From Jane Eyre to Far From the Madding Crowd, the bestselling romance author recommends her favourite timeless love stories
Milly Johnson has been quietly winning the hearts of readers for years with her warm, relatable stories about love, friendship, and everyday life. Her novels –from Same Time Next Week to The Woman in the Middle – blend humour and heart, often with a Northern charm that’s made her a firm favourite among fans of feel-good romance fiction.
Long before she was writing her own romances, she was reading them. Here, Johnson shares her favourite classic romance novels – the ones that stayed with her, shaped her view of love, and still bring her joy today…
Persuasion by Jane Austen
“A young woman is persuaded not to marry her beau, which is obviously the wrong decision. Fast forward a few years, she’s on the spinster shelf and he comes back into her life. She is far from over him, but he has got a chip on his shoulder about her and finds himself on course to marrying a flibbertigibbet.
“Luckily, fate intervenes and Austen treats us to the portrait of a woman blossoming on the page and a hot naval officer who is passion personified. When the big ‘declaration of love’ comes, it is the stuff of literary legend.”
Penguin Classics, £7.99
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
“If you like your romances slow-burning and wrapped in an involved plot, this is the one for you. Farmer Gabriel proposes marriage to Bathsheba, who is new to the area, but she refuses him and then moves away. When Gabriel loses his livelihood after a disaster, he is reduced to seeking labouring work, and finds it on a farm inherited by Bathsheba.
“But she falls for a cad, while a secret mischievous Valentine’s card to a gentleman farmer has a butterfly effect of tragedy. The road to Gabriel’s and Bathsheba’s happiness is a long and winding one, shall we say. Far from the Madding Crowd is of my schoolgirl reads and it’s stayed with me ever since.”
Penguin Classics, £7.99
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
“This is my favourite book of all time. It follows a young woman with a sad, loveless past as she becomes the governess to the ward of a saturnine, brooding rich man with a secret that blights his life. In Jane, he finds love and relief from his torture. But his secret is exposed on their wedding day and a heartbroken Jane has to leave him.
“This is a book with everything: a relatable heroine, an imperfectly perfect hero, a love rival, triumph over adversity – even a little of the supernatural. And of course, that sublime happy ending.”
Penguin Classics, £7.99
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
“The companion to a rich woman holidaying in Monte Carlo meets an older man and impulsively marries him without realising she has an impossible act to follow in the form of his deceased wife: the accomplished, beautiful and supreme Rebecca.
“But was Rebecca as perfect as she was painted? I can see the heavy influence of Jane Eyre in this powerful story, which is no bad thing.”
Virago Modern Classics, £10.99
A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow
“Perfect for those who like their romance more grounded, this is the first in a trilogy about Vic Brown, who settles for ‘a kind of loving’ after getting a girl pregnant and being forced to do the right thing. Then he meets the woman who his heart is made for. A lesson that you really shouldn’t settle for a lesser love, because the heady, all-encompassing sort is out there waiting.
“I was a friend of the late Stan Barstow’s, as we both lived in Haworth at the same time. He was a humble and lovely man, as well as a massive talent. I adored him.”
Parthian Books, £9.99
Same Time Next Week by Milly Johnson is out now in paperback (Simon & Schuster, £9.99)
