For this Rec League we have a couple of personal requests. The first is from Reader Jennifer:
I’m a young widow and the idea of reading about a hero who had lost his wife was interesting to me, as there’s a dearth of that available in fiction in general.
I’d love to have some suggestions for books about younger people moving on after the death of a spouse. By younger, I mean under 50, I guess. I’m 39 and lost my husband when I was 35, and so much widow/widower stuff I found is about older people.
Sarah: Coincidentally, we received a second request from Reader A. who wrote:
I’m a long time reader of your site, and have a bit of a sad recommendation request.
I was very recently widowed, so now I’m a 28 year old childless widow and really do feel like someone in a historical, minus the romance part…
For a long time I’ve enjoyed reading romances especially when I’m in need of a pick me up. And I could definitely use one hell of a pick me up right around now.
Do you have any recommendations, or can post asking for them, books where the heroine is widow? Looking exclusively for books where the late husband wasn’t a 50 year old tyrant, or they weren’t married for a half day, or anything like that. Just widows (from a happy first marriage) finding new nice love, etc.
I’m partial to period romances but will read nearly anything! Among my favourites are Courtney Milan and Lisa Kleypas, to give a taste, but I’m very open to suggestions.
Redheadedgirl: The new Eloisa James is just that – Seven Minutes in Heaven ( A | BN | K | G | AB )
As is…oh Caroline Linden’s third book in the Reece trilogy. something Guide to Seduction?
Amanda: A Rake’s Guide to Seduction ( A | BN | K | G | AB )
Redheadedgirl: There was one by Erin Knightly…
Amanda: The Viscount Risks It All
Elyse: Augh what’s the super romance where the hero falls for his late wife’s best friend? The one with all the feels. Australian author? Sarah Mayberry maybe?
Amanda: Within Reach ( A | BN | K | G | AB )
Sarah: Recommendations ahoy! Lord Perfect by Loretta Chase ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) – Chase is amazing and her books are terrific.
It Takes Two to Tangle by Theresa Romain ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) – this is a romance of pen-pals, Cyrano style, and the heroine is a war widow.
The Lady Julia Grey series by Deanna Raybourn – a mystery series with a warning: the first book opens as Lady Julia’s husband has just been poisoned and is dying. She learns more about him as she investigates his death, and there’s a longer romance thread that builds with another character through the series as well.
Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor by Lisa Kleypas ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au ) – this is a contemporary, and the heroine is recently widowed. The hero has become guardian of his late sister’s daughter.
Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand by Carla Kelly ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) – Carla Kelly’s historicals are wonderful comfort reads, and many feature characters enduring hardship due to the Napoleonic wars, or due to social or economic hardships. In this one, the widow in question, Mrs. Drew, loved her husband deeply.
Beguiling the Beauty by Sherry Thomas ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) – The heroine is a widow who instigates an affair with the hero out of revenge. He was unkind to her in a very public fashion.
Amanda: Some other contemporary options are Bringing Home the Bad Boy by Jessica Lemmon ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) and Worth the Fall by Claudia Connor ( A | BN | K | G | AB ).
What about you, Bitchery? What great romances have you read with a young widow or widower main character? Bonus points if the prior marriage was NOT a miserable one!
Does “What I Did For a Duke” by Julie Anne Long count? The hero’s older and a widower. The scene where talks to the heroine about his first wife is one of the reasons this book is an all time favorite.
A couple of contemporaries that I enjoyed come to mind. true Noth by Liora Blake and Fix You (and its sequel Trouble Me) by Beck Anderson. Both feature young widows.
Julia Quinn “When he was wicked” the 6th in the Bridgerton series covering Francesca, recently widowed and her deceased husbands cousin who loved her since he saw her for the first time, 3 days before her wedding…
And, not strictly from the romance category, but very very good: “A Widow for One Year” by John Irving.
Here’s a real oldie. The Duchess of Asherwood by Mary A. Garratt. He’s divorced and his ex-wife is dead and she’s a widow. Very old-skool Regency.
I loved Shameless, the last (and IMHO, best) in Anne Stuart’s House of Rohan series, but it can be read as a stand-alone. Both the hero/heroine have lost their spouses, and make such a great couple. It falls in the “dark romance” category, but is only a little darker than some of Kleypas’s books.
Also, Sylvia Day’s Passion for the Game features a widow and a pirate forced to spy on each other. This one is more cloak and dagger, but the couple is in my top five fave historical romance couples of all time.
Isn’t the hero in Midsummer Moon by Laura Kinsale a widower?
I can’t recommend Judith Merkle Riley’s Margaret of Ashbury books enough (A Vision of Light and In Pursuit of the Green Lion – there’s a third novel, written some twenty years after the others, but I haven’t read it).
They’re set in 14th century England and the heroine is a young woman married to a much older man. In the first book, she employs a failed monk/former squire to write her memoirs. I guess reccing these books in this context is spoilery, but you would be equally spoiled by reading the summaries of books two and three.
Please note that there are loads of triggering things in these book, like rape and violence, and the black death. But the tone is hopeful and there’s a lot of humour. They also contain my favourite romance hero (okay, so maybe he shares that place with Jack from The Pillars of the Earth and Olivier de Bretagne from The Virgin in the Ice, but whatever), introduced me to the concept of the virgin hero (still my favourite type of hero), are extremely well researched, and they feature female friendship, not just romance.
The Madness of Lotd Ian MacKenzie. The heroine is a young widow who had a happy marriage.
Two contemporaries are The Next Best Thing by Kristan Higgins (hero is widow’s brother in law) and the Fern Michaels novella from the new Christmas anthology The Most Wonderful Time (hero and heroine both widowed with children).
A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant.
May I recommend the Paladin of Souls by Lois McMastet Build. It is a fantasy but has strong romantic elements, and the heroine is a widowed queen moving on with her life after she spent a decade considered ‘mad’. She is not young (but also not really old, muddle age only by fantasy/middle aged standards) and wants to move on from only being a dowager and former queen. So she decides to go on a pilgrimage (not Christian) and has to deal with her past (did her husband murder her lover as everyone thinks?), teams up with the God of Bastards and finds a life goal and a lover. It deals a lot with grief and spiritual growth, if you don’t mind a fantastical pantheon of five gods.
I forgot to add: The Paladin of Souls is rather women centric, and there are too more widows playing pivotal roles. One very young and one very old. Infertility plays a big role, too, and quite a lot of grief and letting go, but never gratuitous tragedy. Just in case anyone wanting to read but deciding that they would rather avoid those topics.
A Certain Magic by Mary Balogh. Both hero and heroine have been widowed although hero has always loved heroine. She was happily married though.
All the best to your 2 requesters. I hope these books help to lift their spirits a little.
I totally second Within Reach by Sarah Mayberry. That one left me reaching for tissues in a cathartic way!
I recently read two books featuring widows as heroines. The heroine in Named of the Dragon by Susanna Kearsley is a widow. So is the heroine in Secrets of a Soprano by Miranda Neville. If I remember correctly, both are younger (probably under 40) widows.
If you are willing to read books with older heroines, you might want to try Penny Watson’s books, Apples Should be Read and A Taste of Heaven. I really enjoyed both books.
I wholeheartedly agree with Linnet (#7), if you like historicals, the Margaret of Ashbury trilogy by Judith Merkle Riley is one to consider. The heroine’s first marriage was happy, she is just delightful throughout and the hero is grumpy, grumpy, grumpy…. but also delightful. You could actually stop reading after the second book. The third is called the Water Devil and I did not enjoy it quite as much as the first two.
I think that two of the MacKenzie brothers married widows: Lord Ian (book 1) and Lord Cameron (book 3). Also, although I can’t remember the name of the heroine in book 3 right now, her brother, who is a widower is the hero of one of the later books in the McKenzie series — I think it is called Rules for a Proper Governess.
My condolences to both of you and hope that reading helps.
Married for Christmas (Willow Park #1) by Noelle Adams is a sweet contemporary romance with a widower hero.
I must recommend one of my favourite contemporary novels by the late, very great Laurie Colwin: Shine On, Bright & Dangerous Object. Sam Bax, a charming young lawyer, takes his boat out in a storm & drowns, leaving behind his 27 y-o widow, Ollie. The story follows Ollie through her grief to a new love, coming from a (to me) unexpected place. Colwin’s writing is sublime; her novels or essays are essential comfort reading for me.
I wish I had more recommendations, but all the books I thought of are already mentioned. The bitchery is amazing like that.
I just wanted to add my condolences. Sometimes life really sucks.
Bring Him Home, by Karina Bliss is a contemporary with a youngish widow of a Australian Special Forces soldier trying to move on. It gets a little angsty, so fair warning.
For historicals, in Roberta Gellis’s Roselynde series, the second book (Alinor) is about the character moving on after her beloved husband from the first book dies. If you’ve never read RG, be warned that there’s a LOT of medieval political intrigue and attitudes, but her female characters are never, ever passive, Alinor most of all.
Blue Dahlia by Nora Roberts features a young widowed heroine, and in the second book in the trilogy, Black Rose, the heroine is widowed but older.
Two of my books feature young widows as heroines, T’s Trial and Once Upon a McLeod. In both, the first marriages were loving and the widow doesn’t realize she’s ready to move on until the hero invades her space.
All Contemporary
The Air He Breathes: Brittainy Cherry, has both Widow and Widower
Thief of Hearts: L H Cosway
Say You Want Me: Corinne Michaels
Second Hand Heart: Kristin Strassel
In My Sweet Folly by Laura Kinsale, both the heroine and hero are widowed. Her marriage was contented if stifled by convention; his was more problematic. TW for mental illness, abuse, and incest, but it’s ultimately a very sweet and satisfying romance.
Marilyn Pappano’s “Tallgrass” contemporary series is centered around a group of military widows who have found themselves in Tallgrass, Oklahoma. They get together weekly for margaritas and support, and one by one, begin to recover from their losses.
My first thought isn’t to recommend a book ,but a movie and if you watch TCM you might be able to catch this in their upcoming Christmas programming. Holiday Affair from 1949 is a movie about a young widow who falls in love with a drifter around the Christmas holidays. When she falls in love with the guy, she’s in a relationship with another man who she loves, but isn’t really in love with because she hasn’t been able to move on from the death of her husband during World War II. The thing which surprised me about this movie is that it is a comedy, the two main male characters are played by actors most known for the film noir performances Robert Mitchum and Wendell Corey, and that the second lead isn’t portrayed as a bad guy which I sort of expected. The first two things might be why it didn’t do as well with audiences when first released, but it seems to have gotten a new lease on life thanks in no small part to channels like TCM imo.
I think you can also get this movie on Amazon instant and other streaming services.
The best book series for you is The Bellator Saga by Cecilia London! This fits exactly what you are looking for and is such an amazing series about moving on after that loss.
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/author/ref=dbs_P_W_auth?_encoding=UTF8&author=Cecilia%20London&searchAlias=digital-text&asin=B00T6PJ7XG
My favorite Sylvia Day book, Seven Years To Sin, features a young widow who was happily married. Much more so than she might have been had she not had a bit of a revelation after spying the H in flagrante delicto. She realized there could be more than laying back and thinking of England and had a lovely conversation with her husband to be, who was all “let the games begin!” Also notable for the children not required for happy ever after ending.
And I’ll give a BIG second to Roberta Gellis. I feel like we just spoke about the Roselynde Chronicles recently. I must say that, while, yes, they’re full of unsexy stuff like politics and battles, they also had some if the most casually explicit sexy times for the time period in which they were written. The first time I encountered a penis being actually described or discussed was in a Roberta Gellis book.
The first book in the Inn Boonsboro trilogy by Nora Roberts.
I’m very sorry for your loss.
They aren’t books, but a lot of the holiday movies on the Hallmark channel and the Hallmark mystery channel feature widows/widowers. Magic Stocking and Crown for Christmas come to mind, and I know there are others.
Not a book but the first thing that popped in my mind was the movie “Return to Me” with David Duchovny and Minnie Driver. Duchovny’s first wife dies in the film and he loves her very much. There’s a scene near the end where he is talking about realizing his late wife’s dream and Driver is so supportive. I’ve always loved that about the movie.
Louder Than Love and Softer Than Steel are two rock romances by Jessica Topper. LTL features a youngish widow with an extremely engaging daughter and a wonderful circle of friends who meets a burnt out musician. The relationship develops slowly and intensely, and the love scenes are passionate rather than explicit.
STS features another musician, a widower, who in an attempt to regain his emotional balance, joins a yoga class and becomes involved with the Indian-Irish instructor.
The widowed characters in each book loved their spouses and need to resolve issues around those losses. Both books also have great dialogue, humor, emotion and lots of NYC catnip. Both books are among my favorite comfort reads ever.
Sorry for your losses.
My first thought was of Elizabeth Hoyt’s “Lord of Darkness,” it isn’t my favorite of her books, but Hoyt is an exceptional writer, and her portrayal of a widower who reluctantly marries a second time was very touching. It’s a historical.
The Aurora Teagarden series by Charlaine Harris is one in which the lead character marries a wonderful and wealthy man only to lose him. In subsequent books she recovers and marries again.
In the third Bridget Jones novel, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding, Bridget is a widow after the death of Mark Darcy.
I’m going through the Survivors’ Club series by Mary Balogh and practically every book features a widow or a widower as MC.
The Proposal (SC 1) – widow heroine
The Escape (SC 3) – widow heroine
Only Enchanting (SC 4) – widow heroine
Only a Kiss (SC 6) – widow heroine
Only Beloved (SC 7) – widower hero
I haven’t read the last two from this list, but in the other ones the widowhood was an integral part of the heroines and all struggled with it, though for different reasons according to their own personal histories.
Other random recommendations from my kindle:
The Surgeon’s Lady by Carla Kelly – widow heroine, though unhappily married.
After All These Years by Kathleen Gilles Seidel (contemporary, widow heroine)
Black Silk by Judith Ivory (widow heroine)
Ainslie Paton wrote a romance called White Balance featuring a young widower that I really enjoyed. It is also a good fit for fans of workplace romances with highly competent heroines. It is available on Kindle Unlimited if you are a subscriber.
I have some historical widowers with happy first marriages:
The Best Intentions by Candice Hern
Lord of Darkness by Elizabeth Hoyt
Rules for a Proper Governess by Jennifer Ashley
I hope they help you escape for a bit.
Only a Kiss by Mary Balogh has a young widow heroine who had a loving relationship with her first husband. The way she loses him in the war is very traumatic, though.
I also second The Next Always, the Nora Roberts Inn Boonsboro book recommended by a traveller, above.
I’ll second the recommendation for True North by Liora Blake. The heroine is a widow who finds love with a rock star.
I’m reading Emergency Engagement by Samanthe Beck which is great so far. It features a trey young widower (late 20s I think) who lost his wife and child. That’s normally a no-go for me but it isn’t super angsty. It also has a fake relationship plot, which is one of my favourite tropes. In both books, the deceased spouse is treated very respectfully, which is refreshing.