Bitchery reader Gaelen asks, “I’m looking for what you think is the perfect Romance Novel.” Well, now, that’s a tall order.
But I’m curious – if you could only keep one romance off your keeper shelf, which one would it be?
I have a hard time answering this question myself, as there are a few books I love to go back and reread, and there are others that I’m comforted by having on the shelf, just in case I want to read them at any moment. From the tawdry Midsummer Magic and its creative use of cream, which I keep because it was the first romance I ever read, to A Knight in Shining Armor, which is my guilty pleasure read, I have a lot of books that I consider keepers because I just love to reread a scene or a chapter.
I’m going to have to give this a good hard think. What about you? Your absolute keeper?
Another vote for “These Old Shades” by Georgette Heyer.
And “Venetia” would probably come second. I love that book.
In fact, maybe I’ll swap that order and put “Venetia” first.
Oh dear, now I can’t decide.
Am I the only one who doesn’t worship Lord of Scoundrels? I never hear anyone disliking that book. Once again, I am freakish.
I’ve spent years trying to decide which Kinsale I love more: Flowers From the Storm or Shadow and the Star. And I’ll probly spend lots more years because like everyone else here, I must say: You can’t make me choose just one, you’d have to pry the other(s) FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS.
Born in Shame, Nora Roberts
Sallyacious, I thought we were talking only about romances! I would have to have a “perfect” book for mystery, and horror, and fantasy, and …
I love the whole Peter/Harriet arc. I couldn’t settle for just one. From “Strong Poison” through “Have His Carcas”, “Gaudy Night”, “Busman’s Honeymoon” and even “Thrones, Dominations”, their affair has got to be the most passionate love story ever written.
Can Tanith Lee’s SILVER METAL LOVER be counted as a romance pretty please? If so, that’s my all time fav.
One? ONE! Jeeze a “Sophie’s Choice?” That’s just cruel!
Well I won’t do it! Uh-Uh not gonna do it!
1?! So difficult. It would have to be Pride and Prejudice, but L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle and Gaffney’s To Love and to Cherish are almost as precious to me, and that is saying alot. I just reread The Blue Castle and that book really has it all for me, except for the no sex bit.
Soo cheesy and certainly not politically correct in the romance community of late, but I have a tough time keeping Rejar by Dara Joy off the list. Gorgeous man who turns into a cat? I never had a chance.
I love this thread; there are soooooo many books I’ve never even heard of being mentioned!
Classic: Pride and Prejudice tied with Persuasion (I’m a big Austen fan and these are her two best. There are times where Perusasuin even outranks P & P)
Contemporary: The Dream series by Nora (Holding the Dream…etc) if they could all be in one or the Cheaseapeake Bay quartet by the same.
Can I pick favorite paranormals, historicals, etc? I just can’t do one! That’s asking too much!
No contest for me. “Outlander” by Diana Gabaldon. And I don’t just mean the novel, I mean the whole series. Yep, I am one of THOSE people!
This thread really got me thinking about the books I love. Scanning my shelves I was finding that the books I tend to reread more than others are not necessarily ones I would call my very favorites. I like them very much for their pithy banter or their talkin dirty or whatever, but the ones I save for when I’ve just been through a stack of shitty ones, or I just really need to read something awesome tend to be the ones which – and I will do my best to convey this here – at the end somehow I feel it in my guts that the hero and heroines HEA is the only possible answer for them. Man I can’t explain it, but sometimes it just hits me like a rock. I just read Kinsale’s Prince of Midnight, and I actually didn’t love it, which is not typical for me with her, but at the end she still brought it. There was no other way for those two characters to go, and it managed to be glorious even though I didn’t adore them.
“Only one?” she whined
That would have to be Dreaming of You. But if you were kind and allowed 2, then the other one would be Lord of Scoundrels.
Jaimi – That definitely could be it. If you do have it, could you look up the title for me? Pretty please?
Beth – I’m starting to feel like a freak because I’ve never even read Lord of Scoundrels. Or been able to get into a Georgette Heyer. I’ve picked up two and I can’t even remember the names.
Oh, don’t worry, LorelieLong – you’re not missing anything.
(ducking rotten vegetables hurled my way)
The Lady’s Companion, by Carla Kelly. There’s something so real about it and yet at the same time it’s amazingly romantic. Which is true of most of her books, but this is the one where the hero isn’t noble or even rich, and for some reason that just does it for me. And he’s adorable when he’s jealous.
Beth, you’re not alone. My friend returned hers to the bookstore and I’m not even sure she finished it. I haven’t read it myself, though.
My choice is not very famous but my favourite romance is The Longest Night by Kathleen O’Reilly. I also love Enchanting Pleasures by Eloisa James. I find her writing just delicious.
To Have and To Hold, by Patricia Gaffney.
It’s a tough call between this book and As You Desire by Brockway, but if I have to choose *just one book*, THATH is darker and more complex, so it would provide more food for thought. OTOH, that speech Harry gives Dizzy right before they finally get it on could also entertain me for days…
No, no, I’m sticking with my first impulse: To Have and To Hold. So there!
Oh, The Blue Castle.
That is such a lovely, lovely book. One of my all time favourites.
Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers
God yes! Years before I discovered romance I kept myself going with Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey.
Lovin’ the Sam Jellicoe series from Suzanne Enoch – Flirting With Danger is fab, very funny, VERY sexy, and I love being able to revisit a couple after their first Happily Ever After. But, the Desert Island romance for me would probably be Crusie’s Bet Me. Or Welcome to Temptation. Or Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight.
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.
Love this book, have read it a hundred times and still love it. It’s very corny but it works so well. I lent it to someone and never got it back, so I had to buy a new copy.
Just one is really asking too much—there’s such variety in romance. How can one compare, for example, Bet Me and Shadowheart? Both amazing books, but extremely different.
But I’ll play anyway, and choose Kinsale’s Shadowheart, because it’s just so freaking intense.
A Company of Swans – Eva Ibbotson
So sweet (if maybe a little cliched in places)but so very very funny.
Have y’all read “Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature” by Janice Radway? It touched off a whole generation of (disdainful) romance scholarship. It was published in 1984, so her research would have been conducted a few years before that. Her survey of the idea romance:
Kathleen Woodiwiss, The Flame and the Flower
Celeste De Blasis, The Proud Breed
Laurie McBain, Moonstruck Madness
For me, an absolute keeper is a book I keep coming back to over and over again, which means Mary Balogh’s work. The agony of thwarted love! The ecstacy of the single night together! (Yeah, you read a bunch of them and all the tropes pop out at you.) She plays me like a violin. My fave is The Secret Pearl. Sometimes I stop reading before the HEA because the bittersweet stuff is so good.
I also reread all of Lois McMaster Bujold’s work every year or so. A Civil Campaign (“A Comedy of Manners”) is a masterpiece of comedic plotting and should be read by every aspiring author. I guarantee the dinner party scene will make you snort liquids out your nose, or your money back.
I second Julia’s choice for all the same reasons. The Secret Pearl by Mary Balogh.
Hey Lorelie, if Jaimi’s right and the book you’re thinking of has the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in it, then it’s Anne Stuart’s “One More Valentine” (a Harlequin American romance).
I’m going to have to pick a YA book. Beauty by Robin McKinley. Really I’m a sucker for the Beauty and the Beast story in any form but this has always been a favorite retelling of mine. Beauty is a bookworm and smart and doesn’t realize her own charms, the beast is noble and self depricating but also has a sense of humor. Such a fun read especially the description of the library in the castle *slobber*. I re-read it at least once a year.
Oh, I can’t pick one. Seize the Fire, certainly. But also The Black Swan by Day Taylor and Ain’t She Sweet by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Oh, and the Beloved books by Mallory Burgess.
I could not possibly pick just one. But I’ll only pick from the pool of books that stay on my shelf and have made it through at least ten re-reads.
“Bet Me” by Jennifer Cruise
“River of Fire” by Mary Jo Putney
“Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand” by Carla Kelly (actually I’ve re-read almost all of her books that many times, but this is my favorite).
“Christmas Belle” by Mary Balogh
“Widow’s Gambit” by Anthea Malcolm (like CK, I’ve read all of her books many, many times).
Saam, LorelieLong, Keziah –
Thanks a bundle. Those are the books.
This is why I love this site. 🙂
After much deliberation, I’m picking Charming the Prince by Teresa Medeiros.
It’s poignant, damn funny and entirely entertaining. I read it once or twice a year whether I need to or not. And I always need to.
Also, Three Fates and Birthright by Nora Roberts. I love those books, and have worn out multiple paperbacks from the sheer number of rereads I’ve done.
*le sigh* I love that Knight in Shining Armor book, too.
I, too, obviously cannot pick just one.
See?! The Lois MacMaster Bujold book would make it as my sci-fi keeper. There’s just no way for a bookaholic like me to pick just one.
I would have to pick A Rose in Winter by Kathleen Woodiwiss.
I love to re-read that one.
2nd choice would be an obscure Silhouette (Special Edition, I think) called A Sporting Affair by Jennifer Mikels.
The Wind Dancer by Iris Johansen.
Being made to pick just one romance out all the ones I love would be cruel beyond anything, but if I absolutely had to, this would be it.
I’m going to put myself into the line of fire here, but am I the only person here who doesn’t like Jennifer Cruisie’s books? Well, actually, the books (plots and such) are decent, the heroes are hotter than magma, it’s her heroines that have me pulling my hair out. They always seem to dumbass themselves into trouble without any assistance from the peanut gallery—stuff even I can see coming from a mile off, and I’m not very bright. Particularly the chick in Welcome to Temptation—I didn’t even bother to finish that one, I got so tired of her emotional issues and inability to think critically (purposely un-detailed here so I’m not spoiling anything.) Which is a pity, because the sex was pretty hot in that one (the bits I actually read.) The only one I halfway liked was Bet Me, and I still don’t see myself re-reading it.
I picked several up because it seems like everyone here loves them and promptly gave them away again. Did I miss something? :red:
With me, it’s a love / hate relationship. The books of hers that I like, I really love. That list includes Bet Me, Anyone But You, and Fast Women.
The rest, I really hated, especially with the one who found the panties and did a number of TSTL things. I can’t even remember the name but I -hated- that book. I couldn’t figure out why the hero had been hung up on her in high school cos she was Le Clueless and not in a good way, like Alicia Silverstone. Huh. I want to get that and watch it.
No Greater Love by Katherine Kingsley. Not a perfect book, but if I had to get rid of every romance except one, it’d be on my shelf.
Kaite, definitely not alone there. I’ve only read three, I believe, of Crusie’s books, and only one of them stayed here. *shrug* What can I say? Not my cuppa.
Am currently rereading or have recently reread the following (just because they’re fabulous and not a damn thing can compare to Mick looking at Winnie’s legs):
The Proposition, Judith Ivory
Lord of Scoundrels, Loretta Chase
The Secret Pearl, Mary Balogh
Seriously, how much of the house is burning? If it’s only the kitchen then I’m going back in with a handcart for the following:
Sunshine, Robin Mckinley. It’s not strictly romance, I know, but goddamn that woman can write her ass off. How else do you explain a physically repulsive hero (the vampire) that neither I nor the heroine can get enough of?
Requiem for the Devil, Jeri Smith-Ready. Those of you making a list, you likely won’t be able to find it in a brick and mortar, but don’t let that stop you. It’s worth every little friggin’ penny and then some. Make sacrifices to the gods if you have to, but get this book on your shelves immediately.