One Day
David Nicholls
Checked in on every 15 July for twenty years, two Edinburgh graduates grow up, drift apart and keep painfully finding each other again
Both: Romantic
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Heart the Lover
Lily King
A 1980s college love triangle that finds its way back to them decades later
- Literary fiction
- Romantic
- Melancholic
- Love triangle
- Grief & loss
- Second chance
- Slow & immersive
- Medium read
Top picks
Picks suggested by readers, each with one line on why.
The End of Loneliness
Benedict Wells
After losing their parents young, three siblings scatter, and Jules carries one boarding-school love and a quiet grief through the decades
Both: Melancholic · Grief & loss
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The History of Love
Nicole Krauss
An old Polish-born writer in New York still mourns the love he lost as a boy, while a grieving teenage girl searches for the book he wrote
Both: Melancholic · Grief & loss
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The Marriage Plot
Jeffrey Eugenides
In 1980s Providence, an English major who loves Victorian novels is caught between her brilliant, fragile boyfriend and a devoted friend
Both: Romantic · Melancholic · Love triangle
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The Sense of an Ending
Julian Barnes
Decades after university, a retired man is handed a diary that forces him to rethink his first love, his cleverest friend and his own life
Both: Melancholic
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