Romantic Fiction Collection Series

Beautiful Emma Bovary dreams of love and riches but her marriage to Charles, a dull country doctor, is far from satisfying. In an attempt to escape the narrow confines of her life, she embarks on a series of passionate affairs, hoping to find the romantic ideal she always dreamed about in the arms of other men, but it soon becomes clear that she is hurtling towards tragedy. Gustave Flaubert’s daring portrait of adultery is masterpiece of realist literature has lost none of its impact today.

Dana Mayo is young, beautiful, wealthy, and independent. Bored by the eligible bachelors and endless parties of the English aristocrats, she arranges for a trek through the Algerian desert. Two days into her adventure, she is kidnapped by the powerful Sheik Ahmed Ben-Hassan, who forces her into submission. Dana tries desperatley to resist but finds herself falling in love with the dark and handsome stranger. What follows is a tale of mystery, power, and forbidden love fulfilled.

A young girl from the city, Ruth Thorne, visits her spinster aunt's house in the New England countryside. While exploring the attic, Ruth discovers a chest of mementos from her aunt's romantic past. Journalist Carl Winfield helps her unravel the past, and soon she finds herself reliving the old romance. A sweet Victorian romance novel with a bit of mystery, "Lavender and Old Lace" is Myrtle Reed’s most famous work.

First published in 1901, Growing up in the Australian outback, creative and headstrong Sybylla Melvyn dreams of becoming a famous writer despite long odds and the objections of her family. Forced by money problems to move in with her rich grandmother, she soon makes the acquaintance of a handsome landowner, Harry, and wins him over despite their class differences. When Harry proposes, Sybylla must choose between romantic love an the brilliant career she craves.

Peacock’s novella Nightmare Abbey is a gentle satire of the then-popular gothic movement in literature. He pokes fun at the genre’s obsessions and most of the book’s characters are caricatures of well-known personages of the time. Young Scythrop is the only son of Mr. Glowry, living in the semi-ruined Nightmare Abbey on his estate in Lincolnshire. Mr. Glowry, the survivor of a miserable marriage, is addicted to the depressing and the morbid, surrounding himself with servants whose names, such as Raven, Graves and Skellet, reflect his obsessions. His friends, also, are chosen from those who best reflect his misanthropic views. Scythrop himself imagines himself a philosopher with a unique view of the world, and to this end has written a treatise titled “Philosophical Gas; or, a Project for a General Illumination of the Human Mind.” Only seven copies of this treatise have ever been sold, and Scythrop dreams of being united with one of the buyers. His passions, though, become more earthy when he falls in love both with his cousin Marionetta and then also with a mysterious woman who appears in his apartment and begs him for asylum, thus creating a situation of romantic farce as he tries to decide between the two. These events are interleaved beween entertaining discussions among the varied guests at Nightmare Abbey, richly filled with humor, allusions and quotation. Nightmare Abbey is probably Peacock’s most successful work of fiction, and helped establish his position as an important satirist of his times. His satire, though, is light-hearted rather than savage and is directed more at foolish opinions than attacking particular persons.

Agnes is Don Lorenzo's younger sister and Don Raymond's lover. Her mother fell ill while pregnant with Agnes and vowed to send Agnes to the convent if she delivered her safely. She is a virtuous young lady who intends to marry Don Raymond but her parents want her to become a nun, so she decides to run away with him. Their plans are foiled and, thinking Don Raymond has abandoned her forever, she enters the convent.Ambrosio is an extremely devout monk about 30 years old. He was found left at the Abbey doorstep when he was too young to tell his tale. The monks consider him a present from the Virgin Mary and they educate him at the monastery.Antonia is a timid and innocent girl of 15. She was brought up in an old castle in Murcia with only her mother Elvira and is therefore very sheltered. She is the object of Don Lorenzo's attentions. The novel's evil characters are considered to be better written than the virtuous ones, and Antonia's character is so virtuous that some have found her "deadly dull".Elvira is the mother of Antonia and Ambrosio. She married a young nobleman in secret. His family does not approve of her and because of this she and her husband escape to the Indies, leaving her 2-year-old son behind. After 13 years, when Antonia is very young, her husband dies and she returns to Murcia where she lives on an allowance given to her by her father-in-law.Leonella is Elvira's sister and Antonia's spinster aunt. She takes an immediate dislike to Ambrosio after hearing his sermon. She believes Don Christoval's polite attentions are more significant than they actually are and is hurt when he fails to call at her house. She eventually marries a younger man and lives in Cordova.Don Lorenzo de Medina is Agnes's older brother and friend of Don Raymond and Don Christoval. Immediately intrigued by Antonia after meeting her at Ambrosio's sermon, Don Lorenzo resolves to marry her.

This delirious 1925 Jazz Age classic introduced readers to Lorelei Lee, the small-town girl from Little Rock, who has become one of the most timeless characters in American fiction. Outrageous and charming, this not-so-dumb blonde has been portrayed on stage and screen by Carol Channing and Marilyn Monroe and has become the archetype of the footloose, good-hearted gold digger (not that she sees herself that way). Masquerading as her diaries, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes follows Lorelei as she entertains suitors across Europe before returning home to marry a millionaire. In this delightfully droll and witty book, Lorelei’s glamorous pragmatism shines, as does Anita Loos’s mastery of irony and dialect. A craze in its day and with an ageless appeal.

Two young teens, Dick and Emmeline, are stranded on a idyllic, South Pacific island after a shipwreck. The two spend their days swimming, diving for pearls, and exploring their bountiful island. Slowly as they grow they fall into an innocent love. Ignorant of their human sexuality, they do not understand or know how to express their physical attraction to one another. The two conducted their courtship just as the birds conduct their love affairs. Their relationship develops absolutely naturally, blameless and without sin; a marriage according to nature. This classic tale has inspired multiple major motion pictures.

One of the only L.M. Montgomery books featuring an older heroine, The Blue Castle is widely hailed as a reader favorite. Valancy Stirling is 29, unmarried, and has never been in love. Living with her overbearing mother and meddlesome aunt, she finds her only consolation in the "forbidden" books of John Foster and her daydreams of the Blue Castle a place where all her dreams come true and she can be who she truly wants to be. Shortly after her birthday Valancy receives some news about her health that makes her decide to throw caution to the wind and make a fresh start. Rebelling against her family she soon discovers a surprising new world, full of love and adventures far beyond her most secret dreams.