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This Valentine’s Day, we’re rounding up some of the best stories about the ultimate culmination of love — marriage.

No marriage is the same, just as no two people are, and the books below demonstrate the metamorphosis of marriages and their impact on the families born of them.

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

“A woman’s only human… she’s flesh and blood, just like her man. No more, no less.”

An American Marriage is a novel about Roy and Celestial Hamilton, a newly married couple whose lives are torn apart after Roy is sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. The story centres around how these characters navigate their relationship through difficult times whilst dealing with their own traumas and attempting to understand who they are as individuals.

Roy is a charming, middle class young man who falls in love with Celestial, an artist who comes from a wealthy family. Roy aspires to achieve the quintessential American dream — big house, beautiful family and success. The burden of class and race weigh heavily on him. Celestial, a dreamer, has a different mindset, dealing with her own past and finding her place as a successful black artist in America.

The story lays bare the agonising death of a warm and loving relationship yet also the beginnings of new and hopeful ones. Even though Celestial and Roy’s story is far from the picture perfect marriage one would hope for, it highlights that marriage is fragile, breakable and what I liked most about the story is that apart from being very relevant, the love story does not exist in a bubble or a vacuum — the characters are very much affected by society and their environment.

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

“No marriage makes sense. Especially not to the outside world. A marriage is it’s own world.”

Sorrow and Bliss is about Martha, a vibrant and clever writer, and her struggle with her mental health. She has an adoring husband who has loved her since they were children. When he walks out on her, Martha is lost and wishes she was ‘normal’ like other people and wasn’t plagued by overpowering emotions.

Martha must heal and love who she is whilst accepting her circumstances. The love story is simple yet profound, delivering the everlasting message that it is impossible to love another person without loving yourself first.

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

“Each memory, good and bad, was another invisible thread that bound them together… It was as simple and complicated as that.”

This is a fun, light novel about 39-year-old Alice, who, after a bad fall at the gym, loses her memory of the past 10 years. Believing she’s 29, newly married and not yet a mother, Alice’s fresh and carefree outlook towards life is something ‘older’ Alice could re-learn.

What Alice Forgot is about two people, burdened by everyday life and whose marriage is falling apart, who need to reset and re-evaluate their priorities. An eye opener for those who are stuck in the mundanity of marriage and everyday life.

This is a story about how love changes and evolves, and sometimes slips quietly into the background becoming second to everything else. Alice and Nick’s journey teaches readers about the importance of revival and the need for survival of love in a marriage.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

“What made something precious? Losing it and finding it.”

Marilyn and James Lee have their world turned upside down when their favourite child commits suicide. Everything I Never Told You is a story about grief, loss and how dysfunctional family narratives can have a deep impact on generations to come.

It is a novel about dreams unfulfilled, identities unexplored, and children misunderstood and ignored. There are no happy endings here, just moving on and reconciling with the fact that you may never know or not care enough to know how deeply lonely and unhappy a person can be.

Readers witness the tragic reality of a parent’s guilt that is neverending, which then continues to chip away at and destroy a marriage and shatter the deep bonds between family.

Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors

“When the darkest part of you meets the darkest part of me, it creates light.”

A story about two broken people running from themselves and their traumas to find solace in each other. Cleo, 24, is a beautiful and broke artist living in Manhattan on the last few days of her student visa. She meets Frank, a successful 45-year-old while exiting a party. Sparks fly between them, and readers are drawn into a thrilling passionate romance that quickly leads to marriage so that Cleo can get her green card.

Though it is a marriage of convenience, the two are deeply and hopelessly in love and the beauty of their connection is evident. However, as the story progresses, the flaws of these two characters begin to unveil in a very raw and vulnerable manner — Frank is highly dependent on alcohol, and Cleo is battling depression.

There are secondary characters in the novel that contribute to the storyline and help Cleo and Frank on their journey of healing and love. Frank and Cleo’s story is evidence that some profound attachments are strong enough to outlast a marriage.

Cleopatra and Frankenstein is one of the best modern day love stories I have read. It hides none of the ugliness in a marriage and highlights the miseries that infect relationships today.

After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid

“Ryan and I are two people who used to be in love. What a beautiful thing to have been. What a sad thing to be.”

After I Do is about Ryan and Lauren whose marriage is falling apart. Trying to save it, they come up with a plan to spend a year apart without any contact to see if they can find their way back to each other. They realise that marriage, even though a conventional and traditional institution, cannot be dealt with using a traditional streamlined approach. Each relationship is different, and every couple must discover their own boundaries and what they want from their partner.

This was a sweet, lighthearted read with a heartwarming ending. While the other novels in the list have more volatile relationships with extreme settings, I have included this book in the list because it highlights the importance of boundaries, which are imperative for any healthy relationship to survive.

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

“Perhaps that’s what it is, this feeling never experienced before, elation, excitement, a furious kind of happiness. Perhaps this is love.”

Beth and Frank are content in their quiet life in the countryside. However, their world is disrupted when an accidental shooting brings Gabriel, Beth’s first love, back into her life. He’s a man who is the stark opposite of her gentle husband Frank, a man who challenged her, pushed her limits and loved her with abandon.

Along with Gabriel, there is his son Leo who reminds Beth of her own son whom she lost a few years earlier. The novel poignantly explores the impact of grief and the wedge it creates in a genuinely blissful union and how the intensity of an unrequited love can change the trajectory of a person’s life.

This one’s for lovers of pining romance and historical fiction.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

While all of the other books on this list have essentially positive messages and illustrate how to navigate relationships in a somewhat meaningful manner, Gone Girl is the stark opposite.

Nick and Amy Dunne are a seemingly happily married couple, until one day Amy goes missing and the police suspect foul play, making Nick the prime suspect.

The story unfolds with plenty of twists and turns and we uncover the dark and ugly side of marriage, where obsession is mistaken for love, as well as the extreme lengths a partner can go to to completely and deceptively mould themselves to fit into another’s world and hide who they truly are. With a highly dysfunctional and toxic protagonist, Gone Girl is a must read!