BY NANCY KAY CLARK
CommuterLit Editor & Publisher

Copyright is held by the author.

JUST OFF of posting our top five picks in our Valentines Week 2026 contest last week, I’m sitting here wondering what constitutes a great love story.

There is a difference, worth noting, between the romance genre in all its iterations and well-known tropes, and the broader category of romantic “love story.” A romance story concentrates on the push-and-pull of courtship and the time between the meet cute and the final declaration of mutual love and devotion. A love story is often about what happens after “happily ever after.”

Many who submitted stories to our contest concentrated on love and grief when a partner dies. Many explored how romantic love plays out over decades and morphs into loyalty. faith and kindness toward each other. None of the submissions included a sex scene. So where does the love reside? What attributes does a perfect love story have?

I’ve come to no conclusions. Have you? Let us know in the comments.