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Love comes in all forms: from Jane Austen, exploring the search for the appropriate partner in Pride and Prejudice, to its latter day spin-off, Helen Fielding’s much-loved Bridget Jones’s Diary, which follows the life of a single woman in London trying to make sense of life.

Controversy lurks behind many of these novels, as in Judy Blume’s Forever and , which have both been subject to questions over their content.

What is undeniable is the love that readers have for these books, finding in them the escape and desire they seek. Read on to get under the skin of the 10 novels and then join the debate.

Helen Fielding worked for many years in London as a newspaper and TV journalist, and Bridget Jones’s Diary began as a newspaper column.

Bridget is a ‘singleton’ navigating life in London in her thirties - love, friends, family and career. Her constant resolutions to lose weight, and to quit smoking, drinking, and bad men, are hindered by her loveable lack of will power, making her a relatable and iconic character.

Bridget Jones epitomises the woman trying to ‘have it all’ and wondering if that is possible in the 1990s.

Book Club Questions

1. How does the book explore gender relations in the 1990s?

2. Is Bridget Jones a feminist? And can Bridget Jones’s Diary be read as a feminist text?

3. Bridget is often described as a quintessentially modern English woman. Is this description still relevant to women in 2020?

Making the choice about when, where and to whom she should lose her virginity is a big decision for Katherine – until she meets Michael.

Katherine and Michael, who are both in their final year of school, fall in love quickly, deeply and promise to remain in love forever. Within this candid tale of first love, Forever tackles themes ranging from teen sexuality and friendship, to mental health crises and grief.

Book Club Questions

1. Why has Forever been such a frequent target of banning and censorship? Do you agree that it should be censored?

2. What role do the attitudes of other characters towards sex and love play in shaping Katherine’s own feelings? For example, her various friends, Michael, her different family members, or even society?

3. Forever was first published in 1975. How relevant would you consider the book today?

Giovanni’s Room explores the subject of love and sex from a gay perspective. A tragic tale of homosexual love in 1950s Paris from the viewpoint of an American protagonist freed from homeland constraints.

David renounces a tortured and passionate affair with Italian barman Giovanni, abandoning him in favour of marriage to fellow American Hella with terrible consequences for all involved.

Book Club Questions

1. How does the novel treat the theme of relationships and marriage?

2. How are women treated in the novel? Do you agree with the views portrayed?

3. How does Giovanni’s room become a metaphor for his relationship with David?

Pride & Prejudice follows Elizabeth Bennet and her four sisters as they feel the pressure from their family, and wider society, to find appropriate suitors and be married off.

A classic of English literature, this novel is filled with comedy, giving a fascinating insight into manners, education, marriage, and money during the Regency era in the United Kingdom.

Book Club Questions

1. We only hear about Lydia’s exploits through the lens of Elizabeth and her other family members. How do you think Lydia would tell her side of the story?

2. In a time period and social class where women have little agency over their romantic lives, what kinds of things does the book portray as valuable currency for women when attracting suitors?

3. How relevant is social class to the novel? How do you think it influences the behaviour of the characters?

Riders details the often-explicit lives of upper class equestrian enthusiasts in the English countryside. The novel follows underdog Jake Lovell and aristocratic anti-hero Rupert Campbell-Black - rivals both in show jumping and in sex - as they gallivant between lavish parties and international courses.

Affectionately labelled by the media as the “original bonkbuster”, the first instalment of Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire Chronicles has become synonymous with sex, scandal, and more sex.

Book Club Questions

1. The explicit descriptions of sex in Riders were seen as shocking when it was first published in 1985 – how would these be received if it was released now?

2. How do sex, class and power intersect in the novel?

3. Do you think the novel admires or satirises the excesses of the aristocracy?

This is a swashbuckling story of adventure and romance. It tells the story of Ashton Pelham-Martyn, an English man brought up as a Hindu (and struggling with his identity), his life in the British Army in India, and his passionate love affair with an Indian mixed-race princess.

It is also a vivid picture of India under the Raj – from the cool of the mountains to the overwhelming heat of the plains, and the rich variety of its life and social and religious conflicts.

Book Club Questions

1. To what extent do you think that the relationship between Ash and Juli mirrors that between England and India in the nineteenth century?

2. What do you think of Ash’s attitude towards Juli? Is he heroic or selfish?

3. How does the book make you feel about the attitude of the British to other nations? And how much do you feel that has changed now?

Ella Rubinstein has the perfect life – a husband, three children, a Labrador, and a lovely home. Or does she?

When faced with a manuscript charting the spiritual union of Sufi mystic Shams of Tabriz and poet Rumi, Ella is forced to confront the increasing loneliness and emptiness she feels inside. Not to mention her growing infatuation with its mysterious author, Aziz…

Book Club Questions

1. Why do you think the author interspersed the manuscript of ‘Sweet Blasphemy’ between the chapters about Ella? Was this an effective literary device?

2. How did Ella’s view of love change throughout the book?

3. How do you think people would view Shams and Rumi’s friendship today?

Set in Florida in the early 20th Century, Their Eyes Were Watching God charts the romantic quest of Janie Crawford, a sixteen-year-old girl married off to an older man.

The reader sees Janie evolve from girl to woman through three marriages, seeking to find her voice, identity and real love.

Book Club Questions

1. What expectations do the characters in the novel have of the role of women - particularly wives - and how does Janie react to these expectations?

2. In what ways has society’s notions of love and marriage changed since the time in which the novel was set?

3. The novel is set in Eatonville, an all-black community in Florida, during a period of enforced segregation in the Southern United States. In light of this setting, how does the novel portray the themes of freedom and restriction?

The Passion is an astonishing exploration of two interrelated narratives during the Napoleonic wars, across the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Seen from the perspective of Henri, a servant to Napoleon himself, and Villanelle, a Venetian girl shrouded in myth and superstition, the novel is an unflinching examination of love, passion, desire and sexuality set against the backdrop of one of the most influential chapters of Europe’s history.

Book Club Questions

1. Why is the book called The Passion? What is ‘passion’ in the novel?

2. What is the importance of telling stories in the novel? What about truth?

3. How do the real historical characters and action affect the novel? Does it matter if they are accurate representations? Do you trust the narrators?

A bleak yet comic tale of life in a wartime boarding house. A set of mismatched, dispossessed and solitary characters are thrown together by the war.

The Second World War is being waged and at the same time these characters are undergoing their own war of personalities every time they sit down to eat in the dining room. This novel cleverly unpicks the idea that war brings people together.

Book Club Questions

1. Mr Thwaites is a great comic creation – which other monstrous characters from other novels does he bring to mind?

2. Why do you think Miss Roach was so named by the author?

3. Are there any ‘decent’ people in this novel?

To round off our 10 novels in the Love, Sex & Romance theme, here are five stimulating questions to ponder. And below, to continue exploring, try our further reading suggestions.

1. Why do you think love, sex and romance feature so much in novels?

2. How does social class intersect with love, sex and romance?

3. Many novels are seen as ‘of their time’ in the way they portray sex and relationships. What do you think has changed?

4. Do you think it’s right that many ‘sexually explicit’ novels have been banned or censored in countries around the world?

5. Romance is one of the oldest subject matters, which be traced back both to stories of knights and maidens in medieval stories, and the ancient myths. Why do you think it has stayed so popular?

Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman

Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos

The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes

The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride

The Pisces by Melissa Broder