It's an oldie but goodie...have you ever read the Thorn Birds by Collen McCullough? It was quite a splash in its day...

Or Dr Zhivago...

I recently read and loved The Art of Hearing Heartbeats...it's a beautiful love story, but not a "bodice ripper".

I second Annie's recommendation for the Art of Hearing Heartbeats. And if you haven't read Beautiful Ruins, I highly recommend it, too. Not a typical love story, but so much romance!

I have read Thorn Birds, it must have been 30 years ago. Remember when Richard Chamberlain starred in the TV miniseries? My mother was glued to the set :)

I'll check into Beautiful Ruins and Art of Hearing Heartbeats--have not heard of either.

My favorite romances are The Grand Sophy, The Time Travelers Wife and Touch Not the Cat.

In terms of genre reads, I really love Susan Elizabeth Phillips if you like light/funny contemporary romance. She's definitely the uber queen of the genre and is good enough to pull in non-genre readers. Jennifer Crusie is another fun author in funny contemporary.

Loretta Chase writes really great historicals...I only wish she was more prolific! She's definitely more bodice ripper material but fun and feisty.

- signed, furtive genre fiction reader (romance, mystery, scifi, fantasy)

No need to be furtive here, Robo! I have enjoyed many a genre fiction binge myself. I can still remember when a customer recommended Outlander to me. I thought "Time travel? No way!" and then I read it... I'm so glad that customer really pitched it.

With SEPS I would start with Match Me If You Can and then Natural Born Charmer. They're a little out of order but that's fine and match me if you can is one of my faves. The farther back you go in some of these catalogs the less feminist they get as the authors tend to change with the times.

My two recent favorite series

The Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (plus the 2 others on the series).

Into the Wilderness by Sarah Donati (6 books in the series). This is a lot like Outlander but without the time travel element. Claire even has a mention in the book with Diana Gabaldon's approval.

Any one of the Outlander series, though I love the entire story line so much, I would start at the beginning and read Outlander - followed by the remaining eight books. I’m a total fan of these, and the TV adaptations.

I've read all the Outlanders multiple times, and I've also read Into the Wilderness, though I guess I lost track of the fact that there were others in that series. Outlander is really the gold standard in my mind. Diana Gabaldon posted a "methadone list" of books to read between her new books coming out, and that's where I learned about Donati's books. I wonder if Diana has added anything new to that list?

I bought Discovery of Witches for my DD a few years ago, I'll look around and see if it's still here. Thank you all for the suggestions and feel free to add more. I am excited to have these ideas.

Oh, I forgot about Sara Donati’s series, which I also read and enjoyed. Not quite as deep as Outlander, but enjoyable just the same. Outlander is still my #1.

You might enjoy the RF Delderfield Swann series, starting with the first one which was soooo romantic in terms of the love story between the protagonists. If you like historical fiction it's also great, set in England during the Victorian era. And bonus points for having several books about the family so if you want to while away lots of beach time you can just keep reading!

Gosh, Annie, I read the Thorn Birds and Dr Zhivago ages ago. I think Zhivago when I was in high school.

I got hooked on Dorothea Benton Frank a few years ago. She writes about the coastal South Carolina area and her stories always involve a little romance, but not the crazy bodice ripping kind either. Good characters and she really cares about the setting. My favorite was 'Plantation'.

A little off-topic, but I was reading the one and two star ratings for A Discovery of Witches on Amazon and they were hysterical. Sometimes, the reviews are more entertaining than the books.

The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher remains one of my favorites. I found the story charming upon initial reading and enjoy rediscovering it by rereading from time to time.

Fun2bhere

Heehee. The 1 star reviews WERE hilarious. I guess looking back that they are pretty accurate though. My favorite characters were not the main characters so I guess that's why I liked it even though it really was very Twilight like. Plus I learned quite a bit about Oxford from google rabbit holes I went down. Thanks for the laugh.

I think there is something seriously wrong with me. I have never enjoyed romance or most especially bodice rippers. When I was young I would rather be ensconced in my own romance with Dh and now at 62 I feel like, been there, done that, it's all boring. I really want to enjoy this type of book but just can't. I started The Outlander series but it bored me to tears. WTH is wrong with me? I think I am missing some good books because of my aversion to this genre.

Ida, I remember reading The Shell Seekers a long time ago and I'm pretty sure I liked it.

I'm with ya, H-K! I never could read the Outlander books. I have read a few of the mildly romance-type books, but couldn't force myself to even TRY to read Fifty Shades or the ones with obvious heavy romance going on as the major plot. I too have tried, but give me a good escapist thriller.

Glad you found the reviews as funny as I did, Cleo07. I'm not a romance reader either. I do read Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb, but her later books are generally more suspense than romance. Holly-Kay, two pretty decent romance books from Nora Roberts are The Search and The Witness. They combine humor and interesting characters with just a bit of romance. You can always skip the sex scenes because there aren't too many of them.

I tried the Outlander series because the time travel aspect intrigued me, but the brutality and continual peril put me off that series. I think I only made it through the first two.

My real issue is that I like fun, funny and happy books, and this is a very difficult thing to find outside of genre fiction. Winter, heck even summer in Nova Scotia is depressing enough without being dragged down by the books I read. But if you have any light, witty, funny books that you could recommend I'd love to hear about them. I even love PG Wodehouse and Dave Barry almost as much as my grandparents did. Helen Fielding, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams. It's sad there are so few successful funny authors, really.

Robo, you might like my favorite play, She Stoops to Conquer.

I have read this so many times that it's as familiar as Shakespeare.

Sometimes a girl's just got to be clever to get the man she wants.

I wish someone would make a movie of this play with all the attention to detail and great casting that they used when filming The importance of being Earnest.

Rob, have you read any Nick Hornby? Juliet Naked was great. Some of his books are quite good. I don't like his newest, Funny Girl, though.

Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner was another good classic chick lit. There were some sad/ heart warming parts but an all around good book.

I adore adore Maeve Binchey. Her books aren't funny but are usually cheerful and upbeat with good character development and lovely happy stories.

Also, I will come out of the I-occasionally-read-very-trashy-romance closet to recommend the Rock Chick series by Kristen Ashley. These are classic bodice-ripper-esque romantic suspense books complete with bad boys who are bossy alpha males and heroines who get themselves into unbelievable ridiculous situations. I normally do not like romance novels but my past housekeeper loved this series and this author and I tried it and I found myself embarrassingly addicted. She creates a great, zany cast of characters that I just really liked although I am embarrassed to admit it. It seems this author has a massive cult following in the new adult (I think that's what it is called?) romance genre.

"Republic of Love" by Carol Shields. She has also written other good books but I haven't read them. Her book "The Stone Diaries" is supposed to be good. I am hunkered down this summer with "Algae and Human Affiars" (non-fiction) and "Epitaph for a Peach" which is about fruit . . . really!

Not crazy about romance either. But I did love LaVyrle Spencer (retired).

I really love scary stuff. Weird, I know.

Robo, I'm with you, though I will occasionally slog through a dense and somber tome, I usually prefer light, especially in the summer. The following suggestions are mostly kind of old, vintage, perhaps, but Erma Bombeck's books, "If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?", to name one, or the collections of her newspaper columns are laugh out loud funny and still relevant (in this older Gen X'ers opinion). Ditto Jean Kerr, another funny woman from the 1960's and '70's (her husband was Walter Kerr, the longtime NYT theater critic, fascinating couple).

In the romantic mode, i just finished "Plain Brown Wrapper", by Karen Grigsby Bates, the NPR reporter and "Farm Fatale", by Wendy Holden, both are quick, light and fun romps.

For funny and light mysteries, anything by Lawrence Sanders, he has a great wit and is deft with the details that get you to know a character. Disclaimer, he's not much on the female characters, they are mostly in the background, but he has nailed his male detectives, IMO. Also in the light mystery genre, anything by Carl Hiaason, who is absolutely hysterical and dead in his depctions of Florida and Floridians (he is/was a columnist from the Miami Herald IRL).

For any of you who enjoy humorous reads and like animals, I have only good things to say about the books by Bob Tarte. I started with Enslaved by Ducks and I remember laughing until I cried a time or two.

I like a good bodice ripper now and then, partly because so much of what I read is heavy stuff, both for work and for pleasure. I usually turn to Calvin Trillin and Bill Bryson for funny stuff, but it's good to have other recommendations, too.

In case I am not the last person on earth to read it, I'll say that I loved Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons. Making fun of gloomy books, there is lots to laugh at there.

For funny fluff --

Elizabeth Peters: Crocodile on the Sandbank (1st in the Amelia Peabody
series. Starts out dull but is
eventually funny.)

Rita Mae Brown: Six of One
(Several of the character remind me of my wackier relatives.)

Janet Evanovich: One for the Money is the 1st
Stephanie Plum mystery. You could start
with any of the early ones, but I like to read in order. The themes are repetitive, but they make me
laugh every time – especially her grandmother.

The last one works for "romance" too. Stephanie has two very attractive men complicating her life.

And for those with an offbeat sense of humor and an interest in recipes --

Gayden Metcalfe: Being
Dead Is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide To Hosting the Perfect
Funeral

I haven't read it in years, but I still remember Love of Seven Dolls by Paul Gallico...it was very romantic.

And an unusual source for more of a bodice ripper romance, if you haven't read Ian Fleming's The Spy Who Loved Me, it's a goodie.

So glad I'm not the only one not really into Outlander. I thought I'd watch the series (for the location) and then read the books. After sticking with most of the first season, I just couldn't do it anymore. I love the music, the location (our family is from Scotland) and the overall idea. Big fan of fantasy, history and time travel! I just keep getting bored with all the sex scenes.

I sound like a prude, but I did say I love Mary Stewart books : )

And best sex scene ever....her book Airs Above the Ground. She finally sees her husband after being separated for quite a while and basically, cut to black. But oh, what you could imagine. As one reviewer says on Amazon... But, of course, a Stewart romance is a romance of
the most highly literal type; the love scenes are suggested rather than
depicted.

Updating to say that I'm in the middle of The Grand Sophy and enjoying it very well. Match me If You Can was fun, and a real change for me. Thanks, gals!

And hopefully, a movie version.

Oh dear, oh dear. I love Georgette Heyer, but the time for making films of her books has gone by. I shudder to think what it will be like.

I fear it will be even more horrible than the recent version of The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett. (That's a great book, incidentally, kind of the grown-up version of A Little Princess, but not a romance at all.)

The BBC is doing it, that helps.

But not as much as it used to. It's amazing to me how quickly they've gone from doing this sort of thing better than anyone to so much that's second rate, alas.

My favorite books are biographies and autobiographies, but I recently got hooked on an Irish trilogy by Nora Roberts, the "Born In Fire" trilogy. Very, very good IMO.

Lynn- Have you read the Garden Trilogy? I liked that even better : )

Blue Dahlia, Black Rose and Red Lily.

Lavender: yes I have read them, as well as her other Irish trilogy. Love them all, but my favorite is still the Born in Fire set. But. If you like Nora Roberts, my all time favorite of hers is "The Witness". Absolutely fantastic. I don't care for many of her books, but those 10 that I've mentioned here I've loved.

Lynn, thanks for that list of Nora Roberts. A friend of mine always recommends her but maybe I picked the wrong one to try--I can't even remember it, but it didn't catch me. I'll check out some on your list.

Romance is the last genre I'd read, although sci-fi is a close second. I was reluctant to say anything at first, but then realized I was in good company.

I tried the Outlander series because the time travel aspect intrigued me, but the brutality and continual peril put me off that series. I think I only made it through the first two.

Same here. I didn't even make it through the first book. It seemed like she just totally forgot about her husband in her real time. I felt like I was reading two different books/authors.

Rob, have you read any Nick Hornby? Juliet Naked was great.

I totally loved Juliet Naked. Especially good if you are of a "certain age".

The only romances that I've read in the last few years are Rules of Civility, and One Day.
I believe I may have cried while reading both.

Maggiepatty, you aren't alone. i read Cold Comfort Farms and loved it!

Robo, have you read The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows? My mother gave it to me and I put it on the shelf without reading it because I was put off by the title. Later I read very good reviews and have since read it twice! I love it. It's told solely by letter, postcard, telegram, etc. Funny, gritty, and inspiring, it's a story of German-occupied Guernsey during WWII.

Robo, Sophie Kinsella's shopaholic series., seriously funny, just great books., laugh out loud....

Janet evanovich., has a series One for the Money, Two for the Dough and so on., really funny and a light read.....u can also look under the Stephanie Plum series, for Janet E.

anybody read books by Jay McInerney??

When I was young I would rather be ensconced in my own romance with Dh

Holly-Kay LOL! I so agree : )