Part #4 of our chat with author @lizbasswriter LUV: What is your favorite romance comfort read and/or watch? This is going back a couple of decades now, but the 2005 BBC adaptation of North and South is absolutely stunning. I return to it every couple of years. The story is by the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell and was written in the 1850s, but its themes still resonate. At its core, there’s a romance between a northern textile mill owner in the fictional town of Milton, John Thornton, who has worked his way out of poverty and is a hard-nosed businessman. Margaret Hale, a genteel but impoverished clergyman’s daughter and a recent arrival to the industrial north, takes issue with the way Thornton and other mill owners treat their workers, and the two have one of the best slow-burn relationships in literature and on screen. Like Pride and Prejudice, it’s a classic story of characters being pulled apart not just by social circumstances but by their own feelings of inner conflict. Of course, this being a Victorian story, there are dramatic crises galore and characters drop like flies, and the BBC filmed it beautifully, with a wonderful soundtrack. But what really makes the story for me—both the television adaptation and the book—is that there is so much suspense over what will happen between Margaret and Mr. Thornton. Even scenes where nothing is said between them are fraught with tension. Every time I watch, I forget about the ending and I’m nervous all over again that things won’t work out. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Thornton is played by Richard Armitage, who broods longingly better than any actor ever.

Posted by LUV Team at 2023-07-13 14:00:31 UTC