Cayrle wrote: Maybe the Bitchery should compile our own “official” list of the greatest love stories of all time. I can guarantee my list wouldn’t include as many books with less than happy endings.
Darn right. So – bring it. Leave your suggestions in the comments or, if you’re a happy lurker, email candy @ smartbitchestrashybooks.com or sarah @ smartbitchestrashybooks.com your suggestions, and we’ll use Excel or something better to compile our own list. I’m not going to differentiate between romance novels in the modern conception (e.g. bodice rippers of the 1970’s and 80’s on through current offerings) and romantic stories from the Penguin Classics issue, because I think current romance can go toe-to-toe with “the classics.”
And if you disagree, please say so. Bring it on! Most Romantic Story Evah!
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. 😀
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!