I'm looking for romance novels that aren't... well typical genre novels. Being male I can hardly stomach the female-in-heat descriptions of Mr. tall dark and handsome. Which if its opposite was found in some hypothetical male-targeted romance genre would likely be scathingly labeled as the basest of male chauvinism...

Recently I've been listening to a lot of Georgette Heyer audio books, and quite like a few of them... my favorite is probably A Civil Contract. I like period romance if the writing and accuracy is approximately Heyer's level.

I don't want to see a lot of gratuitous sex or sexual abuse (past nor present), and I hate love triangles and melodrama. I'm a fairly avid fantasy/SF reader, so some sort of satisfying romance within those genres would be great as well.

i dont know why but 'Planetes' came to mind. i know its not exclusively romance but i still thght u might like it.... with it being the greatest manga in the world and all..

I'm pretty new to the (modern) chick-lit genre, so it'll be a while before I suggest those kind of books... but I'm gonna recommend (HANDS DOWN) my favorite romance of all time:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Oh period drama... if you liked that, I recommend watching the A&E 5 hour mini-series with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. Soooooo good -- of course... my opinion.

Since I love this book so much, I laughed when I saw THIS, and I had to get it. XD It's a fun parody.

I'll update this when I take a look at my books... I'm currently reading one right now that's pretty good...

And jedinat... you've made me want to buy a copy of A Civil Contract... but Amazon is failing me... grrrrrr....

Last edited by hobbitelf518 at 12:28 pm, Jan 16 2011

Thanks for the rec, but I have read Pride & Prejudice quite a few times, and seen the excellent BBC drama.


These Old Shades, Frederica, and The Grand Sophy are also good.

If you like Pride & Prejudice, then the other obvious choices are other books by Jane Austen or the Bronte Sisters.

Wuthering Heights (which you've probably already read), Jane Eyre, Villette, Rebecca.

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OoH! I just remembered one that a read a few years ago.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. It's told from both partner's POV. *le sigh

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And also Eyes of a Blue Dog which is a short story by that same writer.

Memoirs of Geisha by Arthur Golden is a wonderful book in my opinion when it comes to romance.

I just read this book called One Day by David Nicholls, it was pretty good. Not my favorite but a lot of people like it. It's kind if this opposites attract sort of thing. The two main characters Dexter and Emma have a one night stand in college and the span of there life, together and apart is pretty much the whole book. Dexter is all rock and roll, devil-may-care who gets a job hosting an MTV reality show while Emma, who loves books and wit, tries out a career in writing. You should give it a try, it is set in modern england though.

Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors. A wonderful romance that is beautifully written. It's about the daughter of the emporer who built the taj mahal after her mother, his wife, dies and Jahanara(the emporer's daughter) falls in love with the architect. It's quite a sensual romance.

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende is an awesome book in my opinion, I absolutely adore it. It's about an adopted girl living in Chile and she falls in love with a man who travels to San Francisco to make his fortune in gold and she follows him and instead meets this chinese man named Tao Chien and about how they fall in love and I highly recommend this book. Another romance that I liked by the same author is Eva Luna, again how two people from other sides of the planet somehow find each other. Definitely not as cheesy as it sounds, but it's not historical like Daughter of Fortune.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. You've probably read it but I'll rec anyways because I quite enjoyed it. Can be quite dramatic though.

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux is pretty good. It can be annoyingly dramatic but I think it's one of those books you should read at least once in your life.

Peony in Love by Lisa See is set sometime in ancient china I can't remember. If I recall the female protagonist was the sheltered daughter of an affluent chinese family who meets the son of an affluent chinese family. Sounds kind of typical, right However, she dies in the middle of the book, but she's still alive in the afterlife. It can be pretty dramatic but I adore Lisa See's books.

I know what you mean! Here I was, totally familiar with Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical (and constantly swooning over Michael Crawford's portrayal of the Phantom), and then I read the book and was shocked at how cheesy and weak the lovers were... the Phantom on the other hand had quite a bit up his sleeve!! I'd read this to know more about the Phantom.

Totally man, I especially expected more out of Christine. It should be a fair warning to any Phantom of the Opera musical lovers that the book characters are quite different. Christine was just so...so... shallow? I kept thinking as I was reading, she'll wise up, right? But...she never really did...but that was okay because the Phantom made up for it. Reading it was like watching an Opera blown out of porportion. There were some enjoyable parts, but the rest should have been toned down in consideration of the health of the audience's eardrums

CLEARLY you're looking for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Reading literature instead of genre fiction will produce better results. Quite frankly I'm not a huge fan of Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters, but there are plenty of literary romance novels that are far superior anyway.

I'm probably going to get some flak for suggesting this, but Nabokov's Lolita is one of the greatest romance novels of the twentieth century. It's painfully convincing, and although certainly morally ambiguous, it is far less disturbing than people seem to believe.

The aforementioned Love and the Time of Cholera is probably the best suggestion in this thread. Read it.

Of course, given that this is a manga forum, it's never bad taste to drop Murakami Haruki into the fray- Norwegian Wood remains one of the better novels published in the last fifty or so years, and even if it isn't his best work, it is his most convincing romance. South of the Border, West of the Sun is written in a similar vein, though it's far less artfully composed.

As long as we're on the page of Japanese novels, Snow Country (Kawabata) and Sanshiro (Natsume) are both worth looking at. Neither are happy-ending stories, but both are believable.

I can easily come up with piles more, but clearly I'm starting to veer off the path which would explicitly follow your request, so I'll cut off here for now.

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Georgette Heyer? Jane Austen? This thread is definitely right up my alley. <3

Soulless is one of my new favorite books. It's got the same sort of subtle British humor Austen and Heyer mastered, definitely has romance (although, to be fair, Lord Maccon definitely has the tall, dark, and handsome thing going for him XD), is paranormal, steampunk, and hilarious.

If you like satire (though you've probably already read it), The Princess Bride is also one of my favorite novels. It's really romantic, of course, but also... is a cross-section of every genre known to mankind. It's also one of the wittiest, funniest books I've ever read. And it's a thousand times better than the movie.

Eva Ibbotson's young adult novels, though rather formulaic, are wonderful as well. I reccommend The Morning Gift, A Countess Below Stairs, or The Reluctant Heiress, though they're all good. Also, I think I should note that the male protagonist usually has another female vying for his attentions, but... I don't really consider them love triangles, as affections aren't really split. *shrugs*

Another one I'm hesitant to suggest -- but really enjoyed -- is Clockwork Heart. It's a lovely blend of action, romance, and steampunk/fantasy, and.. is one of my favorite novels. There is a love triangle, I guess, but.. err... one of the male leads is... not the conventional hero. I think the world created in here's interesting, too. The author did a great job creating it.

Hmm... these are all novels that are entertaining, though perhaps not highbrow literature. *shrugs* If you'd prefer the latter, I can suggest some.

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The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley are excellent young adult fantasy romances. The first is a prequel to The Blue Sword, but they work as stand-alone novels. Both are great, though I liked the romance in The Blue Sword better.

I think I'm going to have to give Georgette Heyer a try. I've avoided her work because I somehow got the idea that they were typical romance novels, in which I have zero interest.

Once again I've read it, lol. It was a good book and quite a few scenes stuck with me, even though I think I shied off before I got to the end... I had the feeling I wasn't going to like the ending I think (or I got sidetracked reading something else, I don't rememebr, lol)

@DorkFishOK: I'll look into them.

@Crenshinibon: Thanks for the suggestions. I hesitate to read something like Lolita simply because I'm not looking to be depressed, lol. Once upon a time I could blissfully read pretty much anything as long as it was well-written... recently I find I don't have the stomach for certain story elements...



lol, I just started listening to the audiobook like yesterday but decided to drop it. It was too urban fantasy for me, with the spunky heroine, the "hunky cop" character, and relentless "wittiness" ...yeah. I went through a little phase a while back were those stories were entertaining, but now they're rather stale. Not a fan of Princess Bride, but I'll check out the others, thanks.


I've read them both and they were both great! Though I do remember being disappointed in the ending of one of the books, I can't remember which. I also really liked Sunshine by the same author, probably my favorite vampire book. I wish she had written a sequel.