Romance | featured news

Ah, l’amour! Few things go better with romance than exquisite food and sophisticated wines. But romantic dining is more than just fancy white tablecloths and candles. Our Top 10 Romantic Restaurants bring Cupid’s fork to jaw-dropping settings of sweeping Pacific views, rustic farms and forests, and even the sparkling vista of the Vegas Strip. From French classics to dramatic contemporary American cuisine, recipes for romance are created through the magic of these top chefs, alongside the Champagne, caviar and perhaps just a little bit of love potion #9.

When you want to get away from it all, set your course for these romantic islands, as chosen by Travel + Leisure readers.

The story of 2012 in publishing was the story of "Fifty Shades of Grey," in more ways than one. E L James' erotic trilogy was easily the year's biggest hit, selling more than 35 million copies in the U.S. alone and topping bestseller lists for months. Rival publishers hurried to sign up similar books and debates started over who should star in the planned film version. Through James' books and how she wrote them, the general public was educated in the worlds of romance/erotica, start-up publishing and "fan fiction."

Bella Andre isn’t a household name, and no wonder. The California-based author of romance fiction, profiled in The Post last year, finally made her first non-retailer bestseller list last week. “If You Were Mine” clocked in at No. 111 on USA Today’s list.

There’s been a lot of romance going on in the corner office lately. CEOs of two major companies -- Best Buy Co. and Stryker Corp.

This Valentine’s Day, as our collective thoughts shift to tender cards, heart-shaped chocolates, overpriced bouquets and other extravagant gestures of love, I can’t help but wonder what really attracts us to one mate over another. Is it hot sex? Fairy-tale romance? Destiny? Or are we merely at the beck and call of our hormones and brain circuitry?

Valentine's Day is by far one of the most stressful holidays of the year for couples. Whether you're trying to pick out the perfect present, the perfect restaurant or the perfect bouquet of flowers, it's certainly not easy. To make things even more complicated, companies rake in tons of cash marketing "romantic" and "sexy" products to the masses, trying to convince you to buy tacky, confusing or borderline offensive gifts. We mean come on: who's REALLY buying edible undies for Valentine's Day -- much less ones made out of meat?

Romance and flying rarely go together anymore, unless you fall in love 35,000 feet above ground and get engaged in-flight.

Americans take longer to fall in love than their Eastern European counterparts, according to a new study. The findings also showed that Americans frequently cited friendship as a key part of romantic love, while Russians and Lithuanians rarely mentioned it.

A 24-year-old Argentine woman accused of leaking unfinished scenes from the vampire movie "Breaking Dawn" said Thursday that she accessed the material on the Internet "by chance" and didn't pirate it.