This request comes from Louisa, who is looking for a specific type of plot device – in the back story.
I’m looking for books that might counter-balance a very specific pet peeve
of mine. I call it the “I only THOUGHT I knew what love is” syndrome.
I’m talking about books where the Hero (It’s almost always the hero) has
lost a lady love, never thought he’d recover, and then he meets the
heroine, falls in love, and realizes at the end that what he had previously
thought was a happy, loving relationship was nothing compared to the depth
of his love for and sexual satisfaction with this new lady.An example of what I’m looking for would be Kathleen O’Reilly’s Sex, Straight Up.
The depth of the previous relationship is never sacrificed on
the altar of a new love. The hero fully and genuinely loved his first wife,
and that love was never challenged or trivialized when he falls in love
again.Any suggestions would be welcome! Thanks so much!
Ah, yes. The “Now I REALLY Know What Love Is” method of distinguishing the heroine from all those other pesky women in the hero’s backstory. It bugs me, too. Anyone have any ideas for Louisa?
Fancy Pants by Susan Elizabeth Phillips has a divorce without an evil harridan ex – the hero remains close friends but doesn’t stay in a romantic relationship with his first wife (in fact I think they don’t divorce until after the hero and heroine are first together).
The hero and heroine both are friends with his ex, their son calls her “aunt”, etc.
Actually, the hero and heroine break up for years and the friendship with the ex is part of them getting back together.
Another Judith Lansdowne book, The Bedeviled Duke, has a man who loved his first wife … it’s also a very funny book. On my keeper shelf and I reread it fairly often (aside, what ever happened to her? I loved most of her books, but haven’t seen anything new from her for years!).
On the question of friendly divorces, the hero in Jennifer Crusie’s Fast Women is still good friends with his ex-wife (in fact, she’s the one who first suggests that the heroine would be good for him).
I think Just Like Heaven by Barbara Bretton has this, but my memory is a little foggy. He’s a widower – he kind of lost it after his wife died, but then pulled it back together before meeting our heroine and his new love doesn’t diminish his old. I think she’s divorced, with a grown child, don’t remember if her ex was bad mouthed or not, but I don’t think so – think it was a long time ago and not something that came up much. It has a kind of unusual premise – they meet when she has a heart-attack in a parking lot and he saves her life with his EMT training. I remember liking it, but it didn’t make it to my keeper shelf.
Thanks henofthewoods, KarenF, et al. I knew the bitchery would supply what I’ve forgot. SEP totally has some amicable divorcees. The tuscan one with the saintly heroine has a similar set up. And Crusie, of course.
btw, I just read Catherine Anderson’s Baby Love which was recommended earlier in this thread, which I would never have done because of the title. I quite liked it, in spite of said baby. The thing that James Lynch mentions with Lady Sophia’s Lover does sort of come up, although not nearly to the same extent – it really bugged me in the Kleypas, too.
The heroine feels she can’t measure up to the first wife, and the hero reassures her that if anything, she’s more impressive, because she’s endured so much more hardship. That he’s sure his first wife would have proven as resilient and strong had she been tested, but she never really was. I wish they hadn’t had to have the conversation, but it was handled well, and the only time any comparisons were drawn or denigrations (if you can even call it that) occurred.
Dating A Cougar by Donna McDonald
The hero is a wounded military vet whose first wife dies of cancer shortly after he returns. Several years later, he is struck by the force of the heroine’s glittery hoo-ha and off we go. However shiny the new lady might be, it’s made clear that he greatly loved wife #1, and that their marriage made him a better person. The author’s writing skills are a bit shaky, but the plot is good and the character interactions are engaging. I enjoyed it… let’s call it PGS (pretty good shit). As a bonus, this book is free on Kindle.
Missing by Sharon Sala involves a military man whose wife and son are killed in a terrorist bombing on a military base. He’s pretty messed up through most of the book, due to that trauma on top of existing PTSD, but he gets through it and never gives the impression that falling in love again diminishes his first marriage and family. There are other improbable plot points in the book, however.
As much as I like Robyn Carr’s Virgin River, I think it only partly meets Lousia’s requirements. The first husband is not denigrated in any way but the sexxoring between Jack and Mel is described as being beyond anything ever experienced between Mel and hubby #1.
I’d like to second the vote for SEP’s Dream a Little Dream. Not only did Gabe love his first wife, but he has trouble relating to his new love’s son because the kid isn’t like the son he lost—which is both realistic and heartbreaking.
Ok, I am so late to this parade, but I’d also venture a bit off the beaten track and recommend two books by the lesbian romance author Karin Kallmaker. The first is Touchwood, a really beautiful romance between two women who have a substantial age difference between them. In Kallmaker’s later romance Watermark, the younger of the two protagonists from Touchwood is recovering from her partner’s (not-age-related) death when she falls in love with a new woman. The relationships in the books are particularly interesting because they are so different from one another—the love interest in Watermark is nothing like the love interest in Touchwood, and the heroine is at very different stages of life in the two books—but both relationships are featured as romance, and both are validated. I haven’t seen the two-book approach anywhere else.
I could never carry this off in real life. When the new one came along the door always slammed on the old one. But I guess I wish I could have as I love to write about it. Sacred Sin and Lawman on Amazon for Kindle and Smashwords for everything else.