Here are 85 books that Venetia fans have personally recommended if you like
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I grew up rebelling against the roles I was expected to take on as a girl. I grew up not knowing that girls could fall in love with girls. I grew up with a strong sense of injustice and a desire to do something about it. The books on my list all feature strong female protagonists experiencing and/or taking on injustices of one kind or another. They are written by interesting women who write brilliantly. Some of the books are dear to me because nature provides comfort and strength beneath the chaos of human chatter, as it does for me.
Who can resist a story that begins, “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. My feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cozy”? Especially when you know the author also wrote 101 Dalmations?
I loved this coming-of-age story for the teenage narrator’s quirky, elegant writing. She’s an aspiring novelist, “capturing” the characters around her in her diary. She’s largely left to her own devices, along with her two siblings, on the grounds of a remote castle, with a bohemian stepmother and a distant father suffering from writer’s block. It’s a light, farcical story, tinged with sadness, set in the English countryside and featuring another unlikely female protagonist breaking the mold.
A wonderfully quirky coming-of-age story, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, author of The Hundred and One Dalmatians is an affectionately drawn portrait of one of the funniest families in literature.
Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is illustrated by Ruth Steed, and features an afterword by publisher Anna South.
The eccentric Mortmain family have been rattling around in a…
I have always had a fondness for the quirky heroine because I find her so relatable! As a child, I was overly sensitive and obsessed with animals. I liked to read and draw, but was dreadful at organized sports, and for the most part I didn't feel as if I fit in with the expected social norms of my peers. The quirky heroines in books and literature comforted me, and showed me that first, I wasn't alone, and second, that I could find love and acceptance in a world with which I often felt out-of-step.
One of the wonderful things about Young Adult books is that many authors understand the longing that young female readers have for heroines with real personality who overcome the challenges of their times or particular situations. Such stories move to the pinnacle of my “oh-my-gosh-I-loved-this!” list when they include a romance and by the end, the heroine is acknowledged as an equal to her partner. While L.M. Montgomery is known best for her unforgettable Anne of Green Gables (who could have been on this list), my particular favorite quirky heroine of hers is Valancy Stirling in The Blue Castle.
The romance in this book is just as unconventional as Valancy herself, there’s a marriage of convenience, a beautiful setting for introverts, an island cabin and cats. What’s not to love?
From L.M. Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables, comes another beloved classic and an unforgettable story of courage and romance.
Valancy Stirling is 29 and has never been in love. She's spent her entire life on a quiet little street in an ugly little house and never dared to contradict her domineering mother and her unforgiving aunt. But one day she receives a shocking, life-altering letter―and decides then and there that everything needs to change. For the first time in her life, she does exactly what she wants to and says exactly what she feels.
Well, truly, who doesn’t want to live inside of a magical castle? A few years ago, I was lucky enough to become the owner of a crumbling Victorian house. It was in bad shape—a hoarder had lived there before with lots of cats and also, somehow, rats?—but the place had “good bones.” My husband and I were determined to scrape away all of the rot and give it new life—all while I was writing my middle-grade novel. Now that both projects are done, I truly feel like I live in an enchanted space.
I probably read this Beauty and the Beast retelling nearly ten times when I was a teenager—McKinley takes a well-known classic and puts her own twist on the tale. Beauty is not beautiful in this version, but that only makes the rest of the story more brilliant.
I loved exploring the Beast’s enchanted castle and watching their love story unfold as if for the first time. Of course, the magical house only makes it more of a joy to read.
When the family business collapses, Beauty and her two sisters are forced to leave the city and begin a new life in the countryside. However, when their father accepts hospitality from the elusive and magical Beast, he is forced to make a terrible promise - to send one daughter to the Beast's castle, with no guarantee that she will be seen again. Beauty accepts the challenge, and there begins an extraordinary story of magic and love that overcomes all boundaries. This is another spellbinding and emotional tale embroidered around a fairytale from Robin McKinley, an award-winning American author.
I have always had a fondness for the quirky heroine because I find her so relatable! As a child, I was overly sensitive and obsessed with animals. I liked to read and draw, but was dreadful at organized sports, and for the most part I didn't feel as if I fit in with the expected social norms of my peers. The quirky heroines in books and literature comforted me, and showed me that first, I wasn't alone, and second, that I could find love and acceptance in a world with which I often felt out-of-step.
Of all the books I’ve mentioned, Love in the Afternoon is the only rompy-sexy Regency genre romance. When I’m in the mood for something a little spicier, this is the book I reach for. Beatrix, (like me) loves animals, and her passion for them plays a role in defining her character and also gives us readers some funny scenes to enjoy. She’s a slightly awkward, natural young woman who wears riding pants (very shocking). She deals with the man she comes to love and his dog in much the same way, for both of them have wartime PTSD and need lots of no-nonsense love to right themselves.
Love in the Afternoon continues the Hathaways series by Victorian romance author Lisa Kleypas.
As a lover of animals and nature, Beatrix Hathaway has always been more comfortable outdoors than in the ballroom. Even though she participated in the London season in the past, the classic beauty and free-spirited Beatrix has never been swept away or seriously courted…and she has resigned herself to the fate of never finding love. Has the time come for the most unconventional of the Hathaway sisters to settle for an ordinary man—just to avoid spinsterhood?
Captain Christopher Phelan is a handsome, daring soldier who plans…
I’ve always loved history and historical stories, but like the majority of people, didn’t really know very much about WWI. That changed in early 2017 when I read The Zimmermann Telegram by Barbara W Tuchman. I immediately fell into a vortex of further reading, resulting in my writing The War in Our Hearts at the end of that year--because although there is a lot of great non-fiction out there about WWI, there aren’t nearly as many novels that quite scratched the itch I had for fiction…so I wrote the book I wanted to read!
This book is leisurely, reminiscent of Elizabeth Gaskell’s works (such as North and South or Wives and Daughters); it reads and feels like a warm summer day. It takes place in a small English town in the tense and uncertain months leading up to the war and a little beyond, featuring family dramas, romantic entanglements, spunky schoolteachers, Belgian refugees, underage recruits, life, and death, and love.
'Helen Simonson's characters enchant us, her English countryside beguiles us, and her historical intelligence keeps us at the edge of our seats.' - Annie Barrows, co-author of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.East Sussex, 1914. It's the end of an idyllic summer and Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies, is visiting his Aunt Agatha in the pretty coastal town of Rye. Casting aside the recent sabre rattling over the Balkans, Agatha has more immediate concerns; she has just risked her carefully built reputation by pushing for the appointment of a woman to replace the Latin master.When Beatrice…
I love happy endings and happily-ever-afters. I love reading and writing books that make people happy, give them hope, and bring romance into their lives. Shakespeare’s plays inspired me to explore the ways a writer can convey strong emotions with the written word. One of the first romances I ever read was Pride and Prejudice, and it changed my life. It made me laugh, but it also taught me to believe in the power of love and the power of storytelling. I have written thirty-two romance novels. I like to spread the love!
Edenbrooke is an easy read full of pure pleasure. This book explores innocence and idealistic love, and I adore it just for that reason. Last year I interviewed Julianne on my book club, and she talked about how since her divorce, she can’t write a book like Edenbrooke ever again. I told her that the innocence is what I love about her book. Most of us have moved past innocence, but we still like to visit that place and remember when love was young and fresh and new and we believed in the beauty of our dreams.
Marianne Daventry will do anything to escape the boredom of Bath and the amorous attentions of an unwanted suitor. So when an invitation arrives from her twin sister, Cecily, to join her at a sprawling country estate, she jumps at the chance. Thinking she'll be able to relax and enjoy her beloved English countryside while her sister snags the handsome heir of Edenbrooke, Marianne finds that even the best laid plans can go awry. From a terrifying run-in with a highwayman to a seemingly harmless flirtation, Marianne finds herself embroiled in an unexpected adventure filled with enough romance and intrigue…
I was educated in a catholic school surrounded by family built on lasting love. My father and mother were married for 50 years. I longed for that type of forever love, but didn’t find it. So, I started thinking, what could prevent people from finding that one true love. Then it came to me, fate, spells, or gods and goddesses acting behind the scenes to create love gone wrong. Taking Latin in high school introduced me to Greek and Roman mythology. I became fascinated with that ideology. Since I grew up in New Orleans, I thought the swamp, as a backdrop, would add a bit of realism and mysticism to my storyline. Voila! Creole Moon was born.
I love all of Stephanie Laurens’ books about historical London and high society during the Regency period or “the ton”, as it was called. The Bar Cynster series doesn’t disappoint. These books are fun to read and in keeping with the true romance books of boy meets girl themes and girl tames the cagy, self-proclaimed bachelor. Each book deals with a different brother or cousin in the Cynster dynasty and a specific event around their daily lives. The reader gets a sense of current events and the lifestyle of the rich during this period and how money and power can evade or remove any adverse effects on the family.
There are six books in this series and I highly recommend reading all six. They are fun, light-hearted, and easy to read. I even like their nicknames of “scandal”, “rake”, and “devil”. It makes them seem like the bad boys of…
When Devil, the most infamous member of the Cynster family, is caught in a compromising position with plucky governess Honoria Wetherby, he astonishes the entire town by offering his hand in marriage. No one dreamed this scandalous rake would ever take a bride. And as society mamas swooned at the loss of England′s most eligible bachelor, Devil′s infamous Cynster cousins began to place wagers on the wedding date.
But Honoria wasn′t about to bend society′s demands and marry a man "just" because they′d been found together virtually unchaperoned. No, she craved adventure, and while solving the murder of a young…
I began to escape into stories as a child because I was so often ill there wasn’t much else I could do. But that love of sending my mind on a little holiday to a world where everything is a little bit nicer has stuck with me. As a writer, that is what I want to do – to send my readers on a romantic adventure without them having to get out of their chair. And as I fell in love with the landscape of Regency England, through reading so many Heyer novels, that is where I enjoy setting the adventures of my characters.
The hero of this book, The Duke of Sale, has always wondered what it would be like to be plain Mr Dash of nowhere in particular.
He gets his wish after encountering Belinda, the foundling of the title, and goes on an adventure during which he learns a lot about himself and his own worth. As so often happens in a Heyer story, the comic interludes (often involving Belinda’s wish to own a purple dress) build to an ending which has an air of farce to it.
The Queen of Regency Romance, Georgette Heyer, delights readers with a charming tale of a duke who is tired of playing by the rules.
The Duke of Sale is out to prove himself
The shy, young Duke of Sale has never known his parents. Instead, his Grace Adolphus Gillespie Vernon Ware, Gilly for short, has endured twenty-four years of rigorous mollycoddling from his uncle and valet. But his natural diffidence conceals a rebellious spirit.
A mysterious beauty provides the perfect opportunity
When Gilly hears of Belinda, the beautiful foundling who appears to be blackmailing his cousin, he escapes with glee.…
A Jane Austen devotee since third grade, inspired by subtlety, wit, and clever banter, neck deep in richly evocative Regency research and sensory detail, I've authored 17 Jane Austen-style novels, (3 Christmas) and 4 novellas (3 Christmas) published by NAL/Penguin. Fascinated by lyrical language, budding love matches, and honorable, moral, and ethical themes, I'm particularly fond of historically accurate warm-hearted Christmas novels. I'd love to see a Christmas Regency Classic added to the ranks of beloved Holiday films, so I was thrilled to come up with a list of favorites! Awards: Golden Quill, Holt Medallion, Bookseller’s Best, Waldensbook Bestseller of the Year, Romantic Times Top Pick, Reviewers Choice, Best Regency Novel, a Lifetime Achievement Award.
A RITA Award winner, this sweet, character-driven Regency comes alive with playful Hepburn/Tracy style banter in a May/December romance. An impertinent younger sister, who takes in strays and the wounded, wins the attention of a scarred, slightly singed diplomat. She decides he must be reunited with his family for the holidays. With her rascal brother’s dubious assistance, the three embark on a surprisingly dangerous quest to fulfill heartfelt Christmas wishes.
Miss Marian Wynswich is a rather unconventional young lady. She plays chess, reads Greek, and is as educated as any young man. And she’s certain falling in love is a ridiculous endeavor and vows never to do such a thing. But everything changes when she receives a Christmas visit from someone unexpected—a young and handsome English lord.
From staying up late to watch old 'Hammer Horror' classics (only occasionally hiding behind the sofa) to reading the chilling romances of Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart, Emmanuelle knew early in life that Gothic Romance was her jam. Slightly sinister anti-heroes hiding a dark secret still make her swoon, and now she gets to create her own. Mind how you flee!
A trio of tall, dark, broodingly handsome werewolves await, in this action-packed, high-passion, angsty trilogy indulging the fantasy of ‘the beast within’. A terrifying transformation befalls the men of the Wulf dynasty, and the curse can only be avoided by never falling in love. The perfect premise for romance!
Born into the cursed Wulf family, Armond Wulf holds little hope of happiness or of love. But when temptation approaches in the form of Lady Rosalind Rutherford, he becomes less sure that he will be able to save her or himself from the darkness within.
