My Choice for Greatest Romance Series Ever

 I am in the middle of a nostalgia craze.  For 2025, I am taking a second (or even third) look at some of the fiction I enjoyed in my younger days. As part of this, I have discovered just how much I personally have changed over the decades. 

Anne Golon

It surprises me how much I loved historical fiction when I was in high school and college.  I hated actual history, but readily buried myself in historical fiction. That’s why I happily my nostalgia effort by jumping back into rereading the best, most satisfying historical romance series ever. The thirteen volumes of the Angelique series by French author Anne Golon takes readers across the seventeenth century globe, beginning in France during the reign of Louis XIV, the illustrious Sun King.

 

The first book in the series was published back when I was still in high school, and was my very first romance. The heroine, Angelique, begins as a teenager from an impoverished noble French family who spends time playing with local children. She slowly grows from a self-centered teen into a mature woman who finds her soulmate and raises two sons she would do anything for. Then her love story is interrupted as she, and we as readers, has to watch her beloved's  execution and tumbles into poverty. 

In many ways I feel like I grew up right alongside the heroine as the books progress. Over the years I haunted bookstores in search of the next book in the series. The heroine matures in the books she realizes she cant be helpless with two children to protect.  The tagline for the books is "the passionate adventures" but it ends up more of "the boss-lady experiences" of a woman prepared to do whatever it takes to protect her kids. That includes 

• becoming the leader of a group of thieves
• blackmailing a member of the king's court to make certain her children have a royal future
• taking full advantage of rumors linking her to the king while actually avoiding him. (Imagine being self-assured enough to say no to the king.)
• running a business as a single mother
• and leading a peasants' rebellion against the king

She also finds herself taken prisoner during a business trip on the Barbery Coast of North Africa where she is auctioned off to a masked pirate captain. She escapes from the pirate, then uses him and his ship to help her evacuate a group of religious refugees to the new world.  By this time she is in her forties, and making the kinds of marks on the world I can only wish I could. Over the course of five books the once childish teen has grown and into a politically acute business woman and warrior, so mature and competent that readers easily accept her efficacy when she negotiates with Native American tribes after she arrives in French Canada.

 

Then, in book #6 of the series everything changes. She learns that her first husband, the soul mate we all saw executed back in the middle of book #1, is actually still alive and well. He is also the pirate captain in disguise. The question is, what does he feel about her now? And what should she do with the man who has asked her to matty him and is willing to kill that pirate if he has to?

Trust me, this author's writing was so good she actually makes the soap opera scenario work. Every time I reread book 6, "Angelique in Love," my heart flutters. 

 

Versailles, France

The path of true love has never been less smooth or more intriguing for readers than it is on the pages of these books. And not only are there mountains of history and miles of geography (the author and her husband were such meticulous researchers the books could be used in lessons) but loyal readers have spent vacations touring in Angelique's footsteps both in Europe and the New World freom Versailles to Morocco to New England. The books have been translated from its original French into over twenty different languages. I even taught myself to read French so I could read the last two books in the series that were never translated into English. That’s the pull this story has always had for me. Were I stuck on a deserted island, I'd want a copy of this series to keep me going.

School Daze Revisited

By Robin Weaver

For those of you who know me, I’m sure my school-day antics will come as no surprise. For the rest of you, I promise the following events are completely true. Well, mostly true...

First Grade, Day One:  Not having gone to kindergarten, I had no idea what to expect, do, or say. I certainly had no idea where I should sit.  Solution: I spotted two other girls with short-curly hair just like mine. That had to be my table. On day two, the teacher separated us because we talked too much. ☹

Second Grade: Michael Kessler proposed. (Spoiler Alert: Although I initially said “yes,” we called off the wedding).

Third: My third-cousin stole my lunch money—a crime that went unpunished due to lack of proof (even though my lunchbox-totin’ cuz never had spending money before or after that particular day). Probably why I became a mystery writer, don’t ya think? My cousin did, however, buy me two ice creams and a Coke.

Fourth:  We moved and I was the new kid. Yikes! And my teacher had a moustache! Only she was female. The most interesting character trait to-date and I wasn’t allowed to talk about it. TUT!

Fifth: My younger brother and I were the last kids to get home on our bus route. After the next to last students got off the bus, it typically took another fifteen minutes to get to my house. Yep, it was that rural. Anyway, my little bro—a third grader—decided the driver was taking too long. He decided he could help out by stepping on the accelerator.  (I swear, this is a true, non-fiction story.)

What happened next had to be the inspiration for the flying car in the Harry Potter novels. Poor old Walter, the driver and a family friend, never fully recovered from his adrenaline rush.

Sixth: I got to represent my school in the County Spelling Bee. YEAH! I practiced and practiced. Only a few of us remained after round three and I was so super-psyched to get a word I knew how to spell—gnat. Only in my excitement I blurted K-N-A-T.  Everyone laughed  when I subsequently slapped my hands over my head. It’s been “knawing” at me ever since.

Seventh: My entire English class got a zero for talking too loud, which totally wrecked my semester average. So not fair since the teacher was late. I still can’t convince my mom “I” wasn’t talking. 😊

Eighth: While horseback riding on a narrow pathway with my youngest brother (aged three), the saddle girth became loose and the saddle slid underneath the mare's belly, depositing us riders on the ground. The mare walked over us--so did the three horses behind us and not one stepped on us. We were so lucky. I know this has nothing to do with school, but I couldn't remember a single thing about the eighth grade.

Ninth: Five of us decided to skip class. Only some busybody who lived near the school saw us and called the principal. The woman said we were too far away so she didn't know who it was, but one of the kids was a redhead. Only one of us--the only redhead (aka me) got caught. sigh. 

Tenth: We were playing the Blue Devils in basketball (arch rivals) so the other cheerleaders and I made a huge banner that said, “Fork the Devils.”  I seriously didn’t understand why we got in trouble. Seriously. 😊

Eleventh: My brother (The flying bus pilot, not the walked-over-by-horses one) won a snooker tournament. Got his picture in the paper and everything.  One little problem. The tournament was on a school day, during school hours. Only he didn’t get in nearly as much trouble as I did about the devil fork. So not fair.

Twelfth: I drove an old Simca (with no brakes) to school so I could go straight to work after classes.; this car was the economy forerunner of the Mini Cooper and made today's "skate" cars look big.

One particular day, I rushed down the hall, only to stop in my tracks. Was that my… 

I whirled, only losing one of my books.

YES. It was. My little Simca sat inside the school hallway. Near the entrance, but above about 20 steps.

What the heck was I going to do? After a little screech, I decided I’d just drive the darn thing down the stairs. They did it on television, right? Only not having brakes was not conducive to driving downhill—even with stairs. Maybe especially with stairs.

Then I noticed the principle standing next to the door. Smirking. I didn’t see the humor myself. He got on the PA system and got some guys from the Ag class to lift the frontend and push from the back. 

I wasn’t even late for work.

What does all this mean? I have no idea, but I think my early academics might have contributed to my writing fiction. 

Have an awesome autumn!

Robin