The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, and Dear John are all written by Nicholas Sparks and revolve around two people falling in love. However, in each of these tales, there is always some terrible fate or sudden tragedy that threatens to tear the couple apart. The romance begins beautifully, it’s what we all dream about when we think of falling in love. If we turn to astrology to explore his writing style and the recurring themes in his novels, we find that Nicholas was born with Mercury in Sagittarius, forming a tight square to the Uranus-Pluto conjunction of the 1960s. In astrology, Mercury governs communication, writing, thought processes, and how we understand and interpret experiences. The Uranus-Pluto conjunction, a generational aspect that occurred in Virgo between 1962 and 1968, signaled a period of massive upheaval, transformation, and acceleration on a global scale. During this time, major events shook the world: President Kennedy was assassinated, followed by Martin Luther King Jr. The times were volatile, and the world was undergoing profound change.

In Sparks’ stories, the characters he writes about fall deeply in love, but they are unable to foresee the fate that lies ahead. They don’t anticipate the challenges that will test their bond, their devotion, and their ability to endure through turbulent and uncertain times. I haven’t personally studied whether individuals born during the Uranus-Pluto conjunction frequently experience sudden twists of fate, but I do know that during difficult Uranus or Pluto transits, people often undergo abrupt reversals, unexpected losses, deaths, or life-altering events imposed upon them.

I believe Sparks is symbolically writing about the force of this conjunction, how it can upend a person’s life and push them onto a radically different, unexpected path (Uranus), one that feels fated and unavoidable (Pluto). Together, Uranus and Pluto symbolize transformation on every level. Uranus rebels against the familiar and disrupts the status quo; it brings the unforeseen, the shocking, and the sudden. Pluto, ruler of the underworld, governs transformation through crisis. It compels us to confront the darker truths of life, death, power, loss, and surrender. It reveals what must be let go, and what lies beneath the surface.

In the face of such events: sudden changes, fate, and destiny, the couples in Sparks’ novels endure, held together by the strength of their love. Perhaps it’s the human spirit, and our capacity for love, that helps us survive life’s most difficult storms. Someone once said: despite our potential for destruction and the darkness we may fall into, what matters most is our love for others and the remorse we feel for our actions. Tragedy is inevitable—illness, hardship, death, and loss touch all of our lives. In relationships, these are the forces that either draw us closer or create painful distance.

The Notebook is set in the post–World War II era. Noah and Allie share a summer of love, but the socioeconomic realities of the time keep them apart. Noah writes to Allie, but his letters go unanswered. Years later, he restores an old house by the lake, and a newspaper story about the renovation catches Allie’s eye. She visits, and they discover their love never truly faded. What I admire about Noah is his enduring devotion, he never stops loving Allie. His loyalty, his unwavering heart, is what makes him so moving. To him, there is only one woman, and he never gives up on her. A recurring theme in Sparks’ novels is the tension between fate (Pluto) and free will (Uranus). These are often seen as opposing forces, yet under the Uranus-Pluto conjunction, they merge. The Notebook suggests that while fate may be inevitable, we still have free will in how we meet it. Even if destiny awaits us, it’s our choices—our actions, our love, our perseverance—that shape the journey. As the author says, “The romantics would call this a love story; the cynics would call it a tragedy.”