Top 10 romps and romances

Freya North's latest novel, Pillow Talk, won Britain's Romantic Novel of the Year award earlier this month.

She named a top 10 list of romantic fiction for the Guardian. A few prefatory remarks, then Number One on her list:

Throughout my life, romantic fiction has sustained me. I read recently that, as a genre, it is purchased more than any other. From tales of chaste love to bawdy shenanigans, from historical dramas to contemporary affairs, romantic fiction is as multi-faceted as love itself. The unifying factor is there's no better premise for a novel than love, in all its guises. I like to live vicariously through my heroines - they get up to things I'd never dare do...

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

Possibly my desert island book. If Defoe can be revered as the godfather of the romp, his spunky protagonist, Moll, is the godmother of feisty literary heroines. The pace is frenzied and the plot outrageous. Our heroine marries every eligible male between Lancashire and Virginia - including her brother. She's a very modern icon - whatever befalls her, she picks herself up, dusts herself down, rearranges her cleavage and rampages off again.

Read the entire list.

--Marshal Zeringue