I am a sucker for love stories, and a sucker for one-choice-changes-everything stories. When I read this review of Samuel Park’s This Burns My Heart—one of the featured novels in our debut roundup—I knew I had to get my hands on it because it fits into both of those categories.
I interviewed Park about the novel, and here’s a plot summary, in his own words: “A young woman marries the wrong man and learns to live with the consequences of that choice.” He thinks of his novel as “Pride and Prejudice in South Korea.” In her effusive review, Rebecca Shapiro says it’s “a love story so simple and universal that, in many ways, it could be set anywhere.”
The story begins in South Korea of the 1960s, when Soo-Ja Choi—who dreams of being a diplomat—realizes that she married the wrong man. She felt trapped by custom to marry an appropriate suitor . . . but she is actually in love with Yul, a handsome acquaintance.
Here’s an excerpt, to give you a taste of Park’s lovely writing:
Soo-Ja’s heart leapt and then sunk. But she knew that she had no right to be disappointed. She was the one who turned away from him when he asked her to marry him, who refused when he first held out his hand and said, Try me, and be happy.
“Chamara, Soo-Ja. Chamara,” said Yul. Chamara. What is the word that comes closest to it? Soo-Ja wondered. To stand it, to bear it, to grit your teeth and not cry out? To hold on, to wait until the worst is over? There is no other word for it, no way to translate it. It is not a word. It is a way to console yourself. He is not just telling her to stand the pain, but giving her comfort, the power to do so. Chamara is an incantation, and if she listens to its sound, she believes that she can do it, that she will push through this sadness. And if she is strong about it, she’ll be rewarded in the end. It is a way of saying, I know, I feel it, too. This burns my heart, too.
Want to read more? Enter to win your own copy by following these directions:
TO ENTER: Leave a comment with the name of your favorite unrequited/tragic/or otherwise heartwrenching love story.
CONTEST DETAILS: The prize is a hardcover of This Burns My Heart by Samuel Park. One winner will be chosen using random.org from among the responses sent by 5 p.m. Central Time on August 5. Prizes must be shipped to a North American address.
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ETA: Congrats to our winner, Lynn! Her heart-wrenching pick of the summer is One Summer by David Baldacci. She says, “It touches your heart!”
Contest is now closed.
Gone With the Wind
“The Art of Racing in the Rain” by Garth Stein. Either human or canine, when two souls are matched, there is no greater love….even in tradegy.
My favorite would have to be the enduring love story of Jamie and Claire Fraser in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander Series.
Next To Love by Feldman
The Distant Summer by Sarah Patterson
My favorite is still Jane Eyre
Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
One Day by David Nicholls
Love Story by Erich Segal
I just finished reading an older book, but a wonderful romantic read, titled “My Dearest Cecelia” by Diane Haeger. If you loved “Gone with the Wind”, another favorite of mine, then read this one.
“With a Hammer for My Heart” by George Ella Lyon
Nothing can beat Love Story!
SARATOGA TRUNK by Edna Ferber
Keeping Time by Stacey McGlynn. Memorable and beautiful.
My all time favorite love story is “Gone With the Wind.”
Emmeline by Judith Rossner.
Gone with the Wind is still the best for me.
My favorite love story of all time is “Love’s Tender Fury” by Jennifer Wilde. What this woman goes through is amazing. How she perseveres!!
I wasn’t a romance reader until I read this one. Now I buy every copy I find to give to my friends, it’s that good!
I would love to read this book, my all time favorite is Love Story!
Granny Dan by Danielle Steel!
The Arcane series by J. Krantz
My favorite is the love story between Joanna and Llewelyn in Sharon Kay Penman’s Here Be Dragons. Thanks for a great contest!
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
I always think of Love Story by Eric Segal, as well.
I loved the book by Margaret Leroy “The Soldier’s Wife.
“The Moment” It’s a new book, but the sad story will grab you!
The JD Robb series is the best. You actually can see true love and how that love helps to develop the characters. She’s up to 31 in the series and another coming next month. I can hardly wait. I put down everything else I’m reading at the time to pick up the newest one!
I would have to go with “Gone with the Wind”
love story comes to my mind, not that it’s my absolute fav but a good one
Firefly Lane by Kristen Hannah
Patricia Nell Warren’s The Front Runner
Possession by A.S. Byatt
The Time Travelers Wife.
In a Maine frame of mind? Emmeline by Judith Rossner. A true story!
Claude and Camille has been my favorite love story for some time. Thank you for this opportunity.
My favorite unrequited love story is Wuthering Heights.
Ride the Wind by Lucia St Clair Robson
My favorite enduring love story has to be Wuthering Heights. Cathy & Heathcliff have a love that’s eternal. Thank you.
makeupgirl21@comcast.net
William Shakespeare’s, Romeo and Juliet, has all the elements that make a great love story.
“The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
Wuthering Heights.
Gone with the Wind still does it for me.
My favorite love story is Gone With the Wind!
My favorite love story is Pride and Prejudice. I think I would love to read this book!
The Thorn Bird
The French Lieutenant’s Woman and Dr. Zhivago do it for me!
Colleen McCullough’s “The Thorn Bird” is a favorite love story of mine.
Tess of the d’Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy)
A Rose for the Crown by Anne Easter Smith
Historical and wonderful, you can’t read this without a box of tissues.
“The Thorn Birds”. Wonderful book.
The magnificent, “Dr. Zhivago.”
Atonement by Ian McEwan
It would be the Time Traveler’s Wife.
“The Notebook”
“Hannah’s List”
“Suzanne’s Diary For Nicholas”
Exodus by Leon Uris
Any book by Nicholas Sparks. They will make you cry..especially “The Notebook”.
My Favorite hands down is Wuthering Heights,and the book was great but the older version movie with Lawrence Olivier, was so good and the love he had for Cathy and she for him was beyond life.
Dr. Zhivago is my all time favorite,the book and movie both were wonderful..and Lara’s Love theme is one of my favorite also..I watch this often..
All time favorite love story, for me is Gone With the Wind.
There are so many great ones but this year for me it’s Fortune’s Rocks by Anita Shreve. I enjoyed it so much I read it twice!
Cabin in the Sky
One Day by David Nicholls.
LoveStory
I just finished reading “One Summer” by David Baldacci. I enjoyed
this book very much, but it was sad.
Rose Breneman
Jane Eyre for sure!!
The love protrayed in The Invisible Bridge is strong and longlived. I was amazed at how love could survive even with the tragedies the characters had to live through.
What an amazing thrilling Victorian romance the author, Lilly Gayle, wove in the book, SLIGHTLY TARNISHED, and what a love story!
Nicole Keller, the heroine, is a very headstrong and independent young lady, who has to step up to the plate and support her mother and herself due to a sinking ship which takes the life of her beloved father and her childhood sweetheart, Charlie. The loss of the ship and it’s contents is the last straw to a failing business venture which cost’s Nicole and her mother their Portsmouth Island, North Carolina home and her family’s means of support.
After a letter from her estranged uncle, Nicole and her mother travel to England to reunite with her mother’s family even though her grandfather disowned her mother for running away and marrying her father. Circumstances weren’t as they seemed in this Victorian English London town and Ncole decides to return to Portsmouth with her mother after she discovers the plans her uncle has by arranging a marriage to the Marquis of Bowerstock, a wealthy monarch much older than her father.
With their few possessions packed into a carpetbag, Nicole tows her mother through the streets of London in the dead of night to avoid detection. When a dirty matchstick girl tried to rip the carpetbag from her hand, a street urchin, Ralph, came to her aid, and after seeing that she is sick due to the stench of the London streets, offers to help her for a shilling a day.
Through a chance encounter with Chad Masters, the Earl of Gilchrest, who promises to help the three after recognizing Nicole and her mother. He helps them and takes them to Gilchrest Castle. When Nicole arrives to the castle, she smells the ocean which reminds her of her North Carolina seaside home.
Chad and Nicole decide to marry for the convenience she needed and Chad needed a wife. After the marriage, Chad and Nicole have secrets and conflicts with many twists and turns that will keep a reader enthralled and drawn into the many adventures that captures my interest.
Lilly’s book is a very well-written saga that has me hooked with romantic tension throughout. One example scene between the couple that just transports me into the scene was a discription of a horse ride and the encounter on the beach which swept me away as if I were present. Any woman would want to be in Nicole’s position at that time and place.
A twist for Chad is a secret hidden in the Gilchrest tower that has him questioning whether to reveal to Nicole or not. Will he or won’t he, that is the question? Is money the root of evil? Lilly’s book answers that tell all question, too.
I enjoyed the characters, the settings, and the plot immensely. What a blast I had reading SLIGHTLY TARNISHED.
Rebecca: (also a great book)
You wrote a wonderful book review…I love those kinds of stories ….hopefully I’ll get to it in this life.
Thank you!!!!
Romeo and Juliet is the ultimate tragic live story
Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson. Having the perfect love and then having it snatched away from you — that’s a most tragic love story.
I would have to say my all time favorite love story is Gone With the Wind. But the Outlander series by Diana Galbaldon runs a very close second.
The best love story ever, The Horse Whisperer. I still tear up when I think of the ending.
Message in a Bottle – Nicholas Sparks
Anna Karenina and Doctor Zhivago
The tragic love story of Father Ralph de Bricassart and Meggie Cleary in The Thorn Birds by Collen McCullough is my personal favorite. I loved both the book and movie adaptation.
Gone with the Wind!
Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler
The Walk- Richard Paul Evans
A must read! Along with the sequel, Miles to go. This series could take years but who cares, just waiting for book 3!
Gone with the wind.
If you haven’t read Julie and Romeo by Jeanne Ray add it to your list. It’s a light love story about two mature adults and that is so rare. Very enjoyable.
My favorite would have to be GONE WITH THE WIND
The Pilot’s Wife by Anita Shreve and Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson.
I like Lonesome Dove.
oh, the greatest love story of all time has to “Gone With The Wind”!!!
Only one? How about one author? It would have to be Jane Austen … but Daphne du Maurier and her great book “Rebecca” comes a close second.
Ian McEwan’s “Atonement” had me aching for the young couple kept apart by class, misperceptions and war.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
I would have to agree with many of the readers comment written here. Gone With The Wind is my favorite book and definitely the most unbelievable love story ever.
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
It is so hard to name just one but the one that came to my mind was “The French Gardener” by Santa Montefiore.
Marley and Me
The great gatsby
Gone With The Wind is the best of the best. Nothing will ever beat it.
Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstynein the novels by Julia Spenser Fleming Is it a hopeless till death do us part?
Fannie Hurst’s – Imitation of Life….wonderful writer…dying to read the Help but do not have extra money to buy at this time. Currently reading Henry James Nouvelles including Turn of the Screw and Daisy Miller. Loved Washington Square.
Shalom Y’All!!!
The Thorn Birds
I loved The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. There are several examples of love in that story.
I will never forget my emotion when i finished “A Farewell To Arms,” by Earnest Hemingway. Sobbing, i threw the book across the room and cried on my bed. Tragic love is memorable.
Gone With the Wind will always be my very favorite love story.
I will give you two for the price of one! The first one is ‘The Saffron Kitchen’ by Yasmin Crowther. This is her debut novel which you should LOVE! The second book is ‘Midnight at the Dragon Cafe’ by Judy Fong Bates. Before this novel, she published a book of short stories and now has a new novel available [entitled 'The Year of Finding Memory']. The covers of these books caught my attention and reading the flyleafs of both books sealed the deal. Both stories encompass betrayal, wasted lives, cultural as well as class differences, lack of communication, and (of course) love found, lost and found again…well, sort of, anyway. The first book is set in both England and Iran and you will be transfixed by this story. The second books starts out in 1950s Communist China and moves to the Canadian province of Ontario. I have to say that both novels were so engrossing, it was difficult to put them down, even when the stories grew too difficult and painful to read. The detail in both books is absolutely stunning. I hope someone else enjoys these books as much as I did.
So torn. Thomas Hardy (“Far From the Madding Crowd”)? D.H. Lawrence (“Women in Love”)? But I’ll say “A Very Long Engagement” by Sebastien Japrisot.
My favorite would be The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.
The Time Traveler’s Wife.
Romeo and Juliet.
Romeo and Juliet.
The Bridges of Madison County
My favorite will always be The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough. I also lie The Other Side of Midnight by Sidney Sheldon.
Jane Eyre
Thornbirds
Hunchback of Notre Dame
Les Miserables
Absolutely nothing can top “Gone With the Wind!”
Gone With the Wind, of course.
Rhett and Scarlett…….you just have to believe that she will win him back someday!
Bridges of Madison County
Outlander by. Diana. Gabalon. I went to. Scotland to find. Jamie.
gone with the wind,
I loved. Outlander by Diana. Gabalon.
My favorite heartwrenching Love story is definitely Jane Eyre. The passion between Jane and Rochester is so intense.
I don’t really have a favorite romance novel, I love all modern romances mostly!
Like Water for Chocolate
Love that one too!
“Atonement” by Ian McEwan is one of the most tragic and beautiful love stories I’ve ever written. Robbie and Cecilia will break your heart.
Romeo & Juliet – the original unrequieted love story!
i liked the book LOVELY BONES –not a romance but a love story nevertheless.
The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson!
Eternal on the Water by Joseph Monniger. I suggested this book for our book club. Everyone loved it. Joseph was invited to our book club and since living in New England he made the trip to visit, what a treat!!!
My favorite tragic love story is “Romeo and Julliet.”
People have nominated a lot of good ones. I’d go along with The Notebook and The Time Traveler’s Wife.
A Walk to Remember
I read “One Summer” by David Baldacci this season, and it touches your heart!
An oldie but goodie…Gone with the Wind
Atonement