10 Romantic Favorites

I posted my list of romance favorites last year so didn't want to repeat myself with Valentine's Day just around the corner. So this year, I chose quirky.

By quirky I mean anything a little out of the ordinary or even lots out of the ordinary. Take your pick.

Of course if you want classic romance, then PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and PERSUASION, both by Jane Austin, is the way to go. But you already knew that.

Except for E.M. Forster's book, my list today is not classic in any sense, just stories I've read and enjoyed on a purely romantic level.

P.S. These titles are listed in no particular order. Kind of like they are on my disorganized shelves at home.

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1) ONE MORE VALENTINE by Anne Stuart

I've mentioned Anne Stuart before. She is just a wonderful teller of tales who happens to major in romance. I don't think she's ever written a bad book and believe me, over the years, I've read plenty of her stuff - she's one of my favorites. She can write contemporary fiction as well as historical and never miss a beat.

For whatever reason, I don't read as many romances these days, but I have fond memories of all of Stuart's books. This one in particular.

James Sheridan Rafferty died in the famed St. Valentine's Day massacre, February 14th, 1929. He expected to stay dead. But he's received a second chance at life - in 1993 - with one wicked proviso: He has only 48 hours to live unless he falls in love. So faster than you can say - huh? - Rafferty has to find the right woman, solve a crime and live happily ever after. Not bad for tough-talking gangster long ago dead.

A fun romance.

Sorry about the cover being sideways a bit - best copy I could find.

2) MISS EMMELINE AND THE ARCHANGEL by Rachel Lee

If you've ever read romances at one time or another, you should know the name of Rachel Lee. She majors in well-written love stories with tough, ruggedly handsome heroes and unique heroines, set in western locales.  Her stories feature murder either in the present or in the past and plenty of deep dark secrets.

This story is one of her excellent Conard County series, but none of them really needs to be read in any order. This one is my favorite of the books and one I occasionally still reread.

Miss Emmaline Conard is a 'spinster' librarian in the town named after her family. She is a likable if somewhat priggish woman whose one claim to beauty is her remarkable red hair. Emmaline has secrets - a horrible incident in her past that she can't quite remember. Plagued by nightmares, she tends to stay very much on her own. A town eccentric whose wishes are respected by most.

Gage Dalton is a loner.  Ex-military, he works for the sheriff occasionally. He too has secrets and the scars on his face (he looks, according to Emmaline, like a 'ruined' angel) to prove the violence of his past.

When the past - in the form of a sinister stalker - suddenly comes back to threaten Miss Emmaline, Gage is caught up in trying to help her.

Fabulous book. Part of the Silhouette Intimate Moments line. Sneer if you will, but Silhouettes has published some terrific writers over the years. Rachel Lee is one of them.

3) AMARYLLIS by Jayne Castle aka Jayne Ann Krentz

Set on an outer space earth colony called, St. Helen's, a place which has recently lost contact with the home planet, this is the first in series which can be read as totally separate books since the only commonality is the setting.

Amaryllis Lark is one of the best psychic detectives in the colony. Lucas Trent is the ruggedly handsome head of Lodestar Explorations. He hires Amaryllis to find a corporate thief, never thinking that the excruciatingly proper and buttoned-up Miss Lark (not at all his type) will plunge him into a 'wild' murder investigation and capture his heart in the bargain.

Which just goes to show you that love will find a way even in outer space.

4) LOVER IN THE SHADOWS by Lindsay Longford

The very enigmatic Detective John Harlan is investigating a series of murders in which Molly Harris,  a troubled young woman, has remained suspect. Now Molly has awakened at 'the break of dawn lying on the kitchen floor, clutching a bloody knife with no memory of how she'd gotten there.'

Molly's parents were brutally murdered and now, the death of her ex-maid has riveted suspicion on Molly once again. How will John Harlan believe in her innocence when Molly herself is doubtful.

But Detective Harlan has secrets of his own. There is something oddly sinister and feline about the look in his eyes. Hint: there's an oddly prescient black cat lurking in the vicinity and keeping an eye on Molly.

I can say no more.

5) TIM by Colleen McCullough

This was the basis for the television film many years ago, starring the still very young and very beautiful Mel Gibson and the wonderful actress, Piper Laurie.

McCullough's story is a sensitive exploration of love between two of the unlikeliest characters. Mary Horton is an older business woman who hires the developmentally challenged Tim Melville to do some simple landscaping work in her garden. Physically Tim is a grown man, but mentally he is still trustingly child-like.

"Mary Horton gazed at Tim, dumbfounded. Had he lived two thousand years ago, he might have served as a model for the greatest Apollos of all time...."

How these two disparate individuals come to depend on each other for their happiness makes for a 'love story with a difference...lovely, refreshing, sensitive, wise and triumphant.' Publisher's Weekly.

6) TO TOUCH THE SUN by Barbara Leigh

Such a fabulous love story though, again, highly improbable. I've read this several times and each time it casts its spell - it's just that good - even if it's a Harlequin Historical. This book proves that you just never know when or where you're going to find a well-written love story.

Drue is a chivalrous knight, courageous in battle and sworn to serve. When the famed and treacherous knight, Connaught, a tall imposing warrior on the field, is captured by the slightly more agile lad known as Sir Drue, it's the beginning of the end. For Drue has a secret that if revealed would end her life in disgrace. That's right, Drue is a young woman. Though she's been reared as a boy and taught the skills of a 13th century soldier. (I told you it was improbable.)

Written in a compelling and believable way, it didn't take me long to feel for Drue's plight, not to mention, admire her sword-fighting prowess.

Well, here's the problem: Connaught (though married) finds himself attracted to the young knight though he has never had these feelings for another man in his life. Repulsed and confused by his own feelings, he has no idea that Drue is a woman. At one point, still believing Drue is male, he begs her to run away with him to someplace where they can live together as outlaws. Obviously, love has addled the bold knight.

Of course, Drue is attracted to him but dares not reveal herself for fear of losing the only way of life she's ever known. You really do feel for her predicament as well as Connaught's desperate confusion.

How these two finally get everything straightened out makes for a wonderful, emotional, dramatic roller coaster ride. I loved it.

7) HIS MONKEY WIFE by John Collier

From the back cover: When Alfred Fattigay departs from colonial Africa for his native London, he brings along his trustworthy pet chimp, Emily, who, unbeknownst to Fatigay, has become civilized: literate, literary and in love with Fatigay himself.  After meeting Alfred's fiancee, Amy Flint - a 1920's "modern woman" - Emily sets out to save her beloved from Amy's cold grip.

"A wayward masterpiece..." Anthony Burgess

All I can say is that I fell in love with Emily myself - she is priceless. The last few sentences in the book are without a doubt, some of the oddest and most charming ever written.

8) THE SECRET PEARL by Mary Balogh

Mary Balogh is such a fine, inventive writer - so much so that sometimes she you do have to wonder at the way her characters and plotting stand out from the common Regency romance. Even at her most improbable (there's that word again), she never fails to fascinate.

I am most fond of the work she did years ago for the Signet Regency lines - still my favorite (next to Georgette Heyer's work) of the Regency novels. It is incredible to me that books that were published monthly could be so consistently well-written. Of course, depending on the author.

In THE SERCRET PEARL, Balogh writes a story that breaks the Regency's strictest social rules (as we've come to know them through books and films). It's the daring tale of Isabella Fleur Bradshaw, a gently born young woman who is cruelly cast off from her sheltered life.

Desperate for food and never having found herself alone and friendless on the streets of London, Fleur sells herself to a stranger on the street. That stranger is Adam Kent, Duke of Ridgeway, a man reeling from the scars of war and of a bad marriage. He is Fleur's first and last customer as afterwards, through a series of opportunities, Fleur becomes a governess.

 I know, I know, too incredible for words.

But, Mary Balogh makes it all work. Anyway, Fleur is then hired to take care of the children of a wealthy family out in the country.

You guessed it. It's the family of the Duke of Ridgeway, her one and only customer in her hour of desperation.

How this all works out, you'll have to read the book to see. All I can say is that the author makes it all believably, dramatically, romantic. Regency rules be damned.

9) MAURICE by E.M. Forstee

When Forster wrote this book (he began it in 1913) it was not to be published until after his death. The reason? MAURICE is, essentially, a gay love story with a happy ending. Hardly something that Forster's contemporaries would have welcomed or understood. Had the story ended in unrelieved tragedy, it probably would have been published earlier, but Forster was insistant on a happy ending. I say, good for him.

When Maurice (pronounced Morris) Hall meets Clive Dunham at university, they form a strong but chaste friendship. Maurice would like something more but Clive is, essentially, a charming coward afraid to admit his true sexual idendity - he will spend his life in the closet, trapped in a joyless marriage.

Later, while struggline to maintain a facade of family friendship to Clive and his wife and family, Maruice becomes involved with Alec, a worker on Clive's country estate

A revealing and well written book with an unforgettable ending. It is - dare I say it? - incredibly romantic as well.

10)  MILLARD FILLMORE, MON AMOUR by John Blumenthal

From the back cover:

Once a gangly teenager in oversized clothes, Plato C. Fussell is now handsome and independently wealthy. But inside he's still a bundle of neuroses and anxieties, with a tendency to engage in moronic word games in the presence of beautiful women.

In the midst of working on his definitive ten-volume biography of Millard Fillmore, Plato finds himself dodging his ex-wife, trying to please he demanding elderly mother by inquiring weekly about the state of her bowels, and attempting to remain verbally coherent while courting a young woman he meets after her errant Frisbee connects with his cranium.

As Plato blunders on in search of true love, romance, and an acceptable degree of world-wide cleanliness, he discovers that loving someone and knowing them needn't go hand in hand.

"In John Blumenthal's world you don't have to be crazy to fall in love, but it certainly helps..." Carolyn Michon.

I agree with Carolyn. This is an often laugh-out-loud romantic tale of highly improbable love - as you no doubt noticed, my favorite kind.

Note: Artwork at top of the post by Gil Elvgren.

Speaking of Lips: 10 Romance Novels I Love

Okay, it's that month again. Valentine's Day approaches and for those of you with happy entanglements, have a good one. For the rest of us: let's watch a movie or read a book or, for that matter, eat a whole box of chocolates or a carton of Friendly's Caramelot Ice Cream. It's almost the same thing. (You could also work on a short story for my Short Story Challenge.

Just sayin'...

10 ROMANCE BOOKS I LOVE:

1) PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen. Yeah, I know, how dare I call this a romance novel, but - well, you know, it is. The fact that it's a brilliantly written book by a 19th century woman with an exceptional brain and that the book is really about human nature, doesn't mean it isn't a romance of the first water. The two can co-exist. Don't see why not.

2) JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte. Same reasoning as above though this time add the sweeping dramatic romance of the moors and the darkly brooding inclination of the mid 19th century hero. I could never imagine Mr. Darcy behaving quite like Mr. Rochester - can you?

The rest of the books on my list are less well known, less celebrated and certainly not literary classics. But that doesn't make them less worthwhile, at least in my view. A good romance = a good romance, if well written. Pure and simple.

3.) SCANDAL by Amanda Quick. This is one of the early Amanda Quick aka Jayne Ann Krentz books that I absolutely adore. I've read it countless times. My enthusiasm for it's wittiness, it's wry romance, it's delightful take on Regency romantic mores knows no bounds. Especially in view of the fact that, very regretfully, I stopped reading Krentz/Quick a few years ago. (Won't go into the reasons why. I don't like to deal in negativity. Let's just say, when her writing style and outlook changed, so did my interest.)

This book is so well constructed and so delightfully intriguing given that the couple in question, Simon Traherne, Earl of Blade and Miss Emily Faringdon, are married from the second or third chapter on. Usually an early marriage, unless the writer is very skilled, is the portent of doom for a romance. Yet, in this instance, the author keeps my interest and my need to know 'what happens next.' Not an easy feat let me tell you, especially in a romance novel where most of the tension is supposed to be of the 'will they/won't they' variety. I think, possibly, this is the author's best Regency novel, if you're going by sheer 'delight' quotient. Though she's written several other romances that I've loved almost as well.

4) THE NIGHTINGALE LEGACY by Catherine Coulter. I wrote briefly, about this book in my Fairy Tale Mysteries post a while back, but it's worth posting about again and again and again. And again, I use the word: delightful. I'm big on being delighted, especially if the storyline is preposterous and the book is, basically, a parody of the romance genre. There's something about Coulter's Regency voice that is like no other writer of the genre. (It's odd that she loses that 'uniqueness' when she writes her modern thrillers. But that's fuel for another post.)

Nightingale is part of a trilogy of books: The Wyndham Legacy, The Nightingale Legacy and the Valentine Legacy. Though all are pretty wonderful - of the three, Nightingale is the jewel in the crown. It concerns the misadventures of 19 year old Caroline Derwent-Jones, on the run from her odious guardian Roland Ffalkes - holding her guardian's grown son Owen, hostage as they both flee in the night - on the eve of coming into her inheritance. A sizable inheritance that Ffalkes wants to wrestle from her, by hook or by crook - mostly by crook. When Owen becomes ill (he's a wimpy sort given to catarrh), they're forced to stop at a roadside inn. When the previously mentioned odious guardian catches up with them, another traveler at the inn, a handsome, enigmatic sort, comes to her aid. Frederick North Nightingale, Earl of Chilton. (I know, I know, there's always an Earl or two hanging about these tales. But it wouldn't be any fun without 'em.) sees the way the wind is blowing and offers to escort Caroline and her hostage, Owen to the home of Caroline's aunt which, coincidentally, happens to be near his own estate. Of course, at the time, Caroline doesn't know he's got a title, or anything else about him except that he's appears to have a melancholy nature. Unlike most Regency novels, this story takes place on the moor. The book is a total hoot from beginning to end, even if there are murderous doings and hints of tragedy hang heavy over the Nightingale legacy. Read it. You'll thank me.

5) GRAND PASSION by Jayne Ann Krentz. This is Krentz (aka Amanda Quick) at her best and she's written quite a few modern romances that are absolutely top notch. I love this moody story set in Washington state, at an inn by the coast. (Well, I do love books set in Washington state, most especially in or near Seattle if possible.) The hero is your usual broodingly mysterious loner bristling with cynicism and good looks. His name in this instance is Max Fortune. (I love it!) The heroine's name is Cleopatra Robbins (Krentz is known for her quirky names.). She's the owner of the inn on the coast and a newly published writer. Max is the head of the Curzon Hotel chain. He has arrived at the inn incognito, to see about some paintings which he believes are hidden or have been stolen by either Miss Robbins or one of her employees. He is also under the impression that Miss Robbins was the mistress of his recently deceased boss Jason Curzon, an older gentleman who'd taken Max under his wing as an orphaned kid. The paintings that Max is searching for are, he believes, the legacy Jason left him.

The main reason this book works so well is the characterization of Max Fortune, pure and simple. He is the fulcrum. A wonderfully conceived character, written very, very well. One of Jayne Ann Krentz's best creations. Fabulous book.

6) TIM by Coleen McCullough. This is a quiet love story by the author of THE THORN BIRDS. (Another great romance in a totally different vein - a blood and thunder romance which, if you haven't read it and you love a great, thumping good love story, you should. The television movie with Richard Chamberlain is almost as good.)

TIM was also turned into an Australian TV movie. (The story is set there.) It starred a very young and very beautiful Mel Gibson (before he got old, lost his looks and went nutso) and the wonderful Piper Laurie. Even later it was turned into a so/so film with Candice Bergen. (Skip the Bergen and watch the Piper Laurie one, even if you dislike Gibson's latest persona. He was young and beautiful and worth watching, once upon a time.)

This is a May/December romance with a twist. The heroine is an older business woman, Mary Horton, who hires a young man to do some landscaping work around her property. The twist is that the young man, Tim Melville, is 'slow'. He has the intelligence of a kid. He has always been protected by his family who at first, are uneasy about him working, unsupervised, for Mary. When they perceive (from something Tim says in passing) that she's elderly (she's not, she's merely in her forties, I believe), they are okay with the arrangement. The inevitable happens, as time goes by and Tim begins to focus all his attention on Mary, unaware that he should not be doing so. Mary too finds herself being drawn in. The ending is both surprising and sensible. Though with a final episode that hints at the possibility of trouble to come because of Tim's child-like grasp on life.

This could have easily been an uneasy, 'icky' sort of love story if done by a less talented writer, but Coleen McCullough makes it work. It is a wonderful book.

7) RAVISHED by Amanda Quick. Another from aka Jayne Ann Krentz. This is a sort of re-telling of Beauty and the Beast - it has a lot of the old fairy tale feel about it, most especially in the creation of the hero, Gideon Westbrook, Viscount St. Justin (Viscounts and Earls are very necessary to these sorts of tales), known to the local villagers as the Beast of Blackthorne Hall for his scarred face and lecherous past. Hardly husband material for the likes of Miss Harriet Pomeroy, spinster and 'ancient skeleton' fancier. And yet, somehow, it all comes together thanks to Amanda Quick's dexterity but most especially thanks to her exceptional talent for characterization. I surely miss the way she used to work.

8) THE OUTSIDER by Penelope Williamson. A love story set in Montana of the late 1800s with a heart wrenching ending that will leave you breathless - no less. Rachel Yoder is a young widow left alone to raise her boy after the vigilante murder of her sheep herder husband. She is a member of the 'Plain People', a strict Amish sect that values simplicity and 'plain' living. One winter afternoon her life is changed forever when she watches a wounded stranger - the outsider of the title - struggle to make his way across her land, barely walking, barely alive.

His name is Cain. He is a hired killer, wounded in an ambush.

I loved this book and have reread it several times. Again, characterization is so key here.

9) THE WAY HOME by Sandra Kitt. This is another re-read of mine - one of those Harlequin American Romance books that is probably very hard to find at this late date, but what the heck, I love it. This is an intriguing story of a woman living in limbo, unsure if her husband is alive or dead. He'd disappeared on a trip to London and she hasn't had word since. When a business trip (she works for a rare book dealer) sends her to England, Taylor Ashe sees her chance to try and find out what's happened to her husband. At Heathrow, she's held up for a couple of reasons: her American passport has expired and her explanation of why she's in England seems fishy, especially since her missing husband's name (she's using her married name, but the name on the expired passport is different) rings a bell for the interviewing official. In a Kafka-esque few scenes, she is passed along to another official - of the embassy, she assumes - while she waits at Heathrow for an emergency passport to be approved and issued.

In this last and most curious interview, she notices a man sitting on the sidelines, not taking part in the conversation, but watching and listening intently to her story. He is tall, dark and handsome and never takes his sunglasses off during the whole time they're indoors. His name is Dane Farrow and through a series of circumstances, he becomes a sort of guardian/bodyguard for Taylor, watching over her as she gets too close to the truth of what happened to her husband - a man who, apparently, never existed. Great love story.

10) THE DREYFUS AFFAIR by Peter Lefcourt. I reviewed this book a while back and hopefully conveyed my enthusiasm for a story which is a heady mix of satire, comedy, drama and romance. What happens when the Golden Glove-winning short-stop of a professional baseball team headed for the post-season, finds himself falling in love with his equally Golden Glove-winning second baseman? To add even more fuel to the incendiary mix, the short-stop is white and the second baseman is black. Oh, and the short-stop is married and the father of two. Read the book if you want to know what happens next to these very likable characters who suddenly find themselves in the eye of a very volatile storm. It is a terrific love story even if the characters and the setting are not what you'd expect. Here's a link to my review.

Artwork at the very top of the post is by the one and only: J.C. Leyendecker.