Several things, actually.
A good book is like a mini-vacation, and for me, that has always been the appeal. No matter where I am – dentist’s office, doctor’s appointment, airplane – a good story can take me out of a less than appealing spot of time and put me somewhere infinitely more pleasant.
Maybe nothing does that quite like a good love story, where we follow two people who want to be together, who ought to be together, but can’t quite clear all the obstacles thrown in their way. Who doesn’t like to watch two people fall in love? Remember what the newness of that feels like?
Put them in a small town with some lovable secondary characters, and you have LaVyrle Spencer’s contemporary novels like The Hellion, Bittersweet, Separate Beds or Spring Fancy.
Put them at odds over how to heal a broken horse and the girl who loves him, and you have The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans.
Or pair Meggie Cleary with Ralph de Bricassart, and you have The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCollough.
Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester, and you have Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (loved the 2011 movie version!)
Each of these books took me through a torrent of emotions, and left me at various points along the way happy, sad, amused, conflicted, and wistful. That’s a journey well worth taking.
Many great books aren’t romance novels, but many romance novels are great books.
