The Course Of True Love

She didn't know the rules of engagement Getting engaged to Marc van Borsele was the last thing Claribel wanted. Marc was the most annoying and exasperating man she had ever met! But, as the engagement was only pretense and she did owe Marc a favor, Claribel agreed. She soon discovered that make-believe can come true, even if you don't want it to! Before she knew it, Claribel found herself head over heels in love with her pretend fiancé. The course of true love never did run smooth….

Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood might fall in love—but first they have a first date. One of ten adventures in The Bane Chronicles. When Magnus Bane, warlock, meets Alec Lightwood, Shadowhunter, sparks fly. And what happens on their first date lights a flame... This standalone e-only short story illuminates the life of the enigmatic Magnus Bane, whose alluring personality populates the pages of the #1 New York Times bestselling series The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices. This story in The Bane Chronicles, The Course of True Love (and First Dates), is written by Cassandra Clare.

Charles Reade (1814-1884) was a well-known, but not highly regarded novelist and playwright. George Orwell said that "it is unusual to meet anyone who has voluntarily read" his detail-filled works.

Some say all love stories are the same. A boy meets a girl and they fall in love eventually. But is that where the story ends? What about the journey they make together, the feelings they share, and the moments they live? Aarush is a reticent boy who has dreams of making it to a premier engineering college. Staying away from home and working hard towards his dreams, he falls in love under strange circumstances. That too, truly, madly, deeply. Can love happen at sixteen, or is it just a passing infatuation? A true yet unusual emotional love saga, In Course of True Love explores the reality of puppy love, and plumbs its depth, its warmth, and its true meaning.

A gay couple "come out" during a school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

In Edinburgh, a couple, Rabih and Kirsten, fall in love. They get married, they have children -- but no relationship is as simple as "happily ever after." The Course of Love is a novel that explores what happens after the birth of love, what it takes to maintain love, and what happens to our original ideals under the pressures of an average existence. With philosophical insight and psychological acumen, Alain de Botton shows that our Romantic dreams may do us a grave disservice -- and explores what the alternatives might be. The conclusion, as the characters gradually discover, is that love is not "an enthusiasm," but rather a "skill" that must be slowly and often painfully learnt. This is a Romantic novel in the true sense, one interested in exploring how love can survive and thrive in the long term.