

LOVE STORYO LAST LINE SERIES
He’d do anything to avoid the wedding, so he cobbles a trip around the world out of a series of literary engagements. When his casual but long-term lover, Freddy, breaks things off and announces his engagement to someone else, the middle-aged and barely midlist writer Arthur Less is on the cusp of turning 50. Greer’s Pulitzer-winning comic novel juxtaposes a romantic setback with a milestone birthday. Under the spreading chestnut tree, I made you and you made me.” Ironically, there’s something very old-fashioned about the central conceit, which is basically an epistolary romance-but one whose letters soar across space and time. As Blue writes to Red in one bulletin: “You’ve always been the hunger at the heart of me, Red-my teeth, my claws, my poisoned apple. Their relationship could be an elaborate honey trap, a possibility expressed in the most striking prose. Yet neither Red nor Blue is fully sure they can trust the other. From there, the goal becomes not winning the war but defying indomitable forces to be together. Gradually, those missives evolve from hostile taunts to flirtation and then settle on passionate, effusive, unlikely love, which runs contrary to their missions. As spies traveling through time and multiple realities on behalf of two radically different warring factions, Red and Blue communicate through secret messages. In this abstract, experimental, and deeply romantic science-fiction novel, enemy combatants commit the ultimate sin: They fall for each other. This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone Though none of them is romance in the standard sense, the treatments are original, the writing is stunning, and they all share a belief in love’s truth and power. These books explore the consequences of war, the psychological toll of genocide, and intergenerational inheritances, but loving relationships provide their heart. With that diversity in mind, here is a list of five surprising literary love stories.
LOVE STORYO LAST LINE HOW TO
In fact, sometimes the greatest companions show up at the end of a plot’s long and winding road sometimes a match is made and then lost, and fiction shows how to cope with that eventuality. All kinds of narratives can follow characters falling for each other or building lives together.

Thankfully, plenty of other options exist-some obvious, some more unexpected. Yet as much as I adore and respect the genre, not every reader takes to romance novels, where these tales are most easily found. Everyone can use the vicarious drama and swooping emotion a truly great romance brings, especially in these dark days. These stories persist because they carry healing and hope. Love in Color, the British Nigerian writer Bolu Babalola’s collection retelling myths from around the world, demonstrated just this last year. Good love stories are irresistible: They appear in almost every genre and culture, and are the subject of centuries of lore.
