By Ward S. Just

Harry Sanders is a young foreign service officer in 1960s Indochina when a dangerous and clandestine meeting with insurgents—ending in quiet disaster—and a brief but passionate encounter with Sieglinde, a young German woman, alter the course of his life.

By Leo Tolstoy
Recommended By Donna Burger, Readers' Services Librarian, Nathalie Levin, Children's Services Librarian

A translation of the classic Russian novel tells the tale of rebellious Anna and her ill-fated, adulterous romance with Count Vronsky amid the turmoil of nineteenth-century Russia.

By Sally Koslow

Reimagines the affair between F. Scott Fitzgerald and his longtime lover, gossip columnist Sheilah Graham, detailing how she helped revitalize Fitzgerald's career in the years before his tragic death.

By Sebastian Faulks

A young English soldier finds a new love interest when he stays with a family in Northern France.

Became the TV Mini-Series: Birdsong

By Sarah Dunant

Turning fifteen in Renaissance Florence, Alessandra Cecchi becomes intoxicated with the works of a young painter whom her father has brought to the city to decorate the family's Florentine palazzo.

By Diana Gabaldon
Series Outlander Novels
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

In 1772, on the eve of the American Revolution, Jamie Fraser is asked by the governor to help protect the colonies for the King and Crown, but, thanks to his time-traveling twentieth-century wife, Claire, Jamie is aware of the ultimate result of the rebellion, a situation complicated by his discovery of an obituary, dated four years hence, that reports his own death.

By Evie Dunmore
Series League of Extraordinary Women Novels
Recommended By Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services

Recruiting men of influence to champion the rising women's suffrage movement of 1879 England, a daring Oxford rebel targets a cold and calculating duke before their unexpected romance threatens to upend the British social order.

By Beatriz Williams
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian

Falling in love with her paramour but unable to divorce because of societal conventions, married Jazz Age socialite Theresa Marshall tries to make the best of the situation but reconsiders her values when her lover falls for her soon-to-be sister-in-law.

By Charles Frazier

After Inman escapes from a war hospital in 1864 and starts walking to Cold Mountain, Ada struggles to save her mountain farm with the help of Ruby, an illiterate but efficient farmer.

Became the movie: Cold Mountain.

By Lisa Kleypas
Series The Ravenels

When the death of his cousin, an earl, lands him with responsibility for an estate riddled with debt and the late earl's three sisters, Devon Ravenel finds himself drawn to his cousin's widow and committed to restoring the estate.

By Anne Easter Smith

Rendered a political pawn when her brother ascends the throne in 1461, Princess Margaret of York is promised in marriage to the Duke of Burgundy’s son in spite of her passionate love for a married man, a situation that shapes her subsequent role as an influential woman.

By Tessa Dare
Series Castles Ever After
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

In order to avoid marrying arrogant aristocrat Piers Brandon, Charlotte Highwood must discover the identities of the two lovers involved in a scandalous tryst the night of the Parkhurst ball, and prove that she was not one of them.

By Diana Gabaldon
Series Outlander Novels
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

In eighteenth-century Scotland, Claire Randall and her raven-haired daughter, Brianna, return to the majestic hills where Claire recalls the love of her life—gallant warrior James Fraser.

By Loretta Chase
Series Difficult Dukes Series
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

Hugh Philemon Ancaster, the Duke of Ripley, takes off on the trail of Olympia Hightower, the bookish and very reluctant intended bride of his best friend, when she attempts to escape her impending marriage.

By Jane Austen

Emma Woodhouse imagines that she dominates those around her in the small town of Highbury, but her inept matchmaking creates problems for herself and others.

By Chris Cleave
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk

Shocking her blueblood political family by volunteering for the war effort in 1939 London, socialite Mary teaches evacuated and marginalized children and bonds with her employer, Tom, before their romance is challenged by a painful love triangle and the grueling realities of the war.

By Thomas Hardy

Gabriel Oaks observes Bathsheba Everdene, the young mistress of Weatherbury Farm, fall victim to bad decisions and romantic impulses, unaware of the stroke of fate that will finally bring about their union.

Became numerous movies: Far From the Madding Crowd (2015), Far From the Madding Crowd (1967), and Tamara Drew (2010)

Became the TV Movie: Far From the Madding Crowd

By Ernest Hemingway

An American's love for an English nurse during the First World War ends in tragedy.

Became the movie: A Farewell to Arms (original in 1932, remake in 1957)

Became the Mini-Series: A Farewell to Arms (1966)

By Diana Gabaldon
Series Outlander Novels

The eagerly awaited fifth volume in the award-winning series of historical novels takes place in 1771, and war is coming. Jamie Fraser's wife tells him so. Little as he wishes to, he must believe it, for hers is a gift of dreadful prophecy--a time-traveler's certain knowledge.

By Ann Fairbairn
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

“Returning to the South to fight for the civil rights movement, a young black lawyer finds his life complicated by a beautiful white artist (From the Publisher).”

By Daisy Goodwin
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

A beautiful empress trapped in a loveless marriage, a dashing but impoverished horseman, and a clever heiress form a passionate love triangle in nineteenth-century England against a backdrop of the legendary Grand National competition.

By Eloisa James
Series Desperate Duchesses Series
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

When Mia Carrington is forced to beg Evander Brody, Duke of Pindar, whom she once swore she would never marry, to enter into a marriage of convenience with her, he sets some conditions of his own before agreeing to her offer.

By Jojo Moyes
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk, Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk, Jean Buchholtz, Library Clerk, Betty Petreshock, Reference Librarian

Unwillingly rendered an object of obsession by the Kommandant occupying her small French town in World War I, Sophie risks everything to reunite with her husband a century before a widowed Liv tests her resolve to claim ownership of Sophie's portrait.

By Amitav Ghosh

Unable to forget the girl he befriended during the British invasion of 1885 when soldiers forced the royal family of Burma into exile, Rajkumar is lifted on the tides of political and social chaos to create an empire in the Burmese teak forests.

By Margaret Mitchell
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

The story of the tempestuous romance between Rhett Butler and Scarlet O'Hara is set amid the drama of the Civil War.

Became the movie: Gone with the Wind.

By Georgette Heyer

When Lady Ombersley agrees to take in her young niece, no one expects Sophy, who sweeps in and immediately takes the ton by storm. Sophy discovers that her aunt's family is in desperate need of her talent for setting everything right.

By Kurt Andersen

Englishman Benjamin Knowles heads for America to build a new life and joins up with three young Americans—journalist Timothy Skaggs, war veteran Duff Lucking, and Duff's actress sister, Polly—to seek their fortunes in the gold fields of California.

By Jamie Ford
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

When artifacts from Japanese families sent to internment camps during World War II are uncovered during renovations at a Seattle hotel, Henry Lee embarks on a quest that leads to memories of growing up Chinese in a city rife with anti–Japanese sentiment.

By Beatriz Williams
Recommended By Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk, Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

Returning to RI oceanfront community for the summer of 1938, NY socialite Lily Dane is devastated by the appearance of her newly married ex-fiance and her former best friend.

By Howard Fast
Series Lavette Family

In this first novel of an epic family saga recounting the rise of a poor fisherman's son from the cataclysmic depths of the San Francisco earthquake to become the head of a powerful shipping empire. He will risk all for a forbidden love.

By Mark Helprin

Returning home after serving in World War II to run his family business in New York, paratrooper Harry Copeland falls in love with young singer and heiress Catherine Thomas Hale, who risks everything to break off her engagement to another man.

By Julie Orringer
Recommended By Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian, Jackie, Head of Readers' Services, Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian, Pam Martin, Assistant Library Director

Orringer’s first novel is a grand love story and an epic tale of three brothers whose lives are torn apart by war in 1937 Paris.

By Meljean Brook
Series Iron Seas Novels
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

When a dead body is dropped from an airship onto Rhys Trahaearn's doorstep, Detective Inspector Mina Wentworth uncovers the victim's identity—and stumbles upon a conspiracy that threatens the lives of everyone in England.

By Charlotte Bronte
With Sonia Grgas, Health Reference Librarian

Tuesday, September 27, 2011.  1 PM & 7:30 PM.

“In early nineteenth-century England, an orphaned young woman accepts employment as a governess at Thornfield Hall, a country estate owned by the mysteriously remote Mr. Rochester (From the Publisher).”

Became the movie: Jane Eyre.

By Rosie Thomas

In 1941, newlywed Nerys Watkins accompanies her husband to a missionary posting in the exotic lakeside city of Srinagar.

By Jude Deveraux
Series Montgomery and Taggert Clan
Recommended By Rosanne Crudo, Head of Circulation

“Jude Deveraux's beloved bestseller has captivated readers the world over; now in a special edition featuring new material, this timeless love story greets a new generation…  (From the Publisher).”  

By Heather O'Neill

Two orphaned soul mates–one a piano prodigy, the other a dancing savant–dream up a plan for the most extraordinary circus show the world has ever seen against a backdrop of the Great Depression.

By Alyson Richman
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services, Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk, Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Tuesday, January 24, 2012.  1PM & 7:30 PM.

“From the glamorous ease of life in Prague before the Occupation, to the horrors of Nazi Europe, The Lost Wife explores the power of first love, the resilience of the human spirit- and the strength of memory (From the Publisher).”

By Tatjana Soli
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk
With Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, August 6, 2013. 7:30 PM.

"A novel that follows an American female combat photographer in the Vietnam War as she captures the wrenching chaos and finds herself torn between the love of two men (From the Publisher)."

By Nancy Horan

A fictionalization of the life of Mamah Borthwick Cheney, best known as the woman who wrecked Frank Lloyd Wright's first marriage.

By Adriana Trigiani
Recommended By Pam Martin, Assistant Library Director

The daughter of an Italian immigrant family in 1950 Greenwich Village, Lucia Sartori pursues a career in the fashion industry until she falls in love with a handsome stranger, who must win over her traditional family to marry her.

By Sherry Thomas
Series London
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

Louisa Cantwell, who must marry a wealthy man in order to support her sisters, is drawn to Felix Rivendale, the mysterious Marquess of Wrenworth, but resists because she knows that he cannot be trusted

By Elle Feldman

Recreation of FDR's love affair with his wife's social secretary, Lucy Mercer Rutherford.

By Lisa Kleypas
Series The Ravenels

Achieving wealth and success through his savage ambitions, tycoon Rhys Winterborne resolves to marry shy, aristocratic Lady Helen Ravenel, who in spite of her gentle upbringing responds to Rhys' seductions with her own unexpected passions.

By Nicola Harrison
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian, Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

Distancing herself from her unfaithful spouse and her fellow society wives at seaside Montauk Manor, Bea Bordeaux is drawn by the village's natural beauty and community spirit before falling for a man who is nothing like her husband.

By Sara Young
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk

“One of the lesser-known aspects of the Nazi regime was the Lebensborn program, which promoted the expansion of the "master race" by encouraging German women and those who were racially "pure" in its occupied countries to bear as many children as possible. Young explores the experiences of these women in her fictional story of Cyrla… Unbeknown to the officials, Cyrla is half Jewish and must walk a tightrope as she plots her escape (Library Journal).”

By Kitty Curran

The romance novel that lets you pick your path, follow your heart, and find happily ever after. You are the plucky but penniless heroine in the center of eighteenth-century society, courtship season has begun, and your future is at hand. Make choices, turn pages, and discover all the daring delights of the multiple (and intertwining!) storylines. And in every path you pick, beguiling illustrations bring all the lust and love to life.

By Ellen Feldman
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Tuesday, January 29, 2013. 1:30 PM

Follows the stories of three young couples whose lives are irrevocably changed in the years following World War II, a period during which they struggle with difficult losses and witness profound transformations in American culture.

By Kristin Hannah
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian, Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian, Rosalia White, Library Clerk, Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

Reunited when the elder's husband is sent to fight in World War II, French sisters Vianne and Isabelle find their bond as well as their respective beliefs tested by a world that changes in horrific ways.

By Diana Gabaldon
Series Outlander Novels
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager, Meghan F., Children's Services Librarian , Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

Hurtled back through time more than two hundred years to Scotland in 1743, Claire Randall finds herself caught in the midst of an unfamiliar world torn apart by violence, pestilence, and revolution and haunted by her growing feelings for James Fraser, a young soldier.