My Unreal Love List & (One) Goal Accomplished
For Valentine’s Day, I’m sharing a round-up of the unreal love stories that have stuck with me throughout the various eras of my life. My taste in love is somewhat eclectic, and while you will find a few choice rom-coms here, there is no chick lit – it’s just too sweet for me. Do any of these resonate with you? You’ll find books, movies and shows, plus a playlist.
Claire Randall & Jamie Fraser in Outlander
I’ve been captivated by Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series for over a decade now. It hits all the right notes for my romantic predilections: time travel, a strong man with a Scottish brogue who innately believes in the inherent equality of women and men (even though it’s 1793), great sex and sexual chemistry, a stubborn and brilliant woman who knows what she wants, plus historical events that span 200 years and multiple countries.
Seriously, though, I really keep coming back for the epic romance between Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser. I don’t buy the whole “meant to be with one person,” but I can suspend my disbelief for this time-defying match-up. While I do like the books better than the streaming series, I very much enjoy watching Sam Heughan embody Jamie Fraser onscreen. The scholar, the lover, the soldier, the father, the builder. Oh boy.
Sam Heughan is a delightful embodiment of Diana Gabaldon’s James Fraser.
The Essex Serpent, by Sarah Perry
Set in 1893 in England, this lush and evocative novel features an atypical love story between a wealthy widow with a fine, scientific mind and a married seaside progressive pastor that’s as much intellectual as it is physical. Neither is looking for a romantic connection, but the pair are charismatically drawn to each other with a force greater than their will. Their relationship is compellingly charismatic with a chemistry that crackles across the page. You can also watch their flame flicker and ignite onscreen in the Netflix version. Claire Danes is magnificent as Cora Seaborne, and she’s well-matched by the smoldering Tom Hiddleston who plays Will Ransome.
Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston find themselves in the grip of a magnetic attraction.
The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende
This novel has more of the stuff that turns me on (in a literary sense, people), like stories of human triumph amidst the horrifying death and destruction of World War II. Isabel Allende weaves a story of lifelong love between a man and a woman who must hide their forbidden connection for literal decades. They’re true to each other until death does them part, even though theirs is technically an affair and not a marriage.
The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman
OK, I’m going to start this with a disclaimer. Please, please don’t read this novel looking for a sappy love story. The Story Sisters is one of the saddest novels I have ever read, as a woman, as a sister, as a mother. It’s devastating. But as love is wont to do, it grows in an unlikely place within this tearful tale, blossoming in the broken heart of one of the Story sisters when it’s least expected. This love story earns a place in my heart for its unexpectedness and its miraculous healing properties.
Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
This story flips back and forth by 100 years between two families living in the same troubled house, which has been falling apart throughout the century it’s managed to stay standing. In the way-back story, a man more enlightened than his time finds himself falling in love with his scientist neighbor, based on a real woman botanist of the time, Mary Treat. Similarly to the love story in The Essex Serpent, their forbidden attraction starts with an irresistible meeting of their minds and grows ever more verdant in a twinning with their shared love of nature and time spent together in ancient forests.
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
Honestly, I can’t say too much about the love story in this novel, because it’s part of the twist at the end of the book. It’s a forbidden love lived in hidden lightness, a pull between two people who found each other against all odds.
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
I beg you to read this in book form versus watching the completely butchered version on AppleTV+. If I were Bonnie Garmus I would be pissed at the hackjob that is the streaming show. Just yuck. While this is probably the “lightest” book on my list, it still includes death and rape. I’m not sure what this says about me, but I like what I like. If you aren’t familiar with this story, it’s about two chemists who find love in a lab—an intellectual and physical connection that adds up to a briefly beautiful life.
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
In this quietly, lyrically polished gem of a novel, we raptly listen in as a mother spins the tale of her past to her grown and growing daughters as they perch in cherry trees picking the jewel-bright fruit by hand in a Michigan grove within walking distance to a lake. All children spend their early years believing their parents’ lives began with their birth—and they are, indeed, the centers of our universe. In this story, you can see the narrator’s girls beginning to understand that their parents had whole lives before they came along. And their mother’s life included a stint on the stage and silverscreen, including a romantic interlude with someone who is now a movie star. (He could have been their father!) But no, the real leading man of their mother’s story is her husband, the girls’ actual father, who happened to be her director in a summerstock play when she was in love with the future movie star.
What makes this story so special to me is that it’s a love story between mother and daughters as much as it is between a woman and a man. Another compelling facet for me is the looking back on paths taken and not taken, and how our choices form our futures.
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
If you haven’t read this book at least a few times by now, get on it! Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy are one of life’s best literary pleasures. It’s so gratifying and satisfying how they find each other despite each making their best efforts to sabotage the whole dang thing. I also really can’t get enough of the movie version with Keira Knightley. And while you’re at it, watch Sense & Sensibility with Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant. Also throw in Clueless and Bridget Jone’s Diary (Austen, remixed!).
Moonstruck
This quirky love story is one of my all-time favorite rom-coms. Nicholas Cage and Cher are helplessly, hopelessly drawn together in a gorgeously disruptive way that shakes our heroine out of her practical life in deliciously uncomfortable ways.
Trainwreck
Amy Schumer’s Trainwreck is messy, petty and real in the best possible way—and terribly funny, of course. I may or may not tear up during “Uptown Girl” at the end. Don’t judge.
If you don’t count this as one of your favorite movies, I’m not sure we can be friends. Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell make the best existentially star-crossed lovers. IMO. The utter darkness of the plot premise makes the improbable love story all the brighter for the contrast.
High Fidelity x2 (original movie and streaming remake)
John Cusack is such an irresistibly lovable shit in the original movie version. You know this guy, you’ve loved this guy, so there’s a familiar and empathetic quality baked into it. Also the top 5 framework is genius as a conceit that pulls together love and music in such a poignant way. And the Hulu remix of High Fidelity featuring Rob as a woman played by Zoe Kravitz—pure joy for me. The updated take made the story fresh and new again, and it felt so relatable and empowering to flip it to a female perspective for the main character.
Audrey Tatou is endlessly charming as the big-eyed, quirky protagonist of this visually stunning French film that I personally could watch 1000 times just for the graphic pleasure. One of my favorite scenes is where Amelie imagines all the couples in the city having an orgasm at the exact same time. At one point I had ambitions of learning the piano in the original score. Then I looked at the sheet music…
Oh why yes, I do want to kiss you!
And ok, yes I admit I watch this when I see it on TV. In my defense, it features Ryan Reynolds. I’ll watch anything with Ryan Reynolds. Also Betty White. It’s good fun.
Current Mood Love Songs
Happy Valentine’s Day! I made you a playlist with love vibez. Nothing sappy, just some songs that give me all the good feels.
This is a preview — check the link for the whole enchilada…
January Journaling
Well, I can check one goal off my 2025 list! If you were following along on LinkedIn, you probably know that I participated in a challenge to journal every day for 21 days. Now it’s a pretty steady daily habit that I’m finding far more gratifying than I imagined I would.
📆 Day #34: I’ve journaled for 34 days in a row, mostly about 15 minutes per day. Except this one weekend morning when my kids wouldn’t leave me alone for even seven minutes. It still totally counts.
👉 Prompts: My dear friend and journaling guru Elisabeth Andrews delivered us workshop participants a fresh prompt each morning. Much to my surprise, these prompts have been key to this being such a positive experience. I wouldn’t have come up with these prompts if left to my own devices. I’m actually now going back through the prompts a second time, and it’s completely different every time. Even when I write about the same darn topic.
🧐 What I noticed: Journaling is heightening my self awareness and helping to extend my thoughts from the limitations of existing solely inside my brain. I think this is why I so much crave what I think of as “thinking aloud with others.” When you journal, you can do this with yourself.
Wisdom from James
I just finished reading James, by Percival Everett, which is a retelling of Mark Twain’s Huck Finn from the perspective of the slave Jim. Unbeknownst to his white masters, James has learned to read and write. At one point he steals a notebook and is gifted a stub of a pencil at an extremely dear price. As he begins to write in that notebook, he shares a glimpse of the power of writing, what it means to him to have a space to make his thoughts real. His words speak to me deeply as I embark on my journaling journey.
