My Top Book Boyfriend

Look, this game could go on for quite some time. I am 47, and I have been reading since I was 4. I have been falling in love with boys in books as far back as Frank and Joe Hardy solving crimes and Almanzo Wilder wooing Laura Ingalls with his gorgeous horses. If I had unlimited time and energy, here are some of the men I could write about at length if pressed. (If we ever meet in person, feel free to ask me to expand.) 

Ramses Emerson: The Peabody Egyptology series by Elizabeth Peters

Hugh of Harrowfield: Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier

Will Herondale: The Infernal Devices trilogy by Cassandra Clare

Locke Lamora: Gentleman Bastard books by Scott Lynch

Thomas Lynley: Elizabeth George's Lynley mysteries

Levi: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

And that's leaving out fictionalized accounts of historical figures, like Sharon Kay Penman's Llewellyn the Great in Here be Dragons or Richard of Gloucester in The Sunne in Splendour.

But back to the manner at hand, that of naming my number one, best of the best, favorite book boyfriend of all time: 

Francis Crawford of Lymond, Master of Culter, Comte de Sevigny, and Marshal of France

In Dorothy Dunnett's six book series The Lymond Chronicles, she wanted to create a genius fit for the turbulent world of the mid-16th century. In an overall story covering the years 1547-1558, enter the slender, blue-eyed, golden-haired Scotsman known most familiarly as Lymond. 

I think I might love him for his titles alone--there aren't a lot of great titles in today's world. The first time I read The Lymond Chronicles, it took me to the end of the third book to fall for Francis Crawford. He's the epitome of a riddle wrapped in an enigma, something the author perpetuates by only very rarely using his point of view. He's a Renaissance man in the Tudor era, who can fight and love and deceive in multiple languages and across continents. He's charming, clever, athletic, cruel, loyal, dangerous, and vulnerable. And he recognizes a good woman when he meets one--even though it takes years for him to understand. 

On this Valentine Day, allow me to quote what I think is one of the most romantic declarations in literature--from Checkmate, the sixth and final book. When the woman he loves dares him to make her believe that he is "more amorous of her body than curious of her soul," Francis answers: 

"Gold bydeth ever bright. That is one blasphemy I cannot bring myself to commit. I love you . . . in every way known to man."

May your life--and books--be full of people to love this day and always :)