory (Camp): The Rainbow Season
Gellis: The Heiress Series and the Roselynde Series
Krentz: Wildest Hearts, Gift of Gold/Fire

Kind of scary that all these books are at least a decade old. Even scarier that the Roselynde Series began the same year I was born (1964). Harlequin recently re-pubbed Roselynde and Alinor. They’ve both stood the test of time.

Diana Gabaldon, Outlander series
Sara Donati, Into the Wilderness series.
-->both my favorite series, i read them at least once a year--yes, the ENTIRE series. 

also, just about any Nora Roberts works for me. :-D

Gabaldon’s Outlander Series jumped to my mind first.

But I’m hungry and my mind is blank.  I’ll eat lunch and think about it.

Any early works by Mary Stewart, but my all-time favs of hers would include:
- Touch Not the Cat
- Nine Coaches Waiting
- Madam, Will You Talk
- This Rough Magic

I cut my early romance teeth on her, so I’m a little partial! ;p

Some other favorites:
- Mary Balogh, “The Secret Pearl”
- Nora Roberts, “Honest Illusions”
- Liz Carlyle, “No True Gentleman”
- Adele Ashworth, “Winter Garden”
- Lisa Kleypas, “Where Dreams Begin”

All just off the top of my head, and ones I don’t think have already been mentioned here. My criteria on “most romantic” - my heart gets all a’flutter and I might even weep a little as I read.

Sigh. I feel a re-read or ten coming on ...

— Bonz

Francis and Pippa from Dorothy Dunnett’s Checkmate (ooooh! sigh-sigh-sigh) (even if the book is not a romance in any sense of the word) (but who cares? It’s got Francis Crawford of Lymond!)

Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice and Persuasion

Susanna Kearsley’s Mariana and The Shadowy Horses

Julia Ross’s Night of Sin

Laurie McBain’s Devil’s Desire

Susan Sizemore’s Wings of the Storm

And now I better stop before I go on and on and on and, well, on. :)

Definitely Pride & Prejudice--Jane Austen

Paradise by Judith McNaught

Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie

Pretty much anything by Karen Marie Moning

and a classic romance novel that isn’t actually a romance novel…

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

I second Sandra’s vote for Checkmate--I cried my eyes out at the end of that book when Francis and Pippa got their HEA.  (Especially since I had cried my eyes out when Francis was being a noble fool and protecting Pippa’s feelings earlier in the book.)

If we’re talking romantic stories, which includes movies, not just books, I have to vote for When Harry Met Sally.

And, strangely enough, Braveheart. I cannot watch the end of that without bursting into hysterics when he sees Murren in the crowd.

Seconding Georgette Heyer’s “Venetia”.

Also agreeing with “Pride and Prejudice.”

Mary Balogh’s “A Summer to Remember”.

And I don’t know how much it counts as a romance, so may be out of place here, but Ned and Verity from Connie Willis’s “To Say Nothing of the Dog” have a simply lovely love story.

The Outsider, Once in a Blue Moon, Keeper of the Dream—all by Penelope Williamson

To Have and To Hold, To Love and to Cherish, by Patricia Gaffney

Definitely Austen and “Jane Eyre”!  I’d have to add both “Beauty” and “Rose Daughter” by Robin McKinley--so sweet and innocent AND unicorns with silver poop (in “Rose Daughter").  And Lois McMaster Bujold gets me every time: “The Spirit Ring,” “The Curse of Chalion,” “Paladin of Souls,” “The Hallowed Hunt,” “The Sharing Knife: Legacy,” and even the many and varied romances of Miles Vorkosigan.

Sunshine, by Robin McKinley.

As I said in the other thread, Cyrano de Bergerac- which has to be the most romantic story I can think of that ends with somebody dying

And The Fantasticks, if contemporary theatre is elligible.

If a great romantic scene can justify a book in which the love story is not necessary the main plot, then A Tale of Two Cities.  Yes, more death, but I don’t care.

Ah yes, Francis and Philippa! One of the best love stories ever written.

It doesn’t get much powerful than that.

But the only Austen I find romantic is Persuasion. I’m very fond of all her books but Jane Austen didn’t write romance or love stories IMO.

I also second The Windflower.

The Princess Bride

His Dark Materials

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Sonnet 13

Here’s one that’s sure to be an outlier:

Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein

I also think Jane Eyre belongs in the top ten, which someone else mentioned.

Oh and The Scarlet Pimpernel, too!

This is my DIK:
The Secret Pearl by Mary Balogh

I’ll meet the LM Montgomery books, and raise you Kilmeny of the Orchard.
I love Austen’s Persuasion over the others.  Something about the emotion is more real to me, I guess.
Can we throw A Knight in Shining Armor from Jude Deveraux into the mix? 
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquival.
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott.
A Lady’s Tutor by Robin Schone.
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks (forgetting the obscenity that was the movie...)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.
The Bridges of Madison County by Robert Waller.
Hmmm.  Looking over this list, I think I have a thing for unrequited love.  Something else to bring up in therapy, I guess!

On a completely different topic, I have a general question for the bitchy ladies out there.  I read (while hiding in a closet as a kid) a book in the mid-to late 80s that featured white slavery.  The male protagonist was the “stud” and she was brought to him for impregnation and they felt a connection (no snickering!) Eventually it was revealed that their families had known each other and she’d seen a portrait/picture of him and had a crush (when they’re in the dark hut o’ impregnation he asks her what she imagines he looks like and she describes him perfectly from said picture).  All works out in the end, naturally, though I think she miscarried the baby they made. The book was probably published late 70s early 80s, but I don’t know for certain.  Does anyone have any idea what this book might be???  It was quite an eye opener (hey, I was probably 10!) and I would like to find it for nostalgia and to ensure I’m not just crazy.  Thanks!

Tonithegreat, as I was looking over my bookshelf, I considered mentioning Time Enough for Love, too.

Seconding “Sunshine.”

Here’s a weird but totally sincere nomination: “Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard” by Eleanor Farjeon

“Angelica” by Sharon Shinn

“I Capture the Castle” by Dodie Smith

“Joy in the Morning” by Betty Smith

One more:
Goddess of the Rose by PC Cast

I’ll second Cyrano and Beauty!

Belay my last.
The book I was thinking of is Alyx by Lolah Burford.
Sorry! Should have Googled first!

All of Austen, my personal favourite being Northanger Abbey.
The Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon series.
The Scarlet Pimpernel, the ENTIRE series. It’s a toss-up between The Elusive Pimpernel and El Dorado for the most romantic, IMO. Although I really like Lord Tony’s Wife because I really like Lord Tony.

-The Bridges of Madison County (book, not movie. Ew Eastwood.)
-The Princess Bride
-I Capture the Castle—I second that. Hated the movie until I read the book.
-Little Women
-Gone with the Wind
-Of Marriageable Age by Sharon Maas.
-Peacocks Dancing by Sharon Maas.
-The Speech of Angels by Sharon Maas. (See a pattern? Although Peacocks Dancing is my favourite, Of Marriageable Age has a special place in my heart and is a *very* close second for the sheer wangst and scope of the romance--I wish I could spoil it, really. It’s just brilliant.)

I’d like to add
Shadow of the Moon by M.M. Kaye

I love that book.

As far as Heinlein goes, I would say that Job: A Comedy of Justice has the most romantic/sappy line of all his novels “Heaven is where Margrethe is”.

Sala- Sweet Baby
Ashworth- Winter Garden

Susan Elizabeth Phillips-
It Had to Be You
Dream a Little Dream
Kiss an Angel

Dodd- That Scandalous Evening
Kleypas- Dreaming of You

Linda Lange- Bartell Tender Warrior

Elizabeth Elliott (where’d she go?)
Warlord
Scoundrel

Garwood-
Honor’s Splendor
The Bride
The Secret

Crusie-
Welcome to Temptation
Getting Rid of Bradley

Woodiwiss-
Shanna
Wolf & the Dove

Medeiros-Breath of Magic

Stuart-
Moon Rise
Night Fall
Lord of Danger

McNaught-Something Wonderful

Moning- Highlander Series
Howard- McKenzie Series
Feehan- Dark & Ghost Walker Series
Roberts/Robb- In Death Series

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey (book, not movie, which had a completely different ending.)

And also, Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

As geek pig supreme, I say…

You had best have at the very tippy top of that dang list…

T. H. White - A Once and Future King

Arthur and Guinevere - Tragic love is good love

J. R. Tolkien

Strider(AKA Aragorn) and Arwen - I mean come on!

Oops! J. R. Tolkien - The Lord of The Rings

Futher votes for:
Persuasion
Checkmate (but really the whole series to build the relationship)
Venetia

I’ll add another L.M. Montgomery - The Blue Castle

It’s not really a romance, but it caught my eye as I was perusing my shelves look for anything else to add: Tea with the Black Dragon by R.A. McAvoy has a lovely “mature” romance in it.

Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster

Austen: Pride and Prejudice and Emma (where’s the love for Emma?!)

Seems I should reread Persuasion…

Audrey Niffenegger: The time traveller’s wife

Laura Esquivel: Como agua para chocolate ("Like water like chocolate” in English?)

WITH THIS RING by Carla Kelly
KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR by Jude Devereaux
BET ME by Jennifer Crusie
SPLENDID by Julia Quinn
MR. IMPOSSIBLE by Loretta Chase

Probably more but brain is cheeze.

Dark Moon Defender, by Sharon Shinn (my favorite of the 12 Houses series, but it really helps to have read the two previous books first)

No Laura Kinsale? How can this be!

Flowers from the Storm (You know, we should take a poll, because I find that those of us who like this book don’t like For my Lady’s Heart, and vice versa)

Lord Carstair’s Bride by Mary Balogh

Gone with the Wind

And now I’m drawing a complete blank. Must be Friday afternoon.

Definitely Gabaldon’s Outlander!

Nevile Shute’s A Town Like Alice.  It was also made into a terribly romantic miniseries.

I agree with everyone who mentioned Jane Austen. I love that her heroines are smart and capable.

Jane Eyre- Bronte
Rebecca-Du Maurier (a classic of Romantic suspense. Also one of my favorite movies.
I also remember reaing a lot of Mary Stewart, especially her Merlin series

As mentioned:
Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers

Also…
The Marquise of O - Heinrich von Kleist (and everything else by him)
The lady with the dog - Anton Checkhov

And some stuff in German (Sommer in Lesmona by Marga Berck is amazing; I realise all my favorite romantic stories are from when I was 16 or so and have not changed since)

I only started reading ‘Romance’ novels quite recently, so cannot tell which ones will stick.

Another vote for each of:

Much Ado About Nothing
Persuasion
and
Cyrano De Bergerac

...for the Classics slots.

Obligatory Georgette Heyer Pick:
Frederica (sorry Venetia fans)

Compulsary Kathleen Woodiwiss Selection:
Plumping for Come Love a Stranger on the grounds of outrageous plot-device overload! (and possibly also because I haven’t actually ever read The Flame and the Flower)

Inevitable JAK book (I hear y’alls eyes rolling all the way from here in Edinburgh, Scotland, stop that now!):
Wildest Hearts - Jane Anne Krentz

Sci-Fi (Special Liaden Division)
Conflict of Honors - Sharon Lee & Steve Miller (just pips Scout’s Progress at the post. Also, Miri and Val Con get disqualified due being spread across more than one book)

Sci-Fi (non-Liaden Division)
Restoree - Anne McCaffrey

Mystery
Pass. (Mysteries are a mystery to me, clearly I need to check out these Whimsey and Vane people)

Horror:
Ummm I’m really stretching to think of something appropriate here, eeerrr, The Mummy - Anne Rice, oh and I guess the classic Carmilla - Sheridan Le Fanu (but remember that, as all the authors tell us they’ve been told, the flavour of romance he’s being coy about in there just doesn’t sell!).

Fantasy
Another Pass. (*sigh* Sharing Knife, you’re just too recent for this sort of list, and too cut in half, and with your second half not out yet, so I haven’t read you all yet. Bad publishers! No Biscuit!)

Persuasion
Pride and Prejudice
Bet Me
Arabella
Cotillion
Charming Grace
Lord of Scoundrels
After All These Years

Hey you rebels--haven’t you heard Gabaldon go on and on and on about Outlander not being a romance?

Another vote for His Dark Materials. Not a Romance in the strictest sense of the word, but Will and Lyra are the quintessential love that brings you out of childhood.

My favourite romantic story, possibly of all time, is the retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth within Apuleius’s “The Golden Ass” - it’s got everything you’d want in a romance, including a HEA. And Hector and Andromache in the Illiad had a lovely romantic relationship, even if it didn’t have the HEA.

Other than that… Archangel by Sharon Shinn, and Outlander by Diana Galbaldon.

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters

I’m sure there are more, but I have literally read 1000s of books and live in a studio apartment, so I can only keep a rare few....thus I don’t remember names.

Dr Zhivago

Elizabeth Lowell: Only Love, Too Hot to Handle, Forbidden

Anne Stuart: To Love a Dark Lord, Moonrise, Nightfall

Judith McNaught: Until You

Susan Elizabeth Phillips: Heaven, Texas

Linda Howard: Dream Man, After the Night

Meagan McKinney: Fair is the Rose

Suzanne Brockmann: Over the Edge

Julie Anne Long: The Secret to Seduction

Lisa Kleypas: Dreaming of You, Because You’re Mine

Jennifer Crusie: Crazy for You

LaVyrle Spencer: Vows

Julia Quinn: The Duke & I

Mary Jo Putney: Thunder & Roses

Ursula K. LeGuin: The Dispossed.

Georgette Heyer:  The Unknown Ajax
Venetia
Fredericka
The Toll Gate
Death in the Stocks
Grand Sophy

Linda Howard:  Cry No More

Nora Roberts:  Birthright
Northern Lights
Hidden Riches
True Betrayals
(Etc.)

Lois McMaster Bujold:  Civil Campaign
Komarr

Suzanne Brockmann:  Gone Too Far

Jayne Ann Krentz:  Absolutely, Positively

Elizabeth Lowell:  Amber Beach series
Running Scared

LaVryle Spenser:  Morning Glory

Dorothy L. Sayers:  Busman’s Honeymoon
Gaudy Night

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion

Georgette Heyer’s Frederica

Diana Gabaldron’s Outlander

Laura London’s (AKA The Curtis’) The Windflower

Patricia Gaffney’s To Have and To Hold and To Love and To Cherish

Judith Ivory’s Bliss, Black Silk and Untie My Heart

Laura Kinsale’s Flowers from the Storm and Seize the Fire

Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife

Judith McNaught’s Kingdom of Dreams

Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind

Jennifer Crusie’s Welcome To Temptation

Yes! to the Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series! & I’d like to add Morgan Llywelyn’s work.
Yes! to Flowers From the Storm (BTW, I also like For My Lady’s Heart too) my first LK book was Prince of Midnight, I was hooked - and love em all - but favorite is “FFTS” for sure.
Yes! To KMM’s Highlander series.

Each of these selections appeals to a different aspect of what I find romantic. From intense and enduring to inspiring and touching to sexy and fun.

Love Story by Erich Segal - both the book and the movie broke my heart.

Villette by Charlotte Bronte

I think I LIKE crying

Someone to watch over me by Lisa Kleypas

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Moonlit by Emma Jenson

Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux

Suzanne Brockman:
Flashpoint
Hot Target
Everyday, Average Jones

Lisa Kleypas:
Dreaming of You
Scandal in Winter

Julia London:
Extreme Bachelor

Teresa Medeiros:
Yours Until Dawn
Lady of Conquest

Catherine Anderson:
Keegan’s Lady
SImply Love

Katie MacAlister:
Aisling Grey series
Men in Kilts

KMM:
Anything by her, really, but perticularly Kiss of the Highlander. I mean, he went to sleep for 500 years just to see her again? Come on!

Johanna Lindsey:
Gentle Rogue

Kresley Cole:
The Price of Pleasure

Cindy Bonner:
Lily - This is a very old book, one of my 1st romance, ending was hanging but the story was heartwrenching.

One more!

Michelle Jerott - A Great Catch

Reading through the messages brought back so many wonderful reads.

I found Like Water for Chocolate on my daughter’s bookshelf when I was having a clear out recently.  We both loved that and it’s definitely one for the list.

My list generally doesn’t include those great sweeping stories that get labelled “great”.  They tend to be the books I return, though.  Re-read when life throws curves.  Almost any book by some of the authors named would do it, but these are a few of my “greats”.

Persuasion, Austen
Bet Me, Crusie
Dream a Little Dream, SEP
Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare
Venetia, A Civil Contract, Heyer
The Colour of Snow, Kate Fenton

Over the Edge by Suzanne Brockmann
Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie
The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn
Slightly Wicked by Mary Balogh
Joint Forces by Catherine Mann
Take a Chance on Me by Susan Donovan
Mackenzie’s Pleasure by Linda Howard
Charlie All Night by Jennifer Crusie
Menage by Emma Holly
Identity Unknown by Suzanne Brockmann

I’ve got more, but I don’t want too much dilution.

For the Jane Eyre cohort, count another one…

Others on my list;

Deerskin—Robin McKinley (the woman can do no wrong and this book is her at her best; a love story first and foremost in that it teaches a young woman how to love herself again after a trauma which allows her to see the love around her...also it’s a retelling of a fairytale, something R. McKinley excels at, so bonus).

Anne of the Island— L.M. Montgomery, the best of the series in my humble etc.

And there is Wolf in Waiting— Rebecca Flanders...a little gem of a thing, so well written I wanted it to go on for forever.

A Ring of Endless Light— M. L’Engle, from her “Meet the Austins” series. Young Adult, I know, but I fell in l.o.v.e with Adam (main male character of the book) at the age of 14 and have been looking for him ever since and if that isn’t a good sign I don’t know what is...also, it’s L’Engle so multi level meanings and angst are included with the romance; I was young, the angst called to me.

And a special thanks to the Bitchery what posted, I have not read a few of the books listed and am making myself a sticky note right after I post; new books to read, hurrah for me!

No contest, it has to be Dorothy Dunnett’s ‘Checkmate’ (but read the preceding five books first).

Oh, yes, Rachel.  Atlas Shrugged.  Makes my little heart go pitty-pat every time I read it.  Hey, it’s got both the true love and the unrequited love. 

And I’ll agree with Bonnie’s suggestion of Honest Illusions, CrankyOtter’s suggestion of Menage, and everybody who said Checkmate (ah, Lymond!) and Bet Me.

Tonithegreat--yes!  thanks for reminding me of The Scarlet Pimpernel.  Fabulous love story.

I’ll add Freedom and Necessity by Steven Brust & Emma Bull.

Then I’d fill in the rest of my top ten with any random Kinsales.  Starting with Shadowheart, because it was my first.

Add another vote for Jane Eyre. 

I picked up a romance when I was a teen that I’ve held onto ever since - King of the Castle by Victoria Holt.  It’s similar to Jane Eyre, but happier.

I’d list more but at one point or another, everyone else has mentioned the best ones.

And yes, Atlas Shrugged has an awesome romance aspect to it.  =oD

Another vote for the following:

P&P—austen
CYRANO DE BEREGERAC
IVANHOE
OUTLANDER
THUNDER & ROSES—MJP
TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE
SEIZE THE FIRE—Kinsale
FOR MY LADY’S HEART—Kinsale
BLACK SILK—Ivory
KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR—Deveraux
SCARLET PIMPERNEL
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING—Shakes
GWTW—Mitchell

Flowers from the Storm (You know, we should take a poll, because I find that those of us who like this book don’t like For my Lady’s Heart, and vice versa)

seton: Those are my two favorite Kinsales. FMLH being #1.

Okay, here goes- these are the first ones that came to mind:

Menage Emma Holly
Across the Sea Irene Maillol
Son of the Morning Linda Howard
A Gentleman’s Wager Madelynne Ellis
The Proud Breed Celeste DeBlasis (thanks to Laurie Breton for the reminder)

Within a series:
Devil’s Bride Stephanie Lauren’s Cynster series
Skye O’Malley Bertrice Small’s Skye O’Malley series
Tempting the Beast and Elizabeth’s Wolf from Lora Leigh’s Breed series
Darkfever from Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series
Seduced by Moonlight from Laurell Hamilton’s Merry Gentry Series
Blue Moon and Narcissus in Chains from Laurell Hamilton’s Anita Blake series

I just KNOW I’ll probably kick myself later for some I forgot.

Bev(QB)

Gone with the Wind is my all time favourite romantic story

it doesn’t have a happy ending but in the scheme of things that doesn’t effect the romantic impact of this story...the main characters are so perfectly flawed that you can’t help but love them and the romance that they share

Can’t believe I had to read so far down to find The Time Traveller’s Wife.

A second for Lord of the Rings, though for the Eowyn/Faramir love story.

And finally… The Great Gatsby.  Not a happy ending, but c’mon, don’t you wish you were someone’s Daisy?

Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton
Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
Sleeping Beauty by Judith Ivory
Devil on Horseback by Victoria Holt
Banners of Silk by Rosalind Laker
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
The Slightest Provocation by Pam Rosenthal

The Ladies Delight by Emile Zola

(Nearly forgot this one! Love the ending on this one!)

This is probably the most obscure book ever, but I love it to bits:

The Ordinary Princess, by M.M. Kaye

So it’s not a sweepingly romantic novel, it’s a fairy tale, but it’s very, very sweet.

i agree with meredith; couldn’t believe nobody had listed Kinsale yet. do you know how many copies of Flowers i’ve bought because i’ve loaned it and never gotten back? (btw, i like Heart, too, but Flowers is way better)

Jane Eyre
Scarlet Pimpernel
any Anne of…
Raum, by Carl Sherrell.
any Garwood HISTORICAL, esp Lion’s Lady
Wishes, by Devereaux - remember when he ate all the apples? *sigh*.
Miss Emmaline and the Archangel, Rachel Lee
Night Fire, Catherine Coulter
No Quarter Given, Lindsay Mckenna
Rainbows and Rapture, Rebecca Paisley
Morning Glory, LaVyrle Spencer
Warrior’s Woman, Johanna Lindsey
Knight of a Trillion Stars, Dara Joy

Ghost, the Patrick Swayze movie.
Buffy and Spike. yes, i know, but i still rooted for those two to have a HEA.

I picked up a romance when I was a teen that I’ve held onto ever since - King of the Castle by Victoria Holt.

Aaargh! How could I’ve forgotten Victoria Holt? My favourite of hers is Devil on Horseback.

Beth, I totally agree: Kaye’s The Ordinary Princess is a very sweet book.

So many of mine have already been mentioned (huzzah for “The Blue Castle” and “Nine Coaches Waiting”!), but I have to add:

M.M. Kaye: “Trade Wind”
Judith McNaught: “Almost Heaven”
Fanny Burney: “Evelina”
Jane Austen:  “Persuasion”
Kathleen Winsor:  “Forever Amber”
Robin McKinley:  “The Blue Sword”

Go out of town for a few days and it seems like it might almost be too late to add in.  I do (of course!) love romance, but I frequently find my favorite stories take a bit longer to tell.  As it is here are a few I don’t think have made it on a list yet that I really love.

Sci-Fi/Fiction
Lions of Al-Rassan (Guy Kay):  awesome and really interesting heroine
The Oracle Glass (Judith Riley)

Romance
Keeper of the Dream (P. Williams):  one of the first I read and still a favorite

I, too, have to put in my vote for Persuasion by Jane Austen. Also, The Princess Bride, The Lord of the Rings, and Gone with the Wind, and I would like to add one of my personal favorites… Phedre and Joscelin from the Kushiel’s series by Jacqueline Carey. (And no,I don’t just adore him because we share a name… really.)

. . . why are they comparing fiction to Brangelina or whatever?  “It draws people to reading again?” What the hell? I love reading, but when I had to read Wuthering Heights for a class assignment, I had trouble getting through the cliff notes.  And I could go on for a while about how I don’t see Romeo and Juliet as a romance.

But I digress.

Bujold’s Shards of Honor
The Princess Bride

Classics:

Pride & Prejudice
Midsummer Night’s Dream
Beauty and The Beast

Modern:

Crocodile on the Sandbank - Elizabeth Peters

Private Scandals - Nora Roberts

The Secret - Julie Garwood

Romancing Mister Bridgerton - Julia Quinn

Naked In Death & Glory In Death - J.D. Robb

Charlie All Night - Jennifer Crusie

The Unsung Hero - Suzanne Brockmann

Crusies, but I will limit myself to Welcome to Temptation and Fast Women

Austen, P & P

Alcott, Little Women

Heyer, Unknown Ajax and A Civil Contract

Laura Ingalls Wilder, These Happy Golden Years

Bristow, Celia Garth

All of these are the comfort reads that I return to again and again.

Hello.  Several people have mentioned M.M. Kaye’s Tradewinds.  I have recently acquired it and have not read it yet.  However, M.M. Kaye wrote one book that I have bought for my self at least ten times (it is so good i keep giving it to people and getting myself a new copy).  I also make sure to give it as part of a christmas gift or birthday gift one in her life to mostgirls I am related to (and with 15 nieces and nephephs and assored cosins to match...)

The Ordinary Princess by M.M. Kaye

I was thinking of YA novels that I’d put on the list.  Perhaps we need a second category?  Some people have mentioned the Anne of Green Gables books.  I’d add to the YA list these:

Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt
Sharon Shinn’s YA Romances--Safekeeper’s Secret; Truthteller’s Tale; Dream-Maker’s Magic;
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
The novels of Sally Watson (Witch of the Glen, etc.)

Persuasion is the only Austen I haven’t read and I can’t think why not… Might have to rectify that very soon!

Jane Eyre - Bronte
P & P - Austen
Time Traveller’s Wife - Niffeneger(sp?)
Bet Me - Crusie
Match Me If You Can - Phillips
Duke and I - Quinn
After Midnight - Medieros
Dreaming of You - Kleypas

Lots of my favourites are already here, which shows what great taste The Bitchery has!

Absolutely these:

Neville Shute, A Town Like Alice
Baroness Orzcy, The Scarlet Pimpernel
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
M.M. Kaye, The Ordinary Princess
L.M. Mongomery, Anne of the Island (though I also love the Leslie/Owen story in Anne’s House of Dreams)
Jane Austen, Persuasion
Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night and Busman’s Honeymoon (what do people think of Thrones, Dominations?)
Georgette Heyer, Cotillion, These Old Shades, Frederica, Arabella, Friday’s Child
Audrey Niffenegger, The Time-Traveller’s Wife
Diana Gabaldon, Cross-stitch and Voyager
William Golding, The Princess Bride

and can I add:
Mary Renault, The Charioteer, and The Last of the Wine
Ruth Park, Playing Beatie Bow, Swords and Crowns and Rings
Sharon Penman, Here be Dragons
Nikki Gemmell, Lovesong
Juliet Marillier, Son of the Shadows

Hope that’s not more than my fair share!

Add another to the Jane Eyre bandwagon, along with P&P, S&S and I wouldn’t even raise a stink if The Scarlett Pimpernel made it. 

For the modern contributions mine would include:

Night Play - Sherrilyn Kenyon
Always a Lady - Sharon Sala
Devil’s Bride - Stephanie Laurens
Outlander - Diana Gabaldon
Kiss of the Highlander - Karen Marie Moning
Dark Lover - JR Ward

Dang, I forgot two:

Lindsey: Angel
SEP: Heaven, TX and Breathing Room

It’s been very interesting, looking at what other people have chosen as greatest romance stories and thinking about my own list and what makes a romance ‘great’. 

When I started mentally selecting my own shortlist, I realised that a lot of my favourite romance writers weren’t represented ... in part possibly because I found it too difficult to select just one.  But also, I think, because (and this might not make sense to anyone other than me!) my favourite writers don’t/haven’t necessarily written my favourite books!

Anyway, my own list of romances that make my heart clutch in my chest – most of them have been mentioned already:

Mary Stewart – Nine Coaches Waiting
Nora Roberts – Chesapeake Bay Quartet
Baroness Orczy – The Scarlet Pimpernel
Dorothy Dunnett – Checkmate (though absolutely agree you have to read them all to appreciate how amazing it is when you go from Philippa hating Francis as a child to ... well, it’s worth the wait!)
MM Kaye – Trade Wind

And possibly the best of them all: Eva Ibbotson’s A Company of Swans.

*pounds head into wall* Dumb, dumb, dumb, I forgot one.

Naked in Death - JD Robb/Roberts

Any in the In Death series would do, but since it is the first in series and Eve and Roarke get together, let’s start there.  Shutting up now.

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I’ve heard her.  (Or read about it.) I think that OUTLANDER is more of a romance than the other books in the series.  Doesn’t romance have a basic formula:  boy meets girl, boy and girl go through lots of stuff while falling in love with one another, boy and girl have a HEA.  Outlander fits the bill for that. I’m not sure I think of any of the others as being a romance, per se, although I think of the series as a whole as being a work of romance.

Wives and Daughters, Mrs. Gaskell.
Villette, Charlotte Bronte
Daniel Deronda, George Eliot
(my big three)

Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane are perfect, from Strong Poison through Thrones, Dominations.
Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes