Carmen Reid on...

Anne Tyler
This wonderful American writer gets everything so right about people. She understands just what makes us tick and she observes it all so carefully. She also has a deep and lovely sense of humour. The Accidental Tourist is the perfect novel if you ask me. There’s heartbreaking sadness all the way through as irritatingly uptight, perfectionist Macon tries to come to terms with the death of his son. But then this quirky, loving dog-trainer girl, Muriel Pritchett, is just desperate to get through to him and bring him back to life. It’s so funny, so terribly sad and so true. Just genius. There’s even a Jack Russell.

Nancy Mitford
I gobbled up all of Nancy Mitford’s books when I was a young teenager. I loved them. I still re-read them every now and again and Nancy never lets you down. All human life is here, but through splendidly upper-class goggles. Dating and mating was never so posh, so gossipy and so utterly scandalous. The Pursuit of Love and Love In a Cold Climate are full of life and wit and all kinds of fascinating love affairs. For me, Fabrice was the ultimate romantic hero - a Parisian lover, who gave gifts of fur coats and silk knickers! Nancy brought unimaginable glamour and sophistication to my reading life.

Michael Ondaatje
The English Patient is a dream of a romantic novel. It follows two love stories, one between a soldier and a nurse which unfolds as the book progresses and the other in the past, being slowly re-told. There is the handsome, mysterious foreigner, a war-torn background, the uptight English marriage about to be blown apart by a passionate affair and ensuing volcanic eruption of emotions. The wife tries to break it off, then the half-crazed husband attempts to kill three of them in a plane-crash. The hero cannot return to rescue the heroine. It might all have become completely melodramatic if it wasn’t so perfectly and beautifully well-written.  

Candace Bushnell
I’m crazy about Candace. How does her writing compare to the SATC TV series? The TV series is M&Ms and Candace is like silky, sinful, 70% pure dark chocolate. My favourite of her books is One Fifth Avenue: so glitteringly sophisticated and hard-edged. This is New York in the Noughties and so prophetic of the downturn. It’s packed with bad girls, ambitious girls, larger-than-life girls. But for teen romance The Carrie Diaries is a wonderful whirl. It’s Carrie: the high school years and Candace absolutely captures the huge, emotional punch of first love. The agony and fantasy as Carrie longs for Sebastian. The ecstasy when she has him. The inevitable tragedy of losing him... and to her best friend. It’s wonderful!

Margaret Mitchell
Gone With The Wind must be the grandmammie of romantic novels. Yes it’s over 1000 pages long and you know the story already because you’ve watched the epic film over many a bank holiday. But February strikes me as the perfect month to turn the telly off, go to bed early and wade through this Southern Civil war blockbuster. Tighten your crinoline, practise saying: ‘Oh Ashley!’ And ‘No, no, Rhett!’ And vow to the skies that you will never, ever be poor again! Realise why it’s so terrifically good that Margaret snagged herself a Pulitzer Prize in 1937.

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