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?
Well – let me pick one historical and one contemporary. Historical would be Connie Brockway’s All Through the Night – I love As You Desire, but soemthing in the darkness of ATTN is so amazing. No real traditional HEA there, but, wow, what a great book.
And on the other side of the coin, favorite contemporary is Crusie’s Welcome to Temptation. I can see where Crusie would not appeal to some, but I love love love her, even the finding the panties chick who I believe was the heroine of Tell Me Lies.
Bungaluna,
In the introduction to Busman’s Honeymoon Dorothy Sayers wrote, “It has been said, by myself and others, that a love-interest is only an intrusion upon a detective story. But to the characters involved, the detective-interest might well seem an irritating intrusion upon their love-story.”
So I call Gaudy Night a romance. Harriet falls in love with herself, Oxford and Peter Wimsey all in one book. I’m not sure it gets better than that.
Sorry, Bungluna I got carried away and added an extra vowel to your name. Apologies.
You people need to read some PC Cast books.
Goddess of Spring/Rose would be mine. I can’t pick one. They belong together…i mean…don’t make me….WAAAH!!!
LOL!
Salliacious, Gaudy Night was great in that different obsessions were explored in depth and there was no murder involved. I would still need the other books because they illustrate how a real, complex, deep relationship can work towards a delicate balance. Harriet and Peter never get a perfect hea, but they do forge a great relationship in the end.
i posted my absolute keepers already , but as im reading all of your posts , and let me tell you i got a huge list of “need to reads” now…lol….anyways…i havent seen anyone post anything from Bertice Small…i was wondering if anyone else is a fan??
sorry…Bertrice…(giggle)
To Have and to Hold by Patricia Gaffney.
This topic is a couple of days old (I’m behind) but I’ll answer anyway.
My keepers are:
Anyone but you by J. Crusie (I can’t get rid of it – it has a basset hound on the cover!)
And most of Karen Marie Moning’s books.
But I wonder if a good topic for discussion sometime might be:
Which book did you lose, sell, or give away that you now wish you had kept?
I’ll start: There’s a book I read back in the seventies. A time travel/fantasy romance called Summersea by an author who’s name I don’t remember anymore. It was a beautifully written book (so I rememeber now) It’s not in print anymore. Sigh….
If Tanith Lee’s The Silver Metal Lover counts, then it’s my all-time favorite.
Robin McKinley’s Beauty is my runner-up in the not-technically-Romance category.
But if my choice has to come from a more strict interpretation of Romance, then I’ll have to go with Georgette Heyer’s Cotillion … light, playful, and with a ton of character growth that turns both the naive young heroine and the amiable-yet-vacuous hero into people that are actually ready to be married. Le sigh…!
I’m torn.
My first instinctive choice was Morning Glory by Lavyrle Spencer. Then, after a little thought, I came up with Paradise by Judith McNaught. But it’s still a toss up between those two. One is really sweet and one is really sexy. Hard to choose.
Other honorable mentions are:
One Summer by Karen Robards
Kiss of the Highlander by Karen Marie Moning
Romancing Mr. Bridgerton by Julia Quinn
Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas
It Happened One Autumn by Lisa Kleypas
Someone to watch over me by Lisa Kleypas. I’ve read lots of great romances over the years, but there’s nothing like your first.
Here are some of my favorites that no one has mentioned yet:
Wicked by Jill Barnett
Devil’s Cub by Georgette Heyer
The Devil to Pay by Liz Carlyle
and my all time favorite Balogh book, A Summer to Remember.
Great topic and looks of books to add to my TBR shelf…just what I needed!
A Kiss In The Dark by Kimberly Logan. Because I fell in love with Peter Quick on page 16. Even Derek Craven, my next favorite, took till page 58. Peter was in the book for a whole 2 pages before I said “that’s it, I’m in love.”
If he weren’t a fictional character, I would have his babies. That is how much I love Peter Quick.
…and all right, the book was pretty good too. 😉
Since posting yesterday I have now finished ‘The Time Traveller’s Wife’ by Audrey Niffenegger & that one is added to the list…I cried all through the last section!
If Robin McKinley’s ‘Beauty’ & Tanith Lee’s ‘Silver Metal Lover’ are being included, let me bring Pamela Dean’s ‘Tam Lin’ to your attention. I lent it to my sister to take on a trip once & impressed upon her the penalty if it did not come back. She was so mindful of this that it was the only thing she grabbed out of her hotel room when there was a fire drill one night!
I love Tam Lin (and Beauty), too. Did you know it’s been re-released? I just found out. Not loving the cover, but I might have to buy a new copy as the one I have is starting to fall apart.
Don’t know what romance book I’d pick. If I had to go with one book, it would probably end up being a McKinley book – The Hero and the Crown or Sunshine, maybe.
Saam – I lost it when 7-yo Alba came in from the backyard and saw Henry. Totally frickin’ tears pouring snot flowing lost it. And it didn’t stop until the damn thing finished. Certainly in my top 3 or 4 “real” books, but I wasn’t considering those! Otherwise I’d have included Wuthering Heights (no HEA but fantastic) and The Siege by Helen Dunmore – a love story set amongst the siege of St. Petersburg in WWII. Luckily it had a happy ending, a rare thing for a work of serious historical fiction – especially one set in such a grim time period.
Frederica, Georgette Heyer
The Morning Gift, Eva Ibbotson – or maybe Company of Swans
Welcome to Temptation, Jenny Crusie
I’m sorry, I’ve got to have all three.
I don’t think I’d be allowed the Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett – that’s six books, but really, it’s one very long book. That’s the romance I would take over my other three favourites. But only if I were allowed all six volumes.
cassie: I’m not feeling the new cover, I love the old series ones!
lovelysalome: Yep, that would be about the spot that did me in!
What about if you were able to take a PDA with solar batteries to the island? One physical object… 🙂
Mine has books and counting!
sorry, that should read 250 books and counting!
My absolute favorite is Montana Sky by Nora Roberts. For historical romance, I’d say Romancing Mr. Bridgerton (although it doesn’t have the same impact if you don’t read the other Bridgerton books, but it’s still good on its own)
Anya Seton’s Katherine definitely. It’s my ultimate comfort read; I happen to think John of Gaunt is one of the sexiest romantic heroes of all time.
Right up there, though, is the entire Outlander series – and Jamie Fraser and Roger MacKenzie. (I seriously think I would marry Roger if he were real.)
And, of course, I couldn’t do without my Jane Austen and L.M. Montgomery books either.
Limiting myself to the strict “romance” novel genre, I’d have to say any of Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton books are my favorites. They’re light and fluffy for the most part, but they have characters I’d actually like to know and plots that at least attempt to be original.
Okay, I am sticking with “Anything buy Diana Gabaldon” as my favorite. I am nothing if not loyal, but I have to add an honorable mention. I just finished “Blue Smoke” by Nora Roberts and I have to say, I can’t remember when a scene in a book has made me smile like the scene in which Bo and Rina finally meet. Cute, but in a funny way, not a sappy way. Totally worth the fact that they don’t meet right away. LOVED IT!
I’m probably alone in this, but that’s ok; The Dutchess by Jude Deveraux, it made me laugh, it had some completely silly moments but I just adored it. I should probably dig it out and have another go at it. I also like the first three Outlander series, but haven’t read the rest and I’m told I’m better off not doing so. Fine with me.
Fwiw, I prefer the 4th and 5th books, but then I think my reading tastes are a bit strange. 😉 Not entirely sure where I stand on the latest one yet.
Saam: I love the old cover too; it was very fairy-tale like. The new one is too…purple and green. And there’s too much going on, imo.
Don’t know if it counts as a romance or not, but Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander is my #1 Keeper. I can re-read it endlessly—and have done so in the 15-odd years since it’s initial publication. Each re-reading has me discovering something new—Gabaldon is sneaky that way!—and each re-reading has me falling in love with Jamie and Claire all over again.
I just realized that in my post from two or three days ago I wrote “anythung BUY Diana Gabaldon.” Jeebus!!! I don’t know what kind of brain fart I had when I wrote that, but I do know better.
Anya Seton’s Katherine definitely. It’s my ultimate comfort read; I happen to think John of Gaunt is one of the sexiest romantic heroes of all time.
I second that.
“Home To You” by Muriel Jensen is an absolutely exceptional novel and managed to captivate me, even though it’s extremely short. I’ve reread it so many times, and there is no way I could ever part with it.
Mary Balogh, The Secret Pearl. You just have to love that the first time prostitute ends up as a governess.
Has anyone read The Marrying Stone, by Pamela Morisi (I don’t know if I spelled it right). I laughed out loud a few times in that book. It is one of my favorites. I lent it to my sister with a “make sure I get it back or else” and her dog chewed the cover up! I got it back though and its a treasure.
I also love An Arranged Marriage, by Jo Beverly. My sister was helping me de-clutter my life and packed up a bunch of my paperbacks to go to the paperback exchange. I had a “do not touch” pile, but my sister is very sneeky….anyway I ended up having to buy it back from the exchange but it was worth it!
And I know I’m really late with this post but I had to add mine!
I’ve held onto “Outlaw Hearts” by Rebecca Brandewyne since I was a teenager. It’d be hard to toss it, but I would if it meant I could keep “Lord of Fire” by Gaelen Foley. Sheesh, the Grotto is the setting of my best fantasies.
Okay, I know I am SUPER late to the game on this one – having just discovered this, my ideal blog tonight (about three hours ago) but… I have to chime in with my favourite trashy romance of all time, one which is pathetically out of print and so I buy whenever I come across it in used bookstores so that I can give it to people to read, because nobody will make the effort for themselves no matter how much I talk it up:
Illusions of the Heart, by Kasey Michaels. The heroine is conniving and fiesty without being annoying and/or cliche, the hero manages to be snarky and sensitive and heroic and yet still come off as a real person (and to this day remains one of my favourite characters from any novel EVER) and the villains truly deserve each other – the bitchtastic social climber who is the other side of the heroine’s coin, and the stolid, blandly handsome earl who would be the hero in any other author’s terrible trashy romance novel. Illusions of the Heart is a Regency that truly sets the standard for me, and I have considered writing to the publisher to beg them to reprint it because all the smart bitches I know NEED to read it. God, I love this book.
Also: my confirmation code is students69. I’ve got an exam in two days. Are y’all trying to tell me something?