Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

I can recommend two books out of Suzanne Brockmann´s Tall Dark and Dangerous (TDD) series. You can totally read these books as single titles, although its not really a single title if you have to read TWO books…but you get what I mean, don´t you? You don´t have to read the whole series, that´s my point :)

So, the books are: It came upon a midnight clear, where Jake and wife #1 are the subplot, then The Admirals Bride, which stars Jake and wife #2.

Long time reader, first time commenting (love this site by the way). I would recommend What I did for a Duke by Julie Ann Long. The hero, was previously married but we do see, and he states emphatically that he loved his first (now dead) wife. What I loved the most it that this does not in anyway subtract the love he has for the heroine, in fact his previous experience helps to affirm his developing feelings.

Well, I’ll be so darn brazen and recommend my own short story erotic romance from The Wild Rose Press: Teasing the Muse. A young widower wants to thank the erotic romance writer, a favorite of his dead wife, who gave her such enjoyment and him such pleasure. But he finds much more than he bargained for.

And if there’s no BSP here, I have no problems if this comment is erased. I’m a writer, I have no ego. I’m used to rejections.

I have no help for Lousia. I just wanted to tell Mitzi how much I loved this line: “I’m a writer, I have no ego. I’m used to rejections.” Annnnd I may quote it, often, in the future.

You may enjoy this book better than I did, and it’s got what you’re looking for. Jenna McKnight’s Witch in the House

actually opens with the hero being jilted at the altar. However, fate intervenes and he goes on to find a love like he’s never known before.

Several of Jayne Ann Krentz’s stories have a widowed hero who deeply loved his first wife.  His new relationship with the heroine does not in any way change or undermine that.  The one that comes to mind, because I re-read it recently, is Lost and Found (2001), but there are others.  Warning, though;  Jayne does also have some heroes whose earlier, pre-heroine, relationships were not satisfactory! 

A widowed heroine who enjoyed a happy first marriage that enriched, rather than undermined, her passionate relationship with the hero is Grace, in Linda Howard’s remarkable time-travel romance Son of the Morning (1997).

Karen Ranney’s A Scotsman in Love
He’s still trying to cope with the death of his much-loved wife and child when the book opens.

Brockmann’s Into the Fire (a TSInc book) definitely fits into this mold.
Julia Spencer Fleming’s Miller’s Kill series has an ongoing relationship theme of dual loves for the hero.
Toss in Bujold’s Vorkosigan (Miles has multiple loves and you get the feeling that it is circumstance vs lack of real love that keeps the protagonists apart. And it is only when the circumstances align that there is a HEA possible).

If you read, or are willing to try, M/M romance, Terence Michaels books “Faith & Fidelity” and the sequel “Duty & Devotion” are a fantastic example of this.  One of the men was married for 20 years and lost his wife and is absolutely shattered and never minimizes how devoted he was to her even as he falls for another guy. They are really, really good.

Dang auto-correct!  The author is Tere Michaels, not Terence :)

I’ll second the recommendation for Julie-Ann Long’s What I did for a Duke.  What a fabulous book and the fact that Alex admits his love for his first wife and his devastation at her death makes his character so much richer and his love for the heroine so much more believable.  I am always a bit sceptical about whether the hero/heroine is really in love “this time” when the love he/she purported to have felt the first time is dimiinished or denied.

I just read, and really enjoyed, Susan Grant’s Moonstruck (based on a recommendation from SBTB!). The heroine’s back story is all about how her first husband died, and her emotional journey involves her figuring out how she can love someone else without dishonoring his memory.  It’s part of a series, but you can definitely read it as a stand-alone book.

I can’t wait to see everyone’s recommendations for this. I can only think of one, unfortunately.
Quinn’s When He Was Wicked is my favorite of the Bridgerton series, and I don’t think you’d have to read the whole series to enjoy it (and if you do read the whole series be careful to space them out so the patterns don’t rankle - they get rather formulaic for all that it’s a great formula).  The love the heroine has for her first husband is a big, sad, wonderful part of the story.

“A Hint of Wicked” by Jennifer Haymore. This one’s different because both husbands are there (the first has returned from war after having been declared dead) and the heroine loves them both.

I think The Shy Duchess by Amanda McCabe might have the kind of thing you’re looking for. The hero was married to a woman he loved, but she died in childbirth, which of course gives him baggage when he later falls in love with the heroine and worries about what might happen to her if she gets pregnant. His wife’s death happened long enough ago that, although he did love her, he’s not still pining over her.

My disclaimer is that I don’t actually like this trope. I’m not a fan of widower heroes, whether they loved, thought they loved, or hated their first wives. I was relatively ok with McCabe’s book because the hero didn’t dwell too much on thoughts of his first wife. Plus, I felt the first wife was essentially cardboard - she existed, and the hero had good memories of her, but she wasn’t really a full character.

Soldier on Her Doorstep (Harlequin Romance) Soraya Lane is a very sweet story about how a returning soldier who falls for the widow of the soldier who saved his life. The widow learns to love again but it in no way diminishes her previous love.

Ditto Cathy’s rec of A Hint Of Wicked by Jennifer Haymore. Be ready—it’s not a formula romance! (IMO)

The Next Best Thing by Kristan Higgins.  The heroine is a widow and struggles to appreciate her new relationship because she loved her husband so deeply.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions! This one had just occured to me while I was away on vacation. I borrowed a friend’s Harlequin, though naturally I now forget the title, and this exact problem killed it for me. It literally ends with the hero saying, “I wasn’t afriad because I thought I couldn’t love you too, it’s that I finally realized that I loved you more!” And this is after he spent the ENTIRE BOOK mourning his wife who died in childbirth. Drove me nuts! I’ll definitely check these out!!!

If you like early Victorian era, Anne Stuart’s most recent Rohan book, “Shameless,” had a widower who loved his first wife. I’m fairly sure he never once says or thinks he hadn’t REALLY known love after he falls for the heroine…his struggle is more like the one mentioned above, where bc she died in childbirth he doesn’t want to fall in love again only to lose her because she’s having his child.

I am more curious about the female version, the widow who truly loved her husband. That’s one I have noticed that I rarely encounter, but now that you mention it there aren’t many widowers in that boat, either….

In Diedre Knight’s BUTTERFLY TATTOO, the hero falls in love again - with a woman - after his male partner dies. (The hero is bisexual.)  It’s beautifully, beautifully done.

I would highly recommend Judith A. Landsdowne’s book, ‘The Mystery Kiss’.  Here’s a link: http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Kiss-Zebra-Historical-Romance/dp/0821770160/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313072348&sr=8-1

In addition to being funny and very sweet, the hero most emphatically loved his wife.  The memories of her, shared with old friends and relations, serve to show how deeply he cared for her and also his own insecurities.

The heroine, by the way, did not have a happy first marriage and gets past this with some help from the hero and other new friends.  I really enjoyed the different viewpoints in the book.  I also liked that the heroine isn’t a total ‘all men are evil’ stereotype which is refreshing.  The author is one of my favorites for her amusing and romantic plots.

Definitely agree with the recommendation of What I Did for a Duke.  Beautiful handling of grief in that book.

A couple of Harlequin Presents also come to mind.  Phantom Lover by Susan Napier and Bought:  Damsel in Distress by Lucy King.  For a reverse view where the heroine lost a spouse try In Bed with the Boss by Susan Napier which is probably my all time favorite HP.

I was going to suggest Suzanne Brockmann’s Into the Fire - it’s the first thing that came to my mind - and I see it’s been suggested by others as well.  The hero’s wife was killed, actually we see this in an earlier book (Hot Target?), and we see his recovery and the evolution of his relationship with the heroine, who was his wife’s best friend.

I know the request was for widowed heroes, but I see some of the recs are for books in which the heroine was the one who’d lost her husband, and will therefore add a couple: Liz Carlyle’s No True Gentleman (at least, Catherine liked her first husband very much) and Pamela Clare’s Breaking Point (dead fiance in that one).

As for heroes who loved their first wives - I think Mary Jo Putney’s The Bartered Bride?

I call it the “I only THOUGHT I knew what love is” syndrome.

Just about 95% of everything I’ve ever read in romance fits that category:)

Not a book suggestion, sorry, but I hate the books in which their entire first marriage was a waste. It always makes me wonder if ANYONE had a GOOD first marriage that ended in death and not infidelity or abuse. Looks like I’m going to have to check out The Next Best Thing, too!

Comanche Moon by Catherine Anderson
My One by January Rowe (an erotic novella)

“Black Rose” by Nora Roberts is the only one I’ve read that seems to fit… The first relationship is not developed, but it’s clear that the heroine (a 40+ lady with three grown sons, also a nice change from most romance) never diminishes it for the benefit of her new man.

I’m not personally a fan of such plots, because it seems that it must always involve death and widowhood, which is tragic and too sad to repeatedly read about. Indeed, if the relationship simply didn’t work out when it virtually could have, then you may obviously claim love, but it’s just as obvious that something was wrong, and that your love stumbled on something it wasn’t powerful enough to overcome.

I second The Butterfly Tattoo recommendation - beautiful book, and I remember thinking how refreshing it was to read about someone who could fall in love again, without dismissing his first love.  I’ll have to check out some of the other recs.  I think I read JAK’s Lost and Found, but I don’t remember anything about a widower.  Hmm.  I really like JAK but the plots don’t usually stick with me, so I get endless pleasure re-reading them.

I have no recommendations, because I haven’t read any books that subvert this oh-so-annoying mood-killer of a trope. I’m wracking up more titles for my TBR pile than I’m comfortable admitting, but I can’t wait for more! Damn you, Bitches. You’re murdering my bank balance.

In Maya Banks’ Sweet series, Micah’s loss of his wife is referred to frequently, usually as an excuse for him not to get involved in anything remotely serious.  By the time this went on for a few books, I was ready to smack him silly…which the heroine of his book takes care of quite nicely along the way *g*.

I agree with Lynn S. for Susan Napier.  In Bed with the Boss is such a great story.  But she’s done quite a few where either the hero or heroine had a previous happy relationship.  I can’t remember all the titles without hauling them out, but Counterfeit Secretary was one (heroine was previously married).  Deal of Lifetime, too.

I highly recommend SALOME AT SUNRISE by Inez Kelley. The hero, Bryton, is a widower dealing with guilt and grief. He never stops loving his first wife even as he finds his new love.

I love this thread! I’m making notes & will definitely be checking these titles out.

Zoe Archer’s REBEL also features a heroine who lost her first husband. Sure, Astrid’s not the Hero, per se, so it’s not technically what the OP’s looking for, but she does learn to love again (and have scorchingly hot sex) without dismissing the relationship she had with her dead hubs.

I want to back up Jennifer’s rec of The Next Best Thing!  Kristan Higgins is a wonderful writer and that book was one of my favorites!  All of the characters are fun to read about.

If you’re willing to cross over into mystery territory, you might like the Inspector Bone mysteries.  They were originally published under the name Susannah Stacey, a pseudonym for Jill Staynes and Margaret Storey.  I think the first one is A KNIFE AT THE OPERA.  The hero, Inspector Bone, has lost his wife in a car accident which also seriously injured his daughter.  The first couple of books mostly deal with that, and he gradually becomes interested in (and finally marries) another woman.  I think this type of plot is better handled over a series, because of the time span involved.  It’s been a while since I read the books, but I remember that I liked the way Bone thought/felt about his first wife, and the conflict over his gradually developing feelings for his second.  The way his teenage daughter handles her father’s interest in another woman is sensitively handled too.

I’m chiming in to reocmmend The Butterfly Tattoo.  It’s a great book!

I recently read Kiss of Snow by Nalini Singh.  Hawke is a wolf/human shifter who met his one true mate when they were very young.  She dies long before the book starts and he’s been lonely for years.  He finds a HEA with Sienna without ever diminishing his first true love.  I loved this story.  However, my love for it probably has a lot to do with it being at end of a long series of books.  I don’t know how well it would stand alone.  (It’s a great series, though!)

@Carin - About the Nalini Singh book - Just curious, how was the whole “one true mate” versus “HEA with a second woman” thing handled? I haven’t read any of Singh’s books before, so I don’t know what the world is like, but “one true mate” signifies to me “soulmate trope,” which would seem to me to make it really difficult for there to be a believable HEA with a second character unless the setup allows for more than one mate bond (or whatever it’s called).

Sandra Brown has few of these, done very sweetly.  Shadows of Yesterday and Above and Beyond involve the heroine having lost much-loved husband #1, and Texas! Chase is the hero experience where’s he’s reluctant to get invovled again because he did love his wife so much.  Thinking back, I can come up with other examples too… Sandra Brown seemed to have an affinity for killing off the first spouse back in the earlier days.

Someone mentioned Roberts’ Black Rose - I think the first book in that trilogy (In the Garden) also has a widow, with 2 young children, starting life over in a new town where she meets the second love of her life (whom, naturally, she can’t stand at first despite the physical attraction…it is a Nora Robert’s book, after all).

@LG
I read Kiss of Snow, and the way the mating thing was handled was
SPOILER
*
*
*
*
since Hawke’s first mate died in childhood, the mating was never completed, so he was able to mate with Sienna. I had major problems with how the mating issue was handled in KoS and, while overall a good book, I wouldn’t recommend as a good example of a first-love death that’s handled well. I mean, Hawke’s first “mate” died when she was FIVE. She did not warrant the pages and pages and pages (across several books!) of angst that Hawke went through…it made him come across as severely emotionally stunted.

I have a fondness for tortured widower heroes. Gabe from SEP’s Dream a Little Dream is the BEST. His first wife was his childhood sweetheart but he loved her deeply.

This trope works well for me when the hero has trouble moving on or doesn’t believe he can fall in love again. I’d like to think that my husband would find it very, very difficult to replace me…I know the opposite would be true.

Carla Kelly’s Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand features a widow who loved her husband. I keep thinking I know of others but my mind is blank.

Rafe in Baby Love by Catherine Anderson is a good example of a widower who loved his first wife very deeply but didn’t let that interfere with his second marriage.

I agree with many of these recommendations, especially Zoe Archer’s Rebel, Nora Roberts’ In the Garden trilogy, and the fabulous Butterfly Tattoo. I have to disagree about Kristin Higgins’ The Next Best Thing, however. I felt that she really de-valued the first marriage in getting the heroine to a point where she could love the second guy. To me, it’s a prime example of the OP’s complaint.

I was also going to mention Blue Dahlia, but velocireader beat me to it. It’s the first in Nora Roberts’ In The Garden Trilogy, and the heroine loses her husband in the beginning. I had actually forgotten that the second in the trilogy, Black Rose, also had a widow, until Asia M. mentioned it above. That character also has a horrible marriage in between. But I loved that the heroine of Black Rose was in her 40s and a successful businesswoman when she found a man.

This is one of my favorite of Roberts’ trilogies, as it has a common thread throughout the three where they’re dealing with a ghost. :)

I want to second Julia Quinn’s When He was Wicked. I love this book! Its Bridgerton #6, but I haven’t read every Bridgerton. (I sometimes find that family obnoxious). This is a great book. My only compalint is that the first husband might be a little too good. Also Francesca’s relationship with her second husband is portrayed as deeper, but part of that is she is older and more mature.
(Also it bothers me how the other Bridgertons act like Francesca can’t handle anything because she’s a widow.)

And ANOTHER recommendation for The Butterfly Tattoo.  Such an awesome, sad, touching, really great book…  After finishing it, I wished I could go back and have the experience of reading it for the first time again.

Another one with a widow heroine which I think may fit the bill is Susan Mallery’s Beth and the Bachelor. It’s an old Silhouette Special Edition, published in about 2000, give or take a year or two.  Heroine was very happily married for ?16-18 years (she has teenage kids) but lost her husband in a car crash, and when her friend sets her up a couple of years later she has a lot of angst about whether it’s okay to fall in love again.

Another one that comes to mind is Robyn Carr’s Virgin River (the first one in the series).  Mel, the heroine, was widowed and trying to work through her grief when she meets the hero, Jack.  It’s been a while since I read this one, but I don’t recall any sense in which her feelings for her dead husband are diminished or unfavourably compared to her feelings for the hero.

The middle story from “Cupid Cat” - Cat Scratch Fever presents a widower who loved his wife without making her into a saint or devil. The story is by Connie Brockway and the first wife was handled very well. I haven’t read much of her work, but I liked the story quite a bit. (The heroine’s back-story was a little over the top, but the relationship worked and the small child was more than a plot-moppet.)
Mary Balogh - Simply Perfect - the hero broke up with his first love and the heroine was dumped by her first love. I’ll try to avoid the spoilers, but the past relationships are not swept aside, the heroine’s former love is not completely awful, the romantic past of the hero doesn’t make him distrustful - the book is about adults. The book is part of a long series (first the six Slightly books about the Bedwyns, then the next set of spin-offs with four or five titles) so you may not want to dive in cold.

For a woman who truly loved her deceased husband, I would recommend “When He Was Wicked,” by Julia Quinn.

If no one’s suggested it, “Madam, Will You Talk?” by Mary Stewart has this. It’s an older romantic suspense book from the 60s (?). (which means just some kissing and the romance doesn’t kick in until a little later in the book—still, VERY good book). Heroine was widowed and when she meets new love she gives a great speech basically about how what she had with her husband was real and special but that doesn’t mean she can’t ever try to build something just as special again.

Oh, and in the “Stuff to Avoid” column I would say Kristan Higgins’ “The Next Best Thing.” Because the title actually conveys what I feel is the truth about the relationship. The heroine falls for her late husband’s brother, but she treats him like a sad door prize. AND she can’t really open herself to a relationship with the second brother until she’s discovered her late husband wasn’t the perfect saint she thought he was. (He didn’t cheat or anything huge like that, but it still irked me that she couldn’t have a new relationship until the late husband had been taken down a peg).

Then Came Heaven by LaVyrle Spencer starts with the death of the hero’s first wife and actually moves through his grief for her into his relationship with his second wife.  Despite where it starts, it doesn’t dwell overly on his first wife.  The hero is a very matter-of-fact individual, and almost everything about his first wife is seen through his perspective, so it doesn’t get overly sentimental, which actually probably made it even more poignant. 

It’s amazing like everything she wrote.

@jill

I have a fondness for tortured widower heroes. Gabe from SEP’s Dream a Little Dream is the BEST. His first wife was his childhood sweetheart but he loved her deeply.

I’m in the middle of this & I have to agree to the nth power!

@ AgTigress Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!  I’d been trying to find Son of the Morning  for years and years!  For some reason I’d thought Iris Johansen had written it.  :) Thank you for the HABO.

If no one’s suggested it, “Madam, Will You Talk?” by Mary Stewart has this. It’s an older romantic suspense book from the 60s (?).

Brilliant example, Moth, and such an exciting, atmospheric story.  It is one of Mary Stewart’s earliest novels, if not the very first—published 1955.

@Lovecow2000:  glad to help!

Son of the Morning is a remarkable, powerful novel.  I normally can’t stand time-travel stories, I avoid medieval Scottish settings, I have no patience with stuff about the Knights Templar, or with ‘the world must be saved from the ultimate Evil’ trope — but I still love that book because it is done so well, with the most amazing character arc for the heroine, who develops, convincingly, from a rather diffident scholar into a tough street-fighter and intrepid time-traveller because of the extreme events and challenges that she faces. 

When Linda Howard is good, she is very, very good.  When she is bad, well, the less said, the better!  ;-)

@Gabrielle - I totally thought of “Texas! Chase” too. It’s one of my favorites because of the characterization of Marcie (the heroine). She’s strong and doesn’t put up with Chase’s asshattery without calling him on it.

I don’t know if I would go so far as to say that it falls in the GS category, but Nicole Jordan’s “The Heart Breaker” has a hero who enters into a marriage of convenience with the heroine, even though he’s super-angsty over the loss of wife #1. He spends a great deal of the book being a jerk to the heroine because he’s tormented by the memory of/love for his first wife. The story isn’t great, but the love scenes are so purple that it is an inadvertently hilarious read. One single scene includes the following phrases: “stiffened teats,” “searing steel,” and “the wet velvet of her.”

Another widow from a good marriage is Beth in The Madness of Lord Ian McKenzie. I love that book!

Just hear-hear-ing the OP’s question, because I think the last five books I read with graphic hubba-hubba scenes included the Hero’s ruminations on how THIS laying-in (ahem) was NOTHING like the others, he NEVER had such a PROFOUND huminahumina, etc.

Maybe the last 10 books.

Or 20.

it

gets

old

With my customary modesty, my first book DEDICATION had a hero who’d genuinely loved and mourned his first wife. And with further customary modesty, a revised e-version of DEDICATION will come out ... sometime next year.

The Sharing Knife series by Lois McMaster Bujold is a good example of this.

Two characters, Dag and Arkady, are men who had first marriages that didn’t last (for different reasons) and neither denigrates what they had in that first relationship.

They each find new partners, but that doesn’t mean the first wife was any less important. Dag and his wife, Fawn, are the main characters, but Arkady is an interesting character later in the book.

Ah, Amanda, you beat me to it! I Looooove that series.

In Diedre Knight’s BUTTERFLY TATTOO, the hero falls in love again - with a woman - after his male partner dies. (The hero is bisexual.)  It’s beautifully, beautifully done.

Second this. It’s such a beautiful moving book, and the m/m relationship is shown as deeply and movingly as the second (hetero) one.

This really strikes a chord with me - I’m divorced, and so I hate that idea that you can only truly love one person ever and all other loves will be revealed to have been pale shadows of the REAL true love once you find that person. 

I mean, I really, really loved my husband.  Sure, he turned out to be an utter douchenozzle, but I truly loved him and I don’t think that when I (knock on fiberboard) fall in love again some day, I’ll discover that I was laboring under a false impression for all those years.

Personally, I’ve been looking for romances that actually contained realistic depictions of divorce - it seems so much of the time that if a heroine is divorced, the ex-husband must have been physically/emotionally abusive or must have screwed his secretary in the heroine’s bed.  Much as a despise him, my ex-husband wasn’t a mustache-twirling villain; it’d be nice to read something a bit more nuanced.

Yeah, it would be nice to read a well balanced divorce. It can happen, especially if kids are involved. As I have said to my husband’s first wife (who is now a good friend and my kids love her), you can be the two greatest people in the world and just not belong together. Though I will admit that there was some unhappiness with the dissolution of their marriage and it did take about two years after I met her for us to start becoming good friends.

Sadly, so many of the romances, if there is a divorce, the ex-husband was abusive or the ex-wife was shallow, expensive, and unfaithful. It would be nice to find one where it just didn’t work out and now we are moving on.

I just wanted to thank the bitchery for recommending Butterfly Tattoo. I actually purchased it on ebook forms so I can read it when school starts. I’ve got quite a collection of books already, but the premise of the book really called me since I was in the mood for something completely different.

Hopefully, I’ll enjoy the heck out of it.

I know I’ve read some romances with more realistic divorces, it’s rare enough that they stand out in my head, except that I, er, can’t actually recall any titles.  Crap.  I’m pretty sure there are some Nora Roberts ones, and maybe Susan Wiggs (although I don’t like her contemporaries nearly as much as her historicals)?  I’m afraid all I really have to offer is hope - they are out there.

Tangled by Mary Balogh has this precise plot, heroine loved passionately her first husband,. They grew up with their second husband around and the balance of the second marriage has a lot to do with their personality dynamics. One of her more angsty books, and one i love though i warn you it seems to be a miss to lots of people.

Another oldie but a great one, The Painted Lady by Lucia Grahame, which is also angsty.

I, too, can remember one or two good portrayals of amiable divorce, but of course can’t remember titles either!  I distinctly recall one where they end up back together, having broken up because of guilt and grief over losing one of their 3 sons.  Great, a personal HABO assignment…

This isn’t a romance novel, but has some intertwined romantic subplots that are very nicely done: Ken Follet’s The Eye of the Needle. One of the characters is a police detective grieving for his wife, who was an ambulance driver in London recently killed in the Blitz. He thinks to himself something like “He knew there were many women he could love and respect…” [but he’s looking for a really extraordinary person like his late wife]. I just loved that line, because of the throw-away nature of females in many suspense/action novels. They’re usually treated as a prize of some sort, whereas Follet has always written in quite a feminist style, even in his early years. I like the way the character believes that “many” women are deserving of love and respect, not just one or two.

Dark Dream by Daphne Clair, an old HP that may be released again with the Treasury releases.  You never know exactly what Clair might do to you, plotwise, but in this case it’s quite a sweet story where the hero loved his first wife deeply but has no trouble loving the heroine.  He does have issues with her being pregnant, though, since his first wife died in childbirth.

@LG - About Kiss of Snow - Las has it right, but I was ok with the explanation where she wasn’t.  He still had a deep and abiding (though not sexual) love for his first mate, he still mourned her, and I didn’t feel like his love for her was lessened.  YMMV

Whoever recommended Carla Kelly’s Mrs. Drew plays her hand made me go hunt for her Mrs. McVinnie’s London season, about a woman who lost her soldier husband in the Napoleonic Wars: “And I would gladly trip over your boots in the dark again, Tom,” and then falls in love with a naval captain.  As long as I recommending old(er) books, there’s also Elsie Lee’s The Nabob’s widow.  The heroine was much younger than her first husband, but there’s no doubt how much she cared for him.

Shyly raising my hand along with the others who have mentioned their own works.  My little-distributed but award-winning Firefly feature a devastated widower hero who finds love again.  When it was published in 1988 my editor required me to remove the “conversations” he has with his late wife about his newfound love because she thought they made him sound crazy; when I republish Firefly digitally later this year those conversations will be restored.

And as a widow myself, I personally know you can find a second love without diminishing the first.

Since someone else mentioned a mystery series, I’ll mention Barbara Hambly’s Benjamin January series - it’s set in 19th C Louisiana.  The hero is a widower - the first couple books deal with his grief, and in the later books he falls in love again.  I think the first book is A Free Man of Color

After all, my erstwhile love,

Just because it perished?

—Millay

I’ve noticed that a lot of historical romanced have a widower (a cliche in itself) whose first wife died in childbirth, setting him up to both love again and to have the kids/family he lost with the first wife.

An example is LADY SOPHIA’S LOVER by Lisa Kleypas, in which widower Ross (whose wife died in childbirth) finds his new/true love with the titular Sophia.  What’s interesting is that while the characters never put down the first wife, there are unspoken commentaries that basically say Sophia is better.  (At one point Sophia is jealous her husband still has feelings for his first wife, but she says nothing; Ross says his first wife was far more delicate than Sophia, and during some wild sex thinks that his first would *never* do the stuff Sophia’s doing.)  I think it’s a little insulting: The characters never speak ill of the first wife, but Kleypas makes it clear that Sophia is a definite upgrade.

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.