Books that meet high moral standards and contain limited foul language, sexual content, and descriptions of violence.
- Before using this list, please read my disclaimer.
- Every book on this list meets “My Clean Reading Criteria” and is one that I finished, liked, and felt was worth my time to read. To learn more about the purpose of this list please see “About Novaun Novels.”
- For information on how I classify religious fiction, please see “Is Fiction Marketed to Latter-day Saints ‘Christian Fiction’?” For how I evaluate religious content in the books I read, please see “What About Doctrinal Differences?“
- All descriptions in quotation marks come from the book jackets or other descriptions from the publishers. Follow the author links to the corresponding Project Gutenberg pages. Follow the title links to the page, post, or Goodreads review that contains my commentary on the book.
Emma (English classic)
“Beautiful, clever, rich—and single—Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protegee Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected.”
Mansfield Park (English classic)
“Taken from the poverty of her parents’ home, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with only her cousin Edmund as an ally. When Fanny’s uncle is absent in Antigua, Mary Crawford and her brother Henry arrive in the neighbourhood, bringing with them London glamour and a reckless taste for flirtation. As her female cousins vie for Henry’s attention, and even Edmund falls for Mary’s dazzling charms, only Fanny remains doubtful about the Crawfords’ influence and finds herself more isolated than ever.”
Northanger Abby (English classic)
“The story’s unlikely heroine is Catherine Morland, a remarkably innocent seventeenyear-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind with terrible suspicions.”
Persuasion (English classic)
“Twenty-seven-year old Anne Elliot is Austen’s most adult heroine. Eight years before the story proper begins, she is happily betrothed to a naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but she precipitously breaks off the engagement when persuaded by her friend Lady Russell that such a match is unworthy. The breakup produces in Anne a deep and long-lasting regret. When later Wentworth returns from sea a rich and successful captain, he finds Anne’s family on the brink of financial ruin and his own sister a tenant in Kellynch Hall, the Elliot estate.”
Pride and Prejudice (English classic)
“Jane Austen’s witty comedy of manners—one of the most popular novels of all time— that features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues.”
Sense and Sensibility (English classic)
“Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor’s warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her.”
Barrett, Julia
Jane Austen’s Charlotte (historical romance)
Delightful finishing of Jane Austen’s Sanditon.
A Room with a View (English classic)
“A charming young Englishwoman, Lucy Honeychurch, faints into the arms of a fellow Britisher when she witnesses a murder in a Florentine piazza. Attracted to this man, George Emerson—who is entirely unsuitable and whose father just may be a Socialist—Lucy is soon at war with the snobbery of her class and her own conflicting desires.”
Kilpack, Josi S.
The Lady of the Lakes: The True Love Story of Sir Walter Scott (historical romance)
“Passion and promises collide as Walter, Mina, and Charlotte must each decide the course for their futures. What are they each willing to risk to find love and be loved in return?”
The Blue Castle (Canadian classic)
Twenty-nine-year-old Valancy Stirling, considered an “old maid” by her family and the community, is used to obeying her mother and the other domineering members of the Stirling clan. She receives a letter from her doctor telling her that she has no more than a year to live. Having nothing to lose, she begins saying what she thinks and living her life the way she chooses, finally finding purpose and joy.
Nunes, Rachel Ann
Where I Belong (Christian fiction, Latter-day Saint)
“Heather . . . desperately wants to allow herself to love her best friend and become a mother to their children, yet how can she forget her lifelong dream of succeeding in the art world?”
Pella, Judith
Beloved Stranger (Christian romance, Evangelical)
“Their love-at-first-sight relationship was more than she had dared to dream. Why did she now feel so lost?”
Politano, Joanna Davidson
The Love Note (Christian historical romance, Evangelical)
“Focused on a career in medicine and not on romance, Willa Duvall is thrown slightly off course during the summer of 1865 when she discovers a never-opened love letter in a crack of her old writing desk. Compelled to find the passionate soul who penned it and the person who never received it, she takes a job as a nurse at the seaside estate of Crestwicke Manor.”
K (historical romance)
A mysterious man who calls himself “K” moves into the neighborhood and is befriended by Sidney Page.
Tennant, Emma
Pemberley or Pride and Prejudice Continued (historical fiction)
Preparing for a Christmas celebration at Pemberley that will include her mother, Miss Bingley, and Lady Catherine DeBourgh, Elizabeth Darcy worries she will be unable to bear her husband an heir.
An Unequal Marriage or Pride and Prejudice Twenty Years Later (historical fiction)
While hosting a lavish wedding at Pemberley for their dear friend Colonel Fitzwilliam, the Darcys painfully confront the possibility that their son may be an unsuitable heir to the estate.
The featured image “Field of Tulips” is Copyright © 2022 by Katherine Padilla. All rights reserved.
