TGIF @ GReads #4: Love Stories

TGIF is a weekly meme hosted every Friday at GReads, asking reading/book-related questions which are fun to answer. This week's question is:

Love Stories: What are some of your favorite fictional love stories?

Oooh!

The very first story that comes to mind is Rachel and Gabriel's story from Archangel, by Sharon Shinn.
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE their love story. I love everything about it. I love those two characters and their journey to love. It is a story about two very imperfect people learning to make the best of a 'bad' situation.  They're also very unusual characters in the world of fantasy and romance:  a very prim-and-proper and uptight angel, and a VERY stubborn-to-the-point-of-idiocy heroine. Their flaws, their strengths, their weaknesses, their (more like Rachel's) past pain...it was glorious to experience. To date, they remain two of my very favorite characters in all fiction.

Heidi by Johanna Spyri. I positively adore this story. What's special about it is that it's not about romantic love. Instead it's the story of a little orphan girl who's foisted off on her unwilling curmudgeon of a grandfather. And watching the gruff ole loner show his love for Heidi in many little ways is so sweet.  Equally sweet is the love Heidi has for her grandfather and the Swiss alps. So strong is this love that Heidi has to be returned to her darling grandfather after well-meaning "social services" separate them. I adore this tale so much that I planned on naming my daughter either Adelaide or Johanna, in honor of this book and the author who could think up such a delightful tale. But that was before I decided that darnit, I am not European, so none of my children are getting European names.

Akorfa Asiedu, veteran Ghanaian actress

My last entry is not from books. But the love stories from the old time Ghanaian movies (late 1980's, early 1990's) are some of my favorite of all time. They were awesome, and no one ever forgets them. Even today, start singing

"Sakina, O Sakina, my endless love for you will remain,
My love for you will never ever die,
O Sakina, O Sakina"

to a group of Ghanaians over 20 years old, and everyone will reply back with

"Nico, Nico, I love you from the bottom of my heart
Nico, Nico, I love you from the bottom of my heart,
O Nico, O Nico."

Nico and Sakina's forbidden love story was epic! The movie was Matters of the Heart, released way back in 1996. Unfortunately, you can't find this, or any of those movies anywhere anymore, since no one was forward-thinking enough to record them, and the movie companies that made such awesome moves are mostly defunct now.

Anyway, that's my piece. the ball is in your court now. What are some of your favorite love stories?