Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson

Ah yes, David Balfour. Happily cliched, morally uplifting adventure-romance hero. Thank you, Mr. Stevenson. I cannot say enough how wonderful a romantic action-adventure novel set in Scotland, with a happy ending, is. Literature is seriously lacking in this department. Thankfully, Stevenson has taken up some of the slack. After wandering the Scottish moors on Alan Breck's heels in Kidnapped, our protagonist, the young, noble, forthright David Balfour, moves through society and comes into his own in Catriona, the sequel.

There is a delightful portion of the story in which David is forced to house a young woman, Catriona of course, in his lodgings, for her father had essentially abandoned her abroad. He loves her and eventually marries her, and it's great. Let me tell you, there is nothing more romantic than repressed feelings not acted upon until the proper time. After all, that was the driving force behind Jane Eyre and Austen's novels, and there is nothing better than those.

But back to Catriona. So there is some adventure and sufficient peril for the protagonist. But most of all, there is a happy ending. I cannot help it. That reassurance that everything turns out all right in the end- I need it. Otherwise, I begin to feel very vulnerable and threatened. I know, I know. All that sad, inconclusive, depressing stuff has a prominent place in the canon of classic literature and is probably more lofty and thought-provoking and whatnot. I just suppose I am as of yet unable to relinquish my juvenile fears and inhibitions.