Clean Romances discussion

Hi everyone,
I am new. I wanted to start a shelf on my profile of books that have to do with married lovers. I would like clean romances of course but I really love to read about people who still love each other after 10, 20, 30 years of marriage. Any suggestions? One of my all time favorite books is Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott which has different stages of love in it which I think are sweet.

Thanks!
Amanda

Hi Amanda,

Welcome to our group! Are you looking for books where the married lovers are the main hero/heroine, or can they be secondary characters if they play an important role in the story? (Not that my books meet that criteria, but my next one might. :-) )

I am looking for books where the married characters are the main characters. I don't think there are many out there, but I am hopeful to make a decent list. One that comes to mind is The Scarlet Pimpernel.

I haven't come across a book that features a couple married for years but I'll keep my eyes open.

As for books with married hero and heroine, A Family Affair by Cathleen Clare and The Reformed Rake by Elizabeth Chater are two Regency romances that come to mind. In both, the characters marry at the beginning because they are in love and other people in their lives really test that love.

The first is out of print but pretty easy to find and the second has been re-released (the blue cover is the new one).

This is difficult because so many of the books I've read about married couples end in divorce or adultery. In all the books I've personally written, I have only one national release that features a married couple (Fields of Home). I also have the Ariana Trilogy that follows a couple over their lifetimes (they're married at the end of book one), but that's religious-based novel, so it was easier to do. I did read a mystery series about a married heroine, and it was good, but I can't for the life of me remember the titles. If I do, I'll send them along. Good luck!

I wish someone would write a novel that was a sequel to Jane Eyre. I think the love story between Jane and Mr. Rochester would be especially interesting after they were married.

Rachel Ann wrote: "This is difficult because so many of the books I've read about married couples end in divorce or adultery. In all the books I've personally written, I have only one national release that features a..."

I'll have to see if I can find either of those at the library.

The Amelia Peabody mystery series deals with wife/husband. It progresses through the years and shows as their only child, Ramses, grows.

The setting is Victorian England, but Amelia and Emerson are archelogists and always wind up in Egypt, it seems. This is written by Elizabeth Peters. A really good set of books...if you like mysteries. :)

Miss is right. This series, featuring a husband and wife, is romantic and fun. I REALLY enjoyed it.

Agatha Christie has the Tuppy and Tuppence mysteries, and they're married in all of them but the first. I've only read the first, though.

I'll second (or third?) the plug for the Amelia Peabody series!

Joyce wrote: "I'll second (or third?) the plug for the Amelia Peabody series!"

I have...I think it's the first...of that series but I haven't read it yet. My sis-in-law let me borrow it and insisted it is an excellent series. It's probably one of her favorites.

I'll have to give the Amelia Peabody series a try. :)

I just started the first, Crocodile on the Sandbank, and I really like it. Elizabeth Peters is an entertaining writer.

I don't know why I hadn't added this before - My Life in France by Julia Child. Haven't read it but have heard good things about it.

Has anyone here read it?

Jaimey wrote: "I just started the first, Crocodile on the Sandbank, and I really like it. Elizabeth Peters is an entertaining writer."

Yes, she's great. So many times she left me in stitches from laughing so hard. Wow, I wish I had her gift for the fantastic prose!

Amanda wrote: "I don't know why I hadn't added this before - My Life in France by Julia Child. Haven't read it but have heard good things about it.

Has anyone here read it?"

No, but having just saw the film JULIE And JULIA I would be interested in checking that out.

I reading the Percy Jackson and the LIghtening Thief book/series with my son. It's really cool. Love it.

I loved the movie Julie and Julia! I wish there wasn't the language in it that there is though. My husband and I watched it on our anniversary and it just left me with the great feeling of how lucky I am to be married to him. That movie and that feeling is what inspired me to try to put this book list together. I love being married!

I just finished reading "Outlander" by Diana Gabeldon. It has one of the greatest married couples as main characters I have ever read. I would highly recommend it!

Awesome! I've not heard of that one either.

Tammy wrote: "I just finished reading "Outlander" by Diana Gabeldon. It has one of the greatest married couples as main characters I have ever read. I would highly recommend it!"

Tammy,

Which book were you reading? It looks like Outlander is a series.

Tammy wrote: "I just finished reading "Outlander" by Diana Gabeldon. It has one of the greatest married couples as main characters I have ever read. I would highly recommend it!"

It changes as the series continues. I do not remember which of the other books, but they contain explicit sex (oral sex) and one of the main villains is homosexual. The level of violence also increases. It's too bad because the author is a fantastic writer.

Wow - thanks for the warning. Too bad but I think maybe I'll pass on Outlander.

EEK! I have only read the first book entitled "Outlander". I remember first hearing about the book here in clean romances. There was quite a discussion as to whether it should be included on our bookshelf. There was some sex and violence but nothing was explicit - jarring sometimes, however. The author is known for her extensive research into the era she writes about and it shows. The situations feel real.
Thanks for warning us, Laura, if it gets worse, I'm not sure I want to continue the series. I would still recommend the first book on it's own, however.

Thanks for your suggestion anyway Tammy and for helping try to build my book list. :)

I didn't like Outlander because I never could forgive Jamie for beating her -- wife beating is not a heroic quality. And the whole homosexual thing near the end made me sick. I have no desire to read any more of that series.

But clearly I'm a minority since she's so wildly popular. Oh, well, different strokes...

I definitely think a book with any on-screen sex should have NO place on a clean romance bookshelf.

Joyce's books are some of the best clean romances I've read in a very long time.

Donna,

Forgive me but I am not sure which Joyce you are referring to.

Amanda

Donna wrote: "I didn't like Outlander because I never could forgive Jamie for beating her -- wife beating is not a heroic quality. And the whole homosexual thing near the end made me sick. I have no desire to re..."

If Donna is referring to me, I'm flattered, but mine aren't husband-wife books, so they wouldn't fall within this theme. :-)

As for Diana Gabaldon, I haven't read any of her books, but I heard her speak at a romance writers conference several years ago where she proudly announced her plans to write a "gay romance". I knew right then she wasn't an author I was interested in reading!

How sweet for Donna to say! :)

Amanda wrote: "How sweet for Donna to say! :)"

Shhh, don't tell anyone, but I slipped Donna a twenty to say that about my books. ;-) (Although they really are clean.)

Hi Amanda,

If you like mystery and romance, I highly recommend Lyndsey Davies's The Silver Pigs, Shadows in Bronze or any other Marcus Didius Falco novel in the series. They take place in Rome around AD.72. The relationship of the main characters is really sweet and funny.

Also Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane mysteries. They meet in Strong Poison, then their story continues on Gaudy Night, and Thrones, Dominations Thrones, Dominations.

Yeah, whatever, Joyce! I'll take your next book instead ;-) Hurry up with it, will you?

Shhh, don't tell anyone, but I slipped Donna a twenty to say that about my books. ;-) (Although they really are clean.)"

Okay, Amanda, as self-serving as this may sound, I wrote a novella about a year ago about a husband and wife. No adultery, no divorce, no language, no sex, and they are still together at the end. It's called Troubled Hearts. It got all four and five star reviews. You can get the ebook in an instant download for $2 here:

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/index...

Scroll to the bottom of the page.

Amanda wrote: "I am looking for books where the married characters are the main characters. I don't think there are many out there, but I am hopeful to make a decent list. One that comes to mind is The Scarlet P..."

I know I'm coming to this discussion a bit late, but I'd like to put in my vote for the Amelia Peabody series. I've read and enjoyed the first two quite a bit. Even though they are primarily mysteries, I love the relationship dynamics between Amelia and Emerson.

Also, a while back someone started a Historical Romances w/Married Couples Listopia. I don't know for sure if any of the books on it could be characterized as "clean," but it might be worth checking out.
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/45...

I've heard good things about the Amelia Peabody series, but I've never read them. I don't know if they're clean or not. You could always pose a general question on Goodreads and see if anyone can answer you.

I would definitely call The Amelia Peabody series "clean." The sensual content is limited to nothing more than mild sexual tension and passionate kisses in the two books I read. By book two, when Amelia and Emerson are married, she alludes to their love life in gentle, veiled terms, nothing graphic and no actual sex on the page. They are cozy mysteries, so any violence is also non-graphic. I think there may have been a few mild profanities, but that's about it. I wrote reviews for Crocodile on the Sandbank and The Curse of the Pharaohs where I made mention of the milder content if anyone would like more info.

I can think of several books in which there are married main characters, though they tend to be of the newlywed variety.

Here are a couple where the MCs have been married for 10 years or more:

Anne of Ingleside, by L. M. Montgomery--one of the Anne of Green Gables series, in which she and Gilbert have been married for about 15 years. (Large chunks of the book have to do with the escapades of their children, though.)

The Mislaid Magician or Ten Years After, by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. YA fantasy, third in its series, in which the main characters have been married for about 10 years.

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Some in which the books start with the characters already married, but they have not been married for long (ranging from newlywed to at most five years of marriage):

A Visit to Highbury/Another View of Emma, by Joan Austen-Leigh. A sort of parallel telling of Emma, it is a novel of letters between Mrs. Goddard (who runs the boarding school where Harriet Smith attends) and her sister; the sister is the one who is (newly re-) married.

Anne's House of Dreams, by L. M. Montgomery. The book that precedes Anne of Ingleside, it tells of the first few (three?) years of Anne and Gilbert's marriage.

Framley Parsonage, by Anthony Trollope. One of his Barsetshire novels, but it's pretty much standalone. One of the major sets of characters is a young couple who have been married for a few years and have a couple of children.

The First Four Years (Little House, #9), Laura Ingalls Wilder. About the first years of Laura and Almanzo's marriage.

The King of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner. YA; technically fantasy, because the gods exist and the countries are fictional, but it's much more a political intrigue book than a fantasy book. Third in its series, which is best read in order. Time period covers the first few months of the marriage of the king and queen of Attolia.

The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett. Mystery featuring husband-and-wife detectives Nick and Nora Charles. I have not read it, but since it was a) written in the 1930s, and b) the movies based on it starring William Powell and Myrna Loy are clean, I'd think it would be safe to try.

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In which the characters get married in the course of the book, but not at the end, so we get to see somewhat of their marriage:

The Hollow Kingdom, by Clare B. Dunkle. Children's/YA fantasy.

The Blue Castle, by L. M. Montgomery. Not part of a series.

Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens. One of the main sets of characters gets married somewhere in the middle of the book. But as with most Dickens novels, there are so many characters that there are relationships to run the gamut from longtime married--both happy and unhappy, to newlywed--both happy and unhappy, to single with a chance for marriage and single without.

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Lastly, if you do not mind explicitly Christian, These High, Green Hills, by Jan Karon, third in her Mitford Years series, is about the newly-married life of Father Tim and his neighbor Cynthia, and I believe in most of the rest of the books in the series they are married as well (but #6 is about their wedding).

I just finished The Thin Man, and for the purposes of this group I would say it is clean (just not romantic). It does, however, have rather a lot of language (including several instances of J, C, or JC). The movie is quite good, though--faithful to the book, but without the language.

Abigail wrote: "I can think of several books in which there are married main characters, though they tend to be of the newlywed variety.

Here are a couple where the MCs have been married for 10 years or more:
..."
Thank you so much for your extensive list!

You are most welcome! :)

Hi everyone. I went searching for the movie The Enchanted Cottage from 1945 and found that it was based on a play and the text for the play can be read at http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader...

This was such a beautiful story as told in the movie and I thought I would pass it on if anyone wanted to read it.

Miss wrote: "Jaimey wrote: "I just started the first, Crocodile on the Sandbank, and I really like it. Elizabeth Peters is an entertaining writer."

Yes, she's great. So many times she left me in ..."

I agree. I love her books. They are so well written and she really does have you laughing out loud.

Marissa de los Santos' books Love Walked In and Belong to Me are delightful. In the first, the main characters fall in love, and their love story continues in the second book after they are married.

Not sure if this is what you had in mind, but I just finished a fun regency about a married couple called A Proper Marriage by Debbie Raleigh. It's an arranged marriage and when the book starts I think they've only been married for a few months.