# The best romance novels of all time

From Jane Austen to Sally Rooney: the love stories that appear most on reader and bookshop lists, classic and modern.

- 35 votes · 20 items
- Feb 11, 2025 · medalloversionoriginal
- https://even.best/en/l/3105/the-best-romance-novels-of-all-time

## Top 20

1. **The Notebook** (5 · ▲5 ▼0) — Nicholas Sparks, 1996. A summer love that lasts a lifetime.
2. **Love in the Time of Cholera** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Gabriel García Márquez, 1985. Florentino waits for Fermina for more than fifty years.
3. **Rebecca** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Daphne du Maurier, 1938. The shadow of the first wife at Manderley.
4. **Wuthering Heights** (2 · ▲3 ▼1) — Emily Brontë, 1847. Catherine and Heathcliff, love and revenge on the moors.
5. **Anna Karenina** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Leo Tolstoy, 1877. A love that defies the Russian aristocracy.
6. **Norwegian Wood** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Haruki Murakami, 1987. Love and loss in 1960s Tokyo.
7. **Like Water for Chocolate** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Laura Esquivel, 1989. Love and recipes in revolutionary Mexico.
8. **The Duke and I** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Julia Quinn, 2000. The first Bridgerton book.
9. **Pride and Prejudice** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — Jane Austen, 1813. Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy.
10. **Atonement** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — Ian McEwan, 2001. A childish lie that separates two lovers.
11. **Jane Eyre** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Charlotte Brontë, 1847. The governess and the mysterious Mr Rochester.
12. **Me Before You** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Jojo Moyes, 2012. Lou and Will, a story that made millions cry.
13. **A Court of Thorns and Roses** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Sarah J. Maas, 2015. Romantic fantasy with faeries.
14. **Sense and Sensibility** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Jane Austen, 1811. The Dashwood sisters, head and heart.
15. **Persuasion** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Jane Austen, 1817. A second chance eight years later.
16. **Doctor Zhivago** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Boris Pasternak, 1957. Yuri and Lara in the Russian Revolution.
17. **Outlander** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Diana Gabaldon, 1991. A nurse travels back to 18th-century Scotland.
18. **The Lady of the Camellias** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Alexandre Dumas fils, 1848. The love of a Parisian courtesan.
19. **Normal People** (-1 · ▲0 ▼1) — Sally Rooney, 2018. Connell and Marianne, from school to university.
20. **The Love Hypothesis** (-1 · ▲0 ▼1) — Ali Hazelwood, 2021. A fake relationship between scientists.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.