Valentine’s Day is traditionally the time when “love is in the air.” So why not get to the heart of the matter by putting some romance on your reading list? Here are four books – one nonfiction work and three novels -- to inspire you.

“The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God” by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge has been read by more than a quarter of a million people since Thomas Nelson published it in 1997. On it’s way to becoming a classic, it clearly recaptures the heart of the Gospel and God’s intent to engage each of His children in a passionate relationship.

Curtis and Eldredge examine the “heart yearning” called romance that God has placed inside of us. Its purpose, they say, is to call us on a journey with God of intimacy, adventure and beauty. Why are we drawn into tales of heroism and beauty? The authors say it’s because, at our deepest levels, we want to be in a story of heroic proportions.

Reading this book may inspire you toward understanding your unique role in the larger story God has written, or to release the well-being of your heart to Him or to reconcile your deepest longings with your greatest fears. The theme continues in a follow-up book written by Eldredge called “The Journey of Desire: Searching for the Life We Always Dreamed Of.”

“Wiser Than Serpents” by Minnesota author Susan May Warren is a romantic thriller published by Steeple Hill (2008). In this story, Russian Federal Security Service agent Yanna Andrevka realizes that she desires more from her long-distance friendship with American Delta Force Capt. David Curtiss. Because of her past, she doubts that David could ever return her feelings. But when Yanna is caught in the snares of an Asian human trafficking ring run by the mysterious Twin Serpents, she finds herself discovering the lengths to which both David, and the God in whom he believes, are willing to go to love and rescue her. David, meanwhile, must learn what it really means to let God fight his battles, while he negotiates a slippery line between good and evil in order to bring down the enemy and rescue the woman he loves.

“In the Shadow of the Sun King” by Golden Keyes Parsons (Thomas Nelson, 2008) visits the opulent court life of France’s King Louis XIV during the terrifying days of the Huguenot persecutions. Though Madeleine Clavell once had been loved by the king, her family’s safety is quickly eroded when the king’s dragoons begin terrorizing Protestant nonconformists. Hoping to save her family and their estate, Madeleine goes to the fickle monarch with a plea for mercy, the outcome of which forces her to make a desperate decision. Now she is uncertain if she’ll ever see her husband or young daughter again. While their fates appear sealed, she must decide whether to accept the protection offered by Pierre Boveé, the debonair son of the heartless commander who’d invaded their home. Risk and trust are balanced in this rich historical novel that reminds us that God does, indeed, “know the end from the beginning.”

“Love Finds You in Valentine Nebraska” by Irene Brand (Summerside Press, 2008) is a love story of the modern West. When city girl Kennedy Blaine visits her family’s ancestral ranch home following her father’s death, she finds that the ancient feud that tore her parents from their quaint hometown in Valentine is still alive. She also finds herself drawn to the ranch’s Marshall Dillon-like manager, Derek Sterling, who seems to have leapt off the set of “Gunsmoke” and into her heart. But Derek has a past intent on finding him, and someone also doesn’t want Kennedy to stay in Nebraska. She doesn’t know if it’s the grandfather she can’t forgive or one of her other relatives with whom she’d hoped to reconnect. But her life is in danger if she stays, and Derek is convinced that she would never be able to love him anyway -- if she knew everything about him. Trust and prayer are matters of the heart in this story of finding God’s will. 

In these tough economic days, there’s affordable entertainment in reading a good book. Each of these books is rich in both entertainment quality and message.