I was the ten-year-old child who devoured David Copperfield (and then every other Dickens book), the teenager who began a lifelong love of Russian literature after discovering Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. To this day, my greatest reading pleasure is to lose (and find) myself in the rich, expansive world of a nineteenth-century novel. In my contemporary rom-com, Blame It on the Brontës, my heroine is torn between her literary ideal of love and the reality of losing the love of her life. To paraphrase Keats, she tries to reconcile “the truth of imagination” with “the holiness of the heart’s affections.” As a romance writer, it is my quest, too.
In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen created the romance novel genre. This exquisitely crafted love story between the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet and the proud Mr. Darcy (or is it the other way around?) set the stage for the ever-popular enemies-to-lovers trope.
The spine of my paperback edition is creased, its cover tattered. I am endlessly dazzled by the book’s sly wit and vivacity. I adore the sparkling banter between the spirited Elizabeth and the restrained Mr. Darcy as they struggle with their undeniable chemistry.
Will they? Won’t they? (Will the odious Mr. Collins meet with misfortune and leave Charlotte Lucas a happy widow?) This is what I love best about the novel—the tension is so finely wrought I always feel as if I’m reading it for the first time.
Jane Austen's best-loved novel is an unforgettable story about the inaccuracy of first impressions, the power of reason, and above all the strange dynamics of human relationships and emotions.
Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is illustrated by Hugh Thomson and features an afterword by author and critic, Henry Hitchings.
A tour de force of wit and sparkling dialogue, Pride and…
So much gnashing of teeth and flinging of oneself on the moors under lowering skies. A narrative as gnarly as the roots of an ancient tree. Everyone in the book is miserable, and then just about everyone dies.
So why am I crazy about Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights?
It is a generational tale of revenge, a ghost story, and a mystery (where did Heathcliff go for three years?) rolled into one. But mostly, it is a love-gone-wild romance novel. Catherine and Heathcliff’s connection is beyond reason, beyond the grave, beyond themselves. They are each other. Against my own reason, I am enthralled by the raw power of their love that is unlike anything else in literature and by the strange beauty of Wuthering Heights itself.
One of the great novels of the nineteenth century, Emily Bronte's haunting tale of passion and greed remains unsurpassed in its depiction of destructive love. Her tragically short life is brilliantly imagined in the major new movie, Emily, starring Emma Mackey in the title role.
Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition of Wuthering Heights features an afterword by David Pinching.
One wild, snowy night on the Yorkshire moors, a gentleman asks…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre follows the format of a romance novel: a governess falls in love with her employer, they overcome impediments, and they live happily ever after. Add a madwoman in the attic, Thornfield Hall in flames, and Mr. Rochester’s voice calling to Jane across the winds, and you have an unforgettable romance novel.
I admire Jane immensely. Her journey from being a suffering student at Lowood School to an independent woman is as relevant as ever. Through every experience, she asserts her autonomy but never wavers in her moral compass.
In Brontë’s world, love involves every fiber of one’s being, not just emotions or desire. Mr. Rochester is a complex, conflicted man who proves himself worthy of Jane’s love. For me, they have set the standard of the romantic heroine and hero.
Introduction and Notes by Dr Sally Minogue, Canterbury Christ Church University College.
Jane Eyre ranks as one of the greatest and most perennially popular works of English fiction. Although the poor but plucky heroine is outwardly of plain appearance, she possesses an indomitable spirit, a sharp wit and great courage.
She is forced to battle against the exigencies of a cruel guardian, a harsh employer and a rigid social order. All of which circumscribe her life and position when she becomes governess to the daughter of the mysterious, sardonic and attractive Mr Rochester.
In this book, George Eliot’s novel of provincial life in 1830s England, nearly everyone marries the wrong person. Even the future happiness of its heroine, Dorothea, when she finally unites with her true love, Will, is questionable. And yet it stands for me, not only as one of the finest novels ever written but one of literature’s greatest romances.
Virginia Woolf famously wrote that it is a novel “for grown-up people.” I believe it is essential reading because it reflects real life where couples are mismatched, love goes unrequited, and ambitions are thwarted. It illuminates the small ways our better selves become compromised—and the larger gestures by which we are redeemed. As Eliot’s characters zigzag their way to each other, it is love that brings this redemption. How very romantic!
Introduction and Notes by Doreen Roberts, Rutherford College, University of Kent at Canterbury.
Middlemarch is a complex tale of idealism, disillusion, profligacy, loyalty and frustrated love. This penetrating analysis of the life of an English provincial town during the time of social unrest prior to the Reform Bill of 1832 is told through the lives of Dorothea Brooke and Dr Tertius Lydgate and includes a host of other paradigm characters who illuminate the condition of English life in the mid-nineteenth century.
Henry James described Middlemarch as a 'treasurehouse of detail' while Virginia Woolf famously endorsed George Eliot's masterpiece as 'one…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
There should be a bromance novel genre, and I nominate Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a prime example.
The relationship between Huck and Jim, the runaway slave, unfolds as leisurely as their raft down the Mississippi River. They grow closer with each adventure and encounters with people along the way. I love the gentle simplicity of Jim’s wisdom and Huck’s internal debates as he wrestles with his newfound understanding of the world.
The turning point in Huck’s moral awakening is when he rips up the letter to Miss Watson revealing Jim’s whereabouts. He is willing to risk eternal damnation of his soul to save his friend. That’s as great a testimony of love as I’ve ever encountered in literature.
College professor Athena Murphy needs to pull out all the stops to save her job. Her plan: unveil the secret identity of a bestselling author living in her hometown. And while everyone at the local café is eager to help, no one can solve the mystery. Not even her drive-me-crazy ex-boyfriend, who she’d rather not see again. As in, never.
Thorne Kent is knocked for a loop when Athena walks into his café. After all, their relationship went down in flames not just once but twice. There’s no denying the chemistry between them still burns. So why did she risk coming back to town? It’s going to be a long, hot summer…unless the third time really is the charm.
A grumpy-sunshine, slow-burn, sweet-and-steamy romance set in wild and beautiful small-town Colorado. Lane Gravers is a wanderer, adventurer, yoga instructor, and social butterfly when she meets reserved, quiet, pensive Logan Hickory, a loner inventor with a painful past.
Dive into this small-town, steamy romance between two opposites who find love…
A witchy paranormal cozy mystery told through the eyes of a fiercely clever (and undeniably fabulous) feline familiar.
I’m Juno. Snow-white fur, sharp-witted, and currently stuck working magical animal control in the enchanted town of Crimson Cove. My witch, Zandra Crypt, and I only came here to find her missing…
