You pierce my soul

My pal, Susan McBride (author of the fabulous The Cougar Club) is over at the Stiletto Gang today talking about favorite romantic reads. She was seen on Great Day St. Louis on Valentine's Day and selected The Boyfriend of the Month Club as a favorite read this year. Yay! You can read the post and see the video right here.

Susan did a poll recently on Facebook and her readers selected 5 of their favorite romantic reads of all time.

I think mine is without a doubt, Persuasion, by Jane Austen. The love letter Captain Wentworth writes to Anne at the end of the story is a two hankie read!

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago.

Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine.

I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men.

Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never."
Persuasion, Jane Austen

Have a great weekend everyone! I'll be in Pittsburgh. Pictures to come (if I don't freeze to death, that is!)