Dear readers, Every so often, in my reading travels, I like to step back and survey the landscape — see how the forest is shaping up, as it were. Lately, I’ve noticed a trend, particularly when it comes to romance. From the feverish fandom around “Heated Rivalry” to the skyrocketing sales of Carley Fortune’s novels (what is in the water in Canada these days?!), one thing is clear: The people yearn to yearn. It’s fun to be titillated, delightful to be amused, coolly satisfying to contemplate the questions of human existence. But there’s something different about a book that reaches deep into your chest to give your heart an anguished, exhilarating squeeze. The Greeks called it pathos; the Tumblr girlies call it an OTP (for “one true pairing”). These stories touch the rawest parts of our humanity — those bits that long to be cherished and desired, made to feel as if we light up someone’s whole sky just by existing. Getting yearning right on the page is a tightrope walk for a writer; things can so easily turn treacly or overblown, tipping from emotional honesty into bloviating melodrama. But when authors know their instrument and tune it just right, so the melody pierces your soul, there is nothing better — whether or not it leads to a happy ending. For the yearners in these books, things do work out in the end. (What can I say, I’m a softie.) But boy do they get put through the wringer along the way. Reading their stories may leave your heart feeling tenderized too. —Jennifer “Persuasion,” by Jane AustenFiction, 1817
Ms. Bennet and Mr. Darcy tend to get most of the attention when people talk about Austen and romance. I get it: I love an enemies-to-lovers story as much as the next reader, especially when the enemies in question are as tempestuous as those two. But with all due respect to “Pride and Prejudice,” if it’s yearning you’re after then you want “Persuasion” — what Chappell Roan might call your favorite Austen fan’s favorite Austen. Anne Elliot (intelligent, caring, resigned to a life of spinsterhood at the ripe old age of 27) and Frederick Wentworth (sensitive, dashing, vigorously protective of his once shattered heart) embody Austen at her most achingly human: filled with regret at the love they cast aside, chafing against societal expectations yet unable to fully tamp down the flare of hope that sparks when they see each other eight and a half years after their broken engagement. Their journey back to each other is an emotional roller coaster, full of false starts and red herrings. The more they try to suppress or deny their feelings, the more their passion bubbles up, until it explodes in the desperate letter Wentworth sends when he realizes that, if Anne does indeed still care for him, he must abandon his stubborn pride or risk sundering them forever. “I am half agony, half hope,” he declares, as if seized by a fever. “Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. … Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you.” I dare you not to swoon. Read if you like: “Every Summer After,” by Carley Fortune; “The Day of the Duchess,” by Sarah MacLean; hand flexes; Fleet Week. “The Pairing,” by Casey McQuistonFiction, 2024
Theo and Kit, the characters at the heart of McQuiston’s deliciously escapist novel, are the queer 21st-century grandchildren of Anne and Frederick. Like Austen’s characters, these two are nursing the wounds of a catastrophic heartbreak. Theo and Kit were childhood best friends, so close they were like “two branches of the same nervous system.” Then, for a time, they were lovers. And then, somehow, everything shattered, and neither of them quite understands how or why. Four years later, they find themselves reunited on a three-week European food and wine tour — and all the love and hurt and bewilderment that they buried under months of professional grinding and self-actualization comes rushing back to the fore. The novel is exquisitely tender and lush: a sensual, sensory feast. Theo is a bartender, Kit a pastry chef, and their story is filled with full-bodied French reds, chocolate-dipped churros and one absolutely filthy peach (not to mention a series of sexy tour guides, chocolatiers, painters, etc. — enthusiastic participants in the hookup contest Theo and Kit devise to prove how totally super over each other they are). McQuiston doesn’t dwell on their breakup, dispatching the miscommunication at its root with gentle efficiency and then leaving the characters room for the painstaking work of repair. You ache with them as they piece their hearts back together — an act of emotional kintsugi that leaves them more vulnerable but also stronger and more honest for wear — and then as they surrender to each other once again, hoping that even with their new bumps and scars they might remain a perfect fit. Read if you like: “The Song of Achilles,” by Madeline Miller; “Call Me by Your Name” (the André Aciman novel or the Luca Guadagnino film); pains au chocolat; Cat Sebastian novels (especially the Cabots series); an inventive, well-balanced $20 cocktail that’s worth every penny. We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. Friendly reminder: Check your local library for books! Many libraries allow you to reserve copies online. Like this email? Sign-up here or forward it to your friends. Have a suggestion or two on how we can improve it? Let us know at books@nytimes.com. Plunge further into books at The New York Times or our reading recommendations.
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