Episode 39: Literary Love Stories (with Jessica Stanley)

What makes a love story literary? We discuss some new releases and old favourites

Thanks for listening to That Rom Com Pod, recorded on Gadigal land.

Jessica Stanley is an Australian novelist living in London. She grew up in Melbourne, studied in Canberra, and worked in journalism and on progressive political campaigns before moving to the UK in 2011. Her Australian first novel A Great Hope was published by Picador in 2022 and was widely praised. Consider Yourself Kissed was published in Australia, the UK, the US and internationally in the past few months to critical acclaim. A day or two after this conversation, for example, Natalie Portman posted about CYK. No biggie.

Find Jess on Instagram @DailyDoseOfJess and on Substack Read. Look. Think.

OK, here’s episode 39!

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Mentioned in conversation with Jessica Stanley

• Consider Yourself Kissed, Jessica Stanley (2025, Text Publishing)

• A Great Hope, Jessica Stanley (2022, Pan Macmillan)

• The Group, Mary McCarthy (1963, Hachette)

• The Cazalet Chronicles, Elizabeth Jane Howard (starting with The Light Years, Picador/Pan Macmillan, 1990)

• Helen Garner’s diaries (Text Publishing, 2022)

  • Yellow Notebook: Diaries Volume I 1978–1987

  • One Day I’ll Remember This: Diaries 1987–1995

  • How to End a Story: Diaries 1995–1998

• Eucalyptus, Murray Bail (1998, Text Publishing)

• One Day, David Nicholls, (2009, Hachette)

• The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2009, Pan Macmillan)

• American Wife, Curtis Sittenfeld (2008, Penguin)

• Romantic Comedy, Curtis Sittenfeld (2023, Penguin)

• Sorrow and Bliss, Meg Mason (2020, HarperCollins)

• Rise and Shine, Kimberley Allsopp (2025, HarperCollins)

Literary Love Stories

• You Are Here, David Nicholls (2024, Hachette)

• Cleopatra and Frankenstein, Coco Mellors (2022, HarperCollins)

• The Rachel Incident, Caroline O’Donoghue (2023, Hachette)

• Big Feelings, Amy Lovat (released July 1, 2025, Pan Macmillan)

• Mistakes and Other Lovers, Amy Lovat (2023, Pan Macmillan)

• Less, Andrew Sean Greer (2017, Hachette) - won 2018 Pulitzer Prize

• Green Dot, Madeleine Gray (2023, Allen & Unwin)

• All The Beautiful Things You Love, Jonathan Seidler (2024, Pan Macmillan)

• Love and Other Puzzles, Kimberley Allsopp (2022, HarperCollins)

• Normal People, Sally Rooney (2018, Allen & Unwin)

• Beautiful World Where Are You, Sally Rooney (2021, Allen & Unwin)

• Intermezzo, Sally Rooney (2024, Allen & Unwin)

• Alicia Thompson’s substack on miscommunication and Normal People

oh, what did you say?

• Long Island Compromise, Taffy Brodesser Akner (2024, Hachette)

• The best love stories in Booker-nominated books

Shelf Love

• Jessica: Happiness Forever, Adelaide Faith (2025, HarperCollins)

• Clare: Margot’s Got Money Troubles, Rufi Thorpe (2024, Hachette)

• Karina: Careless People, Sarah Wynne Williams (2025, Pan Macmillan)

More about us:

Clare Fletcher

• Love Match, 2023 & Five Bush Weddings (2022, Penguin)

• Instagram: @ClareFletcherWriter

• Newsletter:

Karina May

• That Island Feeling (Dec 31, 2024), Never Ever Forever (2023, Pan Macmillan), Duck a l’Orange for Breakfast (2023, Pan Macmillan)

• Instagram: @KarinaMayWrite 

• Tiktok: @KarinaMayWrite

• Newsletter:

That Rom Com Pod is expertly edited by Joshua Broadbent at Marker Creative Co.