Tuesday Top. . .Seven: Favorite Love Stories

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This meme was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish.

Hoping to beef up my rather sparse ramblings, I am going to try to participate in Julia's Top Ten Tuesdays every Tuesday. Wish me luck! And to start the list off!

1. Beauty and the Beast - I've only read a few (updated, modern) versions of this classic French fairy tale, but Belle is without a doubt my favorite Disney princess, and I adore the entire Disney movie. So, take your pick of which version you want to read, go out, and read it!

2. Summer of My German Soldier, by Bette Greene - My mom told me that she read this book in middle school and that it was one of her favorites then. I, at the time, was also in middle school and may have been fishing for some new reads. Either way, I found this book then and read it. It is beautiful and fantastic; it goes far deeper than you would expect a YA novel to go. Beware, however, it is not a happy love story!

My next two aren't technically love stories, but the friendships are never the less beautiful, the stories have stayed in my heart for a lifetime, and no one ever said the reader can't use their imagination to think of a great future for the characters! ;)

3. The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgsen Burnett - I fell in love with a version of the movie before I actually read the book. This is not a normal occurrence for me, but I do tend to read a book when I find out a movie has been based upon it. I loved the description of the garden, the transformations the characters Mary and Colin make, and, to be honest, I had a bit of a crush on Dickon. Although they are much too young in my mind to be anything but great friends, I always liked to imagine that things could grow in the future.

4. Anne of Green Gables, by L. M. Montgomery - I also read this book through recommendation by my mother when I was no more than ten. Of course my views have grown up since then in order to encompass the idea of a romance between Anne and her rival Gilbert Blithe. He grows up to be a fine young man, but the journey in this book is the most fun.

The next few I'm cheating on, or maybe it's just bias, but they are all by the same author, although "one of these is not like the others"

5. Son of the Shadows, by Juliet Marillier, part of what was once a trilogy and now seems to be an ongoing series, this novel is the second in the series, and was my favorite before I read another. But I thought they should be chronological. Take a strong, unusual man, with secrets he holds close, and have him kidnap a firecracker of a woman, et voila! A love story that shows exactly what true love can do. Marillier is always so brilliant in the telling of her stories, which makes them more than about love and yet all about it. Check out the series to see what I mean!

6. The Dark Mirror, Marillier - Another novel by Marillier from a different series, the Bridei Chronicles, tells of Tuala, a changling left on a doorstep. To save the baby from the bitter cold is accepting doom on the savior and his household, but one brave little boy, Bridei, cannot let her die. They grow up together, but their love is not an easy love.

7. Wildwood Dancing, by Marillier - This novel tells of two love stories, of two different sisters. It takes place in Transylvania, and seems to me to be a re-telling of an older fairy tale - The Twelve Dancing Princesses - but only on the surface. This is one of those love stories where you just want to shake some sense into the characters. So frustrating, but so satisfying when it becomes happily ever after.

OK, that is really all I can think of as far as my favorites go. I'm not usually a traditional romance reader, and a lot of times the "classic" romances aren't that romantic to me. I mean, Romeo and Juliet? C'mon! They only know each other for an extremely short period of time; before they met Romeo was madly in love with another girl! To top it off, they kill themselves in the end, which is just not healthy. If anything should be gained from that story it is that rivalries are pointless things. And although of read some Jane Austin. . .well, let me just leave it at that, lest I write something I may regret!