The Romantics

Stories of true romance, from youth to middle age and beyond


An elderly couple sits on a park bench, murmuring compliments to each other, and passing gentle judgment on the crowds that pass them by. They are alone—no children, no friends, nothing but their memories to keep them company. Are they happy? Or is true love no longer enough to sustain them?


While this couple sits on the bench, remembering faded passions, young people are falling in love for the first time. Middle-aged husbands and wives are taking second honeymoons, trying to recapture something that now seems like it may never have been real to begin with. Lovers are everywhere—happy and sad, jealous and fervent—and no one knows them better than Mary Roberts Rinehart. In this haunting collection, she shows us love won and lost, its ends and its beginnings, always different, and always a little bit the same.