There’s no “official” request for this one. We were just inspired by a HaBO that was sent in!
The title is self-explanatory. Give us all your romance characters who were raised by nuns!
Sarah: Isn’t there a whole fantasy series of assassin nuns?
Amanda: Grave Mercy is the first book by Robin LaFevers.
Sarah: There has to be a Goodreads list, right?
Carrie: ASSASSIN NUNS?
Mostly I come across raised by nuns tropes in horror, not romance.
Would a religious school count? Jane Eyre is raised in a religious school but not by nuns. There’s a ghost nun in the school in Villette.
Sarah: Okay. I have a few more. There’s a McNaught which is heckin’ old and not one of my favorites
The one with the box and the pink background. HOW GREAT IS MY BRAIN RIGHT I KNOW.
A Kingdom of Dreams aka The McNaught with the pink background and the box. Or, “pink box,” but don’t Google that for the love of all that is holy.
Elyse: Wasn’t there a Catherine Coulter too?
Sarah: This one is a medieval, which is not always my favorite. Definitely a Garwood out there.
Elyse: Or was it that the mom was a nun in that one…
Sarah: Maybe? Coulter blends together, alas. Except for Midsummer Magic because of the cream.
And yes, there is a Goodreads list! Check out all the old skool!
Do you love this trope? Give us your recommendations!
I just read one where the English heroine is raised by French nuns and basically they sell her to an English baddie who is “gasp” related to the hero. I can’t for the life of me remember the title, but I think it’s pretty recent.
Ah I remember A SEASON TO BE SINFUL by Jo Goodman.
Lynsay Sands has a couple – Always and An English Bride in Scotland. Also In Bed with a Highlander by Maya Banks.
Doesn’t Beauvallet find his future wife in a nunnery in Spain? And what about the Devil Cynster doesn’t he first meet his future wife in a nunnery, or is that a different Cynster? And the more I ponder this, the more I think my mind has made this all up, it was all such a long time ago. Maybe time for a re-read.
There’s one of the absolute essentials of romance: Anya Seton’s KATHERINE, a fictionalization of the life of Katherine Swynford, mistress (later, wife) of John of Gaunt. When the book opens, Katherine is leaving the convent where she has spent a good portion of her childhood. Themes of faith, piety, and what it means to lead a “good” (as in, moral) life thread throughout the book.
La fille du puisatier / The Well-Digger’s Daughter – a play by Marcel Pagnol. Film adaptations in 1940 and 2011.
THE NIGHT OF THE SEVENTH MOON by Victoria Holt takes place in a former convent and a legend about the nuns plays a key role.
A cursing nun — A LADY’S SECRET by Jo Beverly.
I feel like there must be a Mary Stewart with a heroine like this but can’t think of one. Must be lots of medieval romances, but I don’t read tons of them….
THE MARSH KING’S DAUGHTER by Elizabeth Chadwick features a girl escaping from a closed convent to chase King John’s treasure. (Elizabeth Chadwick reads like a less pulpy Philippa Gregory, with better attention to historical timelines.)
Susannah Kearsley I believe The Firebird! (So so good)
Secret Daughter of a Scottish insurgent is taken from her foster family for safety and stashed in a nunnery for years.
Betina Krahn wrote a trilogy, Brides of Virtue, where the three heroines where raised by nuns–The Husband Test, The Wife Test, and The Marriage Test.
I’m off topic here, but just read an excellent long read in The Guardian about diversity in romance, which mentions SBTB! I’d be interested if there’s any comments on this. It piqued my interest in a number of the books mentioned.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/04/fifty-shades-of-white-romance-novels-racism-ritas-rwa
LORD OF DANGER by Anne Stuart — medieval romance where heroine and her sister have been raised in a convent by nuns, and the beginning of the story sees them leaving said convent.
Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy – it’s not a romance (don’t believe the movie version) but it’s a juicy, soapy coming of age / friends growing up together book set in Ireland in the 50s or 60s. One of the young women is an orphan raised by a loving nun.
I didn’t know raised by nuns was such a common trope. The more you know I guess. There’s also Fire Song by Roberta Gellis where evil relatives sent the heroine to the nunnery after her father’s death so they could steal her fortune. She eventually finds this out and escapes. I will warn that this book is a Medieval romance that leans more towards the historical side of things and is a little slow, but pretty well written.
Julie Garwood’s Castles has a heroine who was raised by nuns.
And I think the Stephanie Laurens Cynster novel with the heroine raised by nuns was Devil’s parents book,The Promise in a Kiss.
An old (written in the ’80″s) by Jude Devereux, I think The Velvet Promise, had a heroine who was raised for the Church and was yanked out of that to marry the hero who was initially a total jerk. I remember this book especially (other than the title) because, rather than pine and wring her hands in sorrow as so many heroines written in that era did, Judith basically said “to hell with you”. She expected to run the convent some day so she had learned to manage people and land. The hero abandoned her at his estate and when he came back, expecting her to be all scared and intimidated, he found that she had assumed complete control of the estate and was running it far better than it had ever been run before. It was one of the first totally competent heroines I had read in the genre and it made perfect sense once I thought about it that a woman in a convent was not necessarily all that unworldly.
First romance I ever read, the heroine was raised by nuns and then shipwrecked with a pirate. “Lady of Fire” by Valerie Vayle.
Verrrry old school.
I recently finished the first LaFevers book. Alternative historical France/Brittany with some paranormal bits. The MC wasn’t raised by nuns, but the nuns raised a few of their novices from childhood, I think. Quite enjoyable. Looking forward to the next one.
How about an oldie, Uncommon Vows by Mary Jo Putney? The heroine was in a nunnery from the age of 10, and as a bonus, the hero was about to become a monk before his family was killed and he inherited his father’s title.
The His Fair Assassin series is EXCELLENT and the newest book just came out. However, it’s a very atypical convent. does it count if the convent in question raises you to seduce men and then kill them?
I LOVED the original His Fair Assassin trilogy but the newest book did not grab me. I’m about 100 pages in and I’m really struggling with whether to continue. Has anyone finished it? thoughts?
It’s a bit of (OK, quite a bit of) a stretch, but Desire by Amanda Quick has a couple of different nuns in a mentoring relationship with the heroine although she wasn’t convent-educated. (I mostly bring it up because I love that book and will take any excuse to mention it to people.)
@DiscoDollyDeb, once again I feel we are sisters from different mothers. Katherine was the first book to pop into my mind. Followed by the queen of old skool bodice rippers, Sweet Savage Love. While it’s been a VERY long time since I last cracked that one open, I’m 99% sure cat eyed heroine, Ginnie, was a convent girl.
I think there’s a Dara Joy historical that had a sweet young thing recently sprung from a convent. Tonight or Never, maybe?
Now that Regency/Victorian era romances set in England have taken over, the convent bred heroine is a rare animal.
@ellenm
I enjoyed the new book because it features Sybella and Beast, but the new character didn’t really appeal to me. I’m hoping the next book is stronger but honestly, I feel like Annith’s book wrapped things up more or less satisfactorily and people could stick with the original trilogy.
I 3rd Katherine. Has there ever been an Anya Seton review on this site? Dragonwyck is my fave.
@ PatriciaM – I was also thinking of The Velvet Promise. My neighbor I shared romance novels with and I loved that series back in the day!
In a completely different direction than many of these recommendations. The first book to pop into my mind was a paranormal/fantasy with the orphaned heroine (and her brother) raised by St Midori’s.
Tsumiko and the Enslaved Fox by Forthright
I’ve got one that wasn’t on the Goodreads list, “His Housekeeper’s Christmas Wish” by Louise Allen. The heroine was raised in a convent, she’s an orphan, and the hero mistakes her for a nun in the beginning. It’s the first of a very enjoyable quartet of books called Lords of Disgrace, where the 4 heroes have names alluding to the 4 elements: fire, water, earth and air.
I haven’t read the book but read the sample recently due to another SBTB thread, others may know if this is properly applicable – The Eight by Katherine Neville.
@EJ @DonnaMarie @DiscoDollyDeb:
I also thought of Katherine.
@DonnaMarie:
I think you might be thinking of Wicked Loving Lies. I haven’t read it, but I remember that featuring in the synopsis. I’m actually a bit afraid to read it because of the trainwreck quality I got from Sweet Savage Love and Dark Fires. I had to think of the sequel.
The Book of the Ancestors is a great fantasy trilogy with warrior nun assassins… our main character is being raised to be one of these warrior nuns in warrior nun boarding school (she was saved from the gallows after murdering a ring fighter… she was 8. She is Not To Be Fucked With.), and we follow her as she grows up and deals with all the political bullshit/impending climate change disasters. Some of the nuns are in love with each other, and all of them kick so much ass. The third/final book comes out next week (Holy Sister) and I’m pretty sure it’s going to stick the landing hard from what I’ve read so far. First one is Red Sister, second is Grey Sister, and then there’s a novella where our main warrior nun has pants feelings for a ring fighter guy who is very into what a bad ass she is. It’s so so good!
@Carol: The Mary Stewart you are thinking of is Thunder on the Right. Heroine wasn’t raised in a convent, but has a cousin who lived in one.
https://marystewartreading.wordpress.com/books/thunder-on-the-right/
Like Mel Burns, I also thought of the Jo Goodman’s A SEASON TO BE SINFUL. The author writes some truly evil villains.
Bound to Be a Bride and Bound to Be a Groom by Megan Mulry both have heroines who were raised in convents. (Pretty sure it was the same convent, but I don’t remember for sure. It’s been a while since I read them.)
Okay, this is COMPLETELY off topic, but the title made me laugh.
Perhaps y’all are familiar with Jean-Claude Van Damme? If you’ve watched any of his old movies you are probably also aware that sometimes they had to reach pretty far to explain his accent? [For instance, in Universal Soldier, he’s an American soldier but they make it clear he’s from deep in Louisiana where they still speak French. (?)]
ANYWAY, in Double Impact he plays twins who are orphaned and raised apart – one an American raised in France and one raised in China. But the movie has a one shot moment where the twin raised in China is taken in at a convent of French nuns.
So that is why my husband and I have for decades used the phrase “he was raised by French nuns” to explain anything ridiculous in movies – or in life, really.