I’m looking for a story with
- An immersive love story
- Great prose
- Is grounded in real world issues, thoughtful social commentary and themes
- Revolve around multifaceted characters with lots of depth
Here are some more specifics:
- HEA (Happily Ever Afters) aren’t a dealbreaker one way or another.
- Smut also isn’t a dealbreaker one way or another. I’ll read something on pretty much any level of the spice scale.
- I have a preference for Third Person POV but this is also not a deal breaker.
- While I’m open to it if it fits all other criteria, I would generally prefer stories that are not capital R genre Romance. I respect it as a genre but the heavy reliance on tropes, formula and the goals of it as a genre (absolute escapism, comfort, predictability and wish fulfillment etc.) just never seem to satisfy me. I’m always left wanting more.
- With that being said however, I am a sucker for stories with a forbidden love element (whether that be based on race, sexuality, religion, class etc).
- If you must recommend a romance, I would highly prefer one with an external plot. In other words, I want there to still be a story outside of just two people falling in love even if that is the meat of the story.
- Also please no insta-love!
- While Historical Fiction is my favorite genre, I have a strong preference for stories set during the 20th century.
- The only genuine dealbreaker I would say I have is please absolutely no fantasy! I can make exceptions for elements of magical realism but please regular humans and real world settings only!
Some examples of books I have enjoyed that fit all (or most) of this criteria are The Safekeep, One Day, The Hacienda, The Songbook of Benny Lamont, Jane Eyre, The Island of Missing Trees and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.
Some examples of books I disliked are The Kiss Quotient, Seven Days in June and Beach Read (didn’t care for the writing or love story but I liked the women’s/domestic fiction element of it).
Books by BIPOC authors and/or involving BIPOC characters would be a bonus!
by CleanUpWoMane
24 Comments
Check out Elizabeth Gaskell’s North & South.
Similar enemies to lovers he was feeling love all along vibes to p&p, but set during the industrial revolution and more direct in its class commentary.
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters!
I would say Outlander ticks all these boxes except not a BIPOC author.
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. Briliiant, immersive, romantic, tragic, fantastic.
Historical, love story and BIPOC? Have you read Pachinko by Min Jin Lee? There’s a reason it’s been called a modern classic.
The House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende – not fantasy, but it does have magic realism.
Spoils of Time trilogy by Penny Vincenzi. Really enjoyed these books. Not romance novels, but there are love stories. Immersive historical fiction.
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin checks all of your boxes! It is a really beautiful story with incredibly fresh social commentary and themes considering it was written in the 1970s. And Baldwin’s prose is incomparable.
If you liked *The Hacienda,* I also loved *Vampires of El Norte*.
A friend of mine **loves** *The Shell Seekers*, but I have not read it yet.
And *Slow Dance* by Rainbow Rowell is a recent favorite.
You might like Possession by A.S. Byatt!
I loved the Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. Diary-style historical fiction of Napoleon’s wife.
Hmm… ***The Lion Women of Tehran*** comes to mind. It takes place before and after the Revolution in Iran. It is beautiful, IMO… but romance is not so central to this. It is more about a strong female friendship! Any good?
*Love in the Time of Cholera* by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
*Arturo’s Island* by by Elsa Morante
*House of Many Gods* by Kiana Davenport
*The Age of Goodbyes* by Li Zi Shu
*Trumpet* by Jackie Kay
*Stork Mountain* by Miroslav Penkov
*The Volcano Lover* by Susan Sontag
*Days of Awe* by Achy Obejas
*The Lotus Eaters* by Tatjana Soli
United world universe by Yonatan batista Fernández
“Prodigal Summer” by Barbara Kingsolver is amazing and ticks most of the boxes. One of my favorite books. “Lady Tan’s Circle of Women” is super immersive historical fiction, but more a story of friendship than romantic love. “The Frozen River” is also super amazing. For Romance, I like most of Katherine Center’s books, especially “Happiness for Beginners.”
My Brilliant Friend (and the three sequels) by Elena Ferrante
Emma Donoghue’s The Sealed Letter
In Memoriam by Alice Winn. Set during ww1, about two young men from an English boarding school into the trenches.
The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith. Mid-20th-century book about a forbidden love story between two women in a culture that punished such relationships.
Katherine by Anya Seton. Set in 14th-century England, a more traditional romance book.
Sara Donati’s Into the Wilderness saga ticks most of your boxes – there are multiple love stories but one main one. Fish out of water themes as well.
And the first book of Sharon K Penman’s Welsh trilogy Here Be Dragons – it’s arranged-marriage-to-love and it’s amazing and well written as well as meticulously researched. It’s even more interesting since it’s about real historic figures. It might be a bit early for you – it’s about medieval Wales.
A second vote for Possession – it’s one of my favourite books of all time.
And A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth – at its heart a story about a young Indian woman’s choice for a husband between three candidates but so much more. Tremendously satisfying (but huge – it’s close to a thousand pages I think). This one is 20th century, set in post-independence India. It’s another favourite of mine.
I recommend the play, “Silent Sky” by Lauren Gunderson which is about the unheralded 19th century astronomer Henrietta Leavitt.
*The Book of Lost Names* by Kristin Harmel
WW2 story of a librarian remembering her time as a forger for helping Jewish people cross over through France to Switzerland.
*The Tattooist of Auschwitz* by Heather Morris
Again WW2, about a prisoner in Auschwitz-Birkenau who is forced to tattoo the new prisoners and survive. Romance with another prisoner.
*Lady Tan’s Circle of Women* by Lisa See
Set in the Ming dynasty (~1500’s) in China, Lady Tan is a women’s doctor. Has an arranged marriage and is forced to conform to society’s roles for females at the time. Based on a true story. Not really a forbidden romance, but there is forbidden friendship.
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead. Definitely more (or entirely) contemporary literature than romance, but it’s a sweeping story about a woman aviator through the 20th century with war, flying, bootlegging, a couple of epic love stories and art all included. This is the book I’ve recommended the most and everyone who has read it has loved it as much as me.
A Girl Called Samson by Amy Harmon checks a lot of these boxes. Elements of it reminded me a bit of Jane Eyre in the way it’s written, but it’s set during the American Revolution and is about a woman who goes to war disguised as a man. While the plot is based on real people and events, the author does take pretty big artistic license with the romance between two of them–to my knowledge, they weren’t romantically involved IRL. Not sure how much of a deal breaker that kind of wandering from history is for you.
The Frozen River