Every so often, I find one of those books that just takes my breath away as I’m reading. Every so often, I find one whose characters stay close to my side even when I’m not reading it, going through my days hovering in the corner of my mind. Every so often I find a book where the not-kisses are intense as the kisses, where the emotion is so high I feel taut as a bow while reading, where I savor each page.

The Colonel’s Lady by Laura Frantz is one of those books. I’ve never done a rating system, but I’m tempted to come up with one for this just so I can give it maximum stars. 

Roxanna Rowan has lost everything she knew in Virginia. Her mother has died, her betrothed has broken their engagement. The only promise left in her life is her beloved father, who is serving as a scrivener to the fearsome Colonel Cassius McLinn on the frontier in Ketucke. Not knowing what else to do, Roxanna packs up everything she owns and heads into the unknown–only to arrive at Fort Endeavor and discover her father is dead. Trapped at the outpost, surrounded by natives that are working for the British, Roxanna has little choice but to stay in this terrible place, where her father’s memory haunts her home and the towering Irish commander haunts her mind . . . and soon her heart.

Cassius McLinn has been given charge of the western frontier, but it is punishment rather than honor. He ought to be in the east, serving General Washington. Fighting the British outright, just as he had given up his inheritance in Ireland to do. But he is instead in this godforsaken wilderness, with too few supplies, too few men, and now a passel of women to care for–including the too-alluring, too-generous daughter of the man he accidentally shot in the shadowy twilight on their last campaign. He cannot explain why Roxie Rowan burrows so quickly into his heart. What he does know is that when she discovers her father’s death came at his hands, she will hate him. His Irish premonition tells him he will die out here, perhaps even at the hands of the spy Roxie’s father had discovered before his death . . . but is there a chance he will know happiness before he does?

The Colonel’s Lady is . . . just WOW. It’s heart-wrenching. It’s beyond beautiful. It’s complicated and engaging and memorable. It’s absolutely everything a book needs to be, and I can honestly think of nothing I would change about it. As I read it, I could feel the danger lurking in the forests just beyond the fort’s walls. I could feel the tension stretching the characters to their breaking points. I could sense the resignation of Cass, the desperation of Roxanna. Which made the love story all the more poignant.

This book can boast the most intense not-a-kiss scene I think I’ve ever read. The actual kissing scene is awesome too, but I have to note the first because it’s far harder to find. 😉 Buy boy howdy! The book would be worth reading for that alone.

I’ve given up wasting time on books I’m not enjoying, so pretty much anything I review on here is going to be one I like and fully approve. But I have to say that The Colonel’s Lady holds a spot on my favorites list. It is truly a masterful combination of wordsmithing and storytelling, of real, torn characters and a high-stakes plot.

Go get your hands on this book. Now. Seriously. GO. You’ll thank me for it. =)

I was chatting with my 14-year-old niece over the weekend about classics. She’s reading Great Expectations in class right now, and while she finds some parts of it good, overall she’s come to the conclusion that it’s boring. She said, “Modern books are just better. By which I mean books written recently, not necessarily set recently.”

In a lot of ways, I think she’s right. Fiction writing has evolved a lot over the centuries. We have a craft, and we study on ways to improve it, to fully engage our readers. And the readers have changed! A TV generation isn’t prepared to wade through all those descriptive paragraphs. Or backstory. Or info dumps. Overall, I think this is an improvement, certainly for the world we’re writing for.

But of course, I had to tell her that not all classics are as difficult as Dickens. =) Now, I’ve read some Dickens I like. But I must confess–I sat down one summer during college with my Complete Works and said, “I’m going to read Dickens this summer!” 

I got about three chapters in and went, “I’m not going to read Dickens this summer!” LOL.

But I could read Pride and Prejudice over and over again. The wit is just amazing. And as I told my niece, Jane Eyre is shockingly modern. When I read that right after college, I couldn’t believe how similar it was in style to modern books. L. M. Montgomery (who wrote around turn-of-the-century, so is borderline modern in  my opinion) will always remain one of my favorite authors.

I’m glad fiction writing has come as far as it has, but I definitely still love–and have immense respect for–classics. What are you favorite pieces of classic literature? Authors, titles? Why do you love them? And which ones do you think translate best to today’s teens?