I never thought my favorite love story would be a portrait of an open relationship, but here we are. NEXT YEAR FOR SURE follows the tumultuous and revelatory year in which longtime partners Kathryn and Chris explore an open relationship and reconsider everything they thought they knew about love. It’s a mesmerizing and sage story about a great love pushed to the edge. NEXT YEAR FOR SURE is so smart and funny, and full of vivid characters and stunning sentences. Just thinking about this book is making me fall in love with it all over again.

This is one of the most stirring and thought-provoking love stories I’ve ever read. Just as newlyweds Celestial and Roy are settling into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart when Roy, a young black man, is sentenced to 12 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. When Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned after five years, he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together—not knowing Celestial was unable to hold on to their empty marriage. AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE is an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while still moving forward.

When Isabel Vincent meets Edward, both are at a crossroads: he wants to follow his late wife to the grave, and she is ready to give up on love. Thinking she is merely helping Edward’s daughter—who lives far away and has asked her to check in on her nonagenarian dad in New York—Isabel has no idea how much their weekly dinners will change her life. DINNER WITH EDWARD is a touching memoir about love and nourishment, and how a simple dinner with a friend can sustain us.

This beautiful and moving historical novel is inspired by one of the most titillating and misunderstood love stories in US history—the relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and journalist Lorena “Hick” Hickok. Hick meets Eleanor in 1932 while reporting on Franklin Roosevelt’s first presidential campaign, and the two women quickly fall in love—each recognizing a fellow lost soul. Hick moves into the White House, where her status as “first friend” is an open secret, as are FDR’s own lovers. Even as Hick’s bond with Eleanor is tested by forces both extraordinary and common, and as she grows as a woman and a writer, she never loses sight of the love of her life.

Full disclosure—I haven’t actually read this book. But my boss describes it as one of the most sweeping, romantic stories of forbidden love she’s ever read. So there you have it. When the world is collapsing and war runs rampant, you take love where you can find it. THE ENGLISH PATIENT traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an abandoned Italian villa at the end of World War II. At the center is the English patient, a nameless pilot whose plane crash left him hideously burned. The one thing that survived the fire is a book covered with hand-written notes describing a passionate and tragic love affair.

Read the full review of THE ENGLISH PATIENT.