Isn't It Romantic?
A Suggested List of well written, cross-over genre novels with a romantic tone

Austen, Jane.
Pride and Prejudice
Wealthy Mr. Darcy and spirited Elizabeth Bennett dislike each other at first sight, and each must contend with their pride and prejudices while Elizabeth's mother plots economically advantageous marriages for all her daughters. YA PB Aus (Main & West)

Bronte, Charlotte.
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre becomes a governess in Mr. Rochester's home of Thornfield and falls in love with him before she finds that he has a tragic secret. Fic Bro (Main & West)

Bronte, Emily.
Wuthering Heights
When Mr. Lockwood has an encounter with the spirit of Catherine Linton at the home of the unsociable Heathcliff, he hears the story of the tempestuous love affair between Catherine and Heathcliff. YA PB Bro (Main & West)

Byatt, A.S.
Possession
The lives of two modern scholars parallel the lives of the two Victorian poets that the scholars are researching. Fic Bya (Main)

Crusie, Jennifer.
Faking It
Matilda Goodnight and Davy Dempsey are both trying to get the upper hand with gold-digging Clea Lewis, but they forge a temporary alliance to take on an inept art collector, an exasperated hit man, and a seductive femme fatale. Fic Cru or LT Cru (Main)

De Bernieres, Louis.
Corelli’s Mandolin
Corelli, an Italian army captain, falls in love with Pelagia Iannis on the island of Cephalonia after the Axis forces occupy the island in World War II. Fic DeB (Main & West)

Du Maurier, Daphne.
Rebecca
The tale of the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter, who enters the home of her mysterious and enigmatic new husband and learns the story of the house's first mistress, to whom the sinister housekeeper is unnaturally devoted. Fic DuM (Main)

Esquivel, Laura.
Like Water for Chocolate
At the beginning of the 20th century, Tita, the youngest of three daughters, is expected to serve her mother for the rest of her life, but in order to show her love to Pedro, who is engaged to her sister, Tita cooks for him. Fic Esq (Main & West)

Finney, Jack.
Time and Again
Simon Morley moves into the Dakota apartments and returns to the year 1882 under hypnosis, where he falls in love and refuses to change records for the government agency controlling his experiment. Fic Fin (Main)

Gabaldon, Diana.
Outlander
In Scotland with her husband on a second honeymoon after World War II, Claire enters a circle of stones and is transported back to the Battle of Culloden 200 years earlier, where she must marry a Scot to save her husband. Fic PB Gab (Main & West)

Kaye, M.M.
The Far Pavilions
Between the Mutiny of 1857 and the second Afghan war, Ashton Pelham-Martyn lives in India where, while serving as a secret agent, he loves an Indian princess.

McCullough, Colleen.
The Thorn Birds
Meggie, daughter of a Catholic father and a Protestant mother with deep secrets, harbors a love for a Catholic priest. Fic McC (Main)

Mitchell, Margaret.
Gone with the Wind
Scarlett O'Hara faces and survives the Civil War and Reconstruction and marries Rhett Butler for his money because her true love has married someone else. F Mit (Main)

Niffenegger, Audrey.
Time Traveler’s Wife
This is the story of Clare, a beautiful art student, and Henry, an adventuresome librarian. They met when Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and married when Clare was twenty-three and Henry thirty-one. Impossible but true: Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder. Fic Nif (Main & West)

Pasternak, Boris.
Doctor Zhivago
Yuri Zhivago, doctor and poet, lives and loves during the first three decades of 20th-century Russia.

Picoult, Jody.
Second Glance
A man's attempt to sell a piece of land and the resulting Abenaki tribe's protest that it is a sacred burial ground spurs an investigation by ghost hunter Ross Wakeman, who discovers a long-hidden murder haunting a small Vermont town. Fic Pic (Main & West)

Quick, Amanda.
Mystique
Hugh the Relentness needs both a wife to make him look better and the green crystal stolen from Lady Alice, but Lady Alice plans only to study natural philosophy and never to marry, so the two make a bargain. F QUI (Main)

Ray, Jeanne.
Julie and Romeo
Meet the Cacciamanis and the Rosemans, rival florists and bitter enemies for as long as either family can remember, until one day when divorced Julie Roseman and widowed Romeo Cacciamani meet by chance at a small business seminar in the Boston Sheraton. Fic Ray (Main)

Seton, Anya.
Katherine
John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford, Chaucer's sister-in-law, fall in love in the 14th century. Fic Set (West)

Annotations courtesy of NoveList.

DG 5/07