We have a pretty fun Rec League this week. Dori sent this one into us. Thanks, Dori!
Amanda: Doesn’t Wishes by Jude Deveraux have one?I am hoping a Rec League can help me out.
I’m looking for recommendations for books with eccentric older aunts, grandmothers, godmothers, etc. that play a pivotal role in the main characters finding romance. Think Lady Osbaldestone or the eccentric aunt from Maya Rodale’s Wicked Wallflower.
I find these characters so amusing and it always makes me enjoy a novel so much more!
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au ) has witchy older women, which are my personal fave.
Elyse: That’s a hard one because I’m not what qualifies as eccentric.
Carrie: I just finished Victoria Alexander’s The Lady’s Guide to Deception with an Unlikely Earl and it fits that description perfectly.
What eccentric side women are your favorites in romance? Tell us in the comments below!
@Gina, I think you’re talking about the older woman in After the Wedding by Courtney Milan. I believe she is the heroine in the novella @Haley mentioned.
I second @Katie on Shelter in Place. The grandmother was really the only good thing about that book, which absolutely wasn’t a romance.
Lucille in the Lucky Harbor books by Jill Shalvis probably qualifies. She was definitely eccentric and is involved in many of the Lucky Harbor romances.
A Stardance Summer by Emily March also has an eccentric older character. Patsy was awesome and supported the heroine when no one else did. However, I hated this book. It is heavily Christian (which I didn’t know when I started it) and the heroine’s family is full of assholes.
I’d like to give a shout-out to Lady Berwick who pops up now and again in Lisa Kleypas’ Ravenel books. In particular, Cold-Hearted Rake and Marrying Winterborne — which contained this gem:
“A man is not entitled to be called a father merely because he once had a well-timed spasm of the loins.”
I’m so happy about this prompt!
Dukes Prefer Blondes by Loretta Chase has a Lady Grantham-esq great aunt.
@Hope (and anyone else who might be interested), I don’t know if you read UF, but if you are open to that genre, try Impervious by Laura Kirwan. The heroine of the series is not eccentric, but she is unmarried, 50 years old, has had a solid career in law, and comes home after many years to discover that because she is “impervious” to magic like her father was, she is now, by default, the guardian of the border between “other” lands where magical creatures live, and our own. She has all kinds of adventures where her no-nonsense attitude and intelligence win out, and there’s a romantic subplot that runs through the series.
I’d also second the recommendation for Mrs. Pollifax series by Dorothy Gilman. I read them many years ago, and they are set in the 1960’s so I’m not sure how well they would hold up, but I remember them being great fun.
@Hope (“I’d just like books where the eccentric older woman is the main character and has adventures and does cool stuff and finds love and sex.”) –
Sandra Antonelli, At Your Service. I understand from her Goodreads bio that all of Antonelli’s romance protagonists are 40+, though I’ve only read At Your Service because spy capers are my jam.
(Not a match for this Rec League)
@Hope
I have to give a shout out to Bujold’s Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, though I don’t know whether that book works for someone who hasn’t read the rest of the Vorkosigan Saga. It’s the last novel in a science fiction series and the heroine, who was the main character in the first two books, is a 76 year old widow who becomes involved with a 50 year old admiral. The book is both a sf romance and a wicked funny comedy of manners, but it is also emotionally complicated. I was kind of hesitant when I first read it, but now, four readings in, it’s one of my favorite comfort reads.
If you haven’t read the series but would like to try this book, I’d suggest reading Shards of Honor and Barrayar first. Cordelia starts amazing and stays amazing. Actually, I named my last car Cordelia.
And I just discovered that Impervious by Laura Kirwan is free for Kindle Unlimited. 🙂
Georgette Heyer has a number of entertaining older ladies in her historical romances. Leonie, Duchess of Avon, makes an amusing appearance in Devil’s Cub, and the Fancot twin’s mother in False Colours is a major factor in their adventures. Both are of the forever young fashionista persuasion, but both are pretty unforgettable. More traditional types of older ladies are Lady Saltash in Friday’s Child who offers the heroine refuge when she flees her husband, and the Duke’s arthritic, poet mother in Sylvester. Heyer also has a lot of older women characters who are memorable if not admirable, including the aunts in Faro’s Daughter and The Quiet Gentleman.
Looking back over what I’ve read, I think fits the bill – the heroine gets a job at an inn in Vermont, and the owner is an cranky older woman with a mystery in her past.
Ack, sorry – if you click on the link it goes to the title – “The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living”.
@PamG, thanks for reminding me of my personal favorite Heyer, The Talisman Ring, which has two romances for the money, one with a pair of silly young lovers and one for their older and more respectable guardians. Shenanigans galore, and a mystery to boot!
Jo Beverley’s Emily and the Dark Angel has a great eccentric aunt (an artist-type). It’s is quite old but still makes me giggle.
RaeAnne Thayne’s Brambleberry House series has an eccentric elderly aunt, though she never actually appears. When the series begins, she has died and left her big old house on the Pacific Northwest coast to two of the heroines, and the characters mention her frequently. As the series progresses, it becomes clear that the aunt has played a role in orchestrating the meeting of at least one couple. There’s a gentle paranormal element: the characters will sometimes smell the aunt’s perfume, or her dog will sense something that isn’t visible. These were originally published, I think as Harlequin Silhouettes, about ten years ago, and two of the books were reprinted in one volume two years ago.
@Hope
(“I’d just like books where the eccentric older woman is the main character and has adventures and does cool stuff and finds love and sex.”)
If you like sci-fi / fantasy, this topic has come up on tor.com a few times. Here’s the post with the most comments and recs. Some of these books are darker, not much romance, but there’s adventures for sure.
I can personally recommend Mirabile by Janet Kagan, it’s a comfort reread for me. As someone more eloquent put it, “Janet Kagan’s Mirabile has an older professional woman as an active protagonist, and a nice balance between career and personal relationship focus that read very positive to me.”
https://www.tor.com/2013/01/29/sleeps-with-monsters-where-are-the-older-women/
Second the love for Aunt March. When I was little I hated her for disapproving of John Brooke, Meg’s husband, but as an adult I can see that he was kind of meh.
I liked everything about When A Scot Ties the Knot except the hero. I thought her life was pretty great without him (castle, getting paid to do what you love, kooky relative).
And then there is Gladys, the frisky old lady who appears often in Susan Mallery’s “Fools Gold” series.
The trio of meddling grandmothers in Marina Adair’s St Helena series. To note, three books from this series are now Hallmark movies, however I haven’t seen them yet… but I adore this series!! Great via audible too.
Another vote for Lady Danbury, and Aunt March,
I may have missed this but did anyone nominate Miss Gweb from Lauren Willig’s Pink Carnation series? She wields a wicked umbrella, and gets her own standalone late in the series.
Another vote for Lady Danbury, and Aunt March,
I may have missed this but did anyone nominate Miss Gwen from Lauren Willig’s Pink Carnation series? She wields a wicked umbrella, and gets her own standalone late in the series.
Another vote for Lady Danbury, and Aunt March,
I may have missed this but did anyone nominate Miswen from Lauren Willig’s Pink Carnation series? She wields a wicked umbrella, and gets her own standalone late in the series.
I have a couple of recommendations, both from TJ Klune’s books. The first is Paul Auster’s Nana in Tell Me It’s Real who makes me lol every time she appears on page. The second rec is for the We Three Queens and Lottie in How To Be a Normal Person and How To Be a Movie Star.
Shout-out to Mary Beth in Tara Lain m/m HEARTS AND FLOUR, who’s not just Quentin/Queen’s awesomely supportive grandma, but a very cool lady in her own right (who is apparently having lots of off-page hot sex aided by her yoga practice). I would read her story! Yes, AUNTIE MAME is awesome, book and movie (though the movie is lengthy and so I have to be in the mood). Rosalind Russell does confront the anti-Semitic society snobs in the movie, btw, but the movie version of the Agnes Gooch plotline is bowdlerized, for better and worse: on the one hand, the movie Brian O’Bannion is less of a cad, but it totally sanitizes the unwed pregnancy aspect of the book and eliminates the romance-worthy Mr. Pugh. The book is much bawdier, too, which shocked and delighted me in junior high. Russell is a must-see, however (and while young Patrick is annoying, he grows up to be Ann-Margret’s husband Roger Smith). Hot tip: Lucille Ball had many cool underrated roles, but the lead in the musical MAME! ain’t one of ’em…
A second on Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan from Lois McMaster Bujold’s books. Actually, all of her books are great, and she has an older heroine in her fantasy books too (title escapes me).
And of course, Julia Quinn’s Lady Danbury FTW!
Also, Amanda Quick’s (Jayne Ann Krentz) hostorical romance Deception had a pair of eccentric aunts who raised the heroine. Later, it is revealed that they were a lesbian couple, and there’s another lesbian couple peripherally in the book as well. Their lesbianism is not made a big deal. Amanda Quick does have a lot of older women characters in her books.
Speaking of Heyer, there’s a cool older woman in Bath Tangle. The heroine makes friends with her and she’s important to the resolution at the end. Can’t recall her name. She’s not aristocracy (family money came from industry, I think), and she’s not really concerned with social status. Which means she has no problem telling people off.
@elisa, I think you’re thinking of Ista for the heroine from Lois McMaster Bujold’s fantasy works – a secondary character in Curse of Chalion who then is the lead in Paladin of Souls.
More in keeping with the topic of this rec request would be Desdemona in Bujold’s Penric novellas – she’s a many-lived demon sharing headspace with the seies hero and her interventions and interpolations rather fit with the part of the interested older meddling aunt
Let me recommend two wonderful French ladies:
1) Madame de Monceaux in Laura Kinsale’s LESSONS IN FRENCH — a significant character with plenty of scenes, very interested in and supportive of her son’s romance with the heroine
2) Tante Colette in Laura Florand’s LA VIE EN ROSES series — another significant character, less an “eccentric” than a true WWII Resistance heroine. And very much up for meddling in her great-nephews’ love lives.
@Gina, you might be looking for Harry (Harriet) Gramercy in Tessa Dare’s A Lady by Midnight? She’s a lesbian, and her eccentric family includes the older Aunt Marmoset.
though not *technically* on-spec with the rec request, no thread of great old ladies in books is complete without a mention of Diana Wynne Jones’ “Howl’s Moving Castle.” Don’t be fooled by the movie, book!Sophie is 500% more hilarious and cantankerous.
Bertie Wooster’s Aunt Dahlia is the eccentricity aunt I’ve come across. She gets him into more scrapes than is healthy.
The arc of the Witches in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld stars the maiden, the mother and the crone. All three are completely bonkers. The first book (Wyrd Sisters) features a romance sub-plot between the maiden and a court jester. The mother and the crone (Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax) are two of the best characters ever put to paper.
Seconding Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle who doubles as the 18 year old heroine and the 90 year old eccentric old woman. She gave me fits over laughter.
Lastly, not a romance or book, but BAKUGO’S MOM! Apologies for showing my inner Otaku.
@Katie
Thanks! I remembered the character, but not her name or the book title. She’s Mrs. Floore, and so truly memorable. I blame my failure on my basic dislike of Bath Tangle. I found a great essay that articulates my reservations better than I can at . Funny how that works.
@JoS
Oh, yeah, Wodehouse did great older women, but not of the nurturing persuasion. And I do love me some Wyrd Sisters. I can’t even bring myself to read Shepherd’s Crown, cuz Spoilers. Also, my current car is named Esme!
I think this theme recurred throughout Elizabeth Boyle’s Bachelor Chronicles books, especially This Rake of Mine. It’s a fun historical romance series, worth a read.
Christmas with Her Secret Prince by Nina Singh fits the bill. Two older women who own a diner employ and look out for the heroine. Very cute and sweet.
I also second the recommendation for Positively Pippa by Sarah Hegger.
I was waiting to leave a comment to see if anyone would mention Beverly Jenkins’ books. I loved the two older aunts in Always and Forever. And Abbigail Grayson in Vivid.
@Amy re Dorothy Sayers. You mention the Dowager Duchess but one of the best parts of Busman’s Honeymoon (the mystery that concludes the Harriet Vane/Lord Peter Wimsey romance in her mysteries) are the letters that the Dowager writes to an old friend about their engagement and marriage. After the romantic conclusion of Gaudy Night we get the followup of planning the wedding and the beginning of their life together. It’s one of my favorite reads! All the details of English rural life and two older sensitive grownups having to adjust to big changes in their life as “happily-ever-after” becomes the strains of daily lives. Such fun.
Diary of an Accidental Wallflower (Jennifer McQuiston) has the redoubtable Lady Austerly.
The Lords of Worth series by Kelly Bowen featured a dowager Duchess who carried around a chicken, though she is not exactly as she seems. An enjoyable series despite the cringey titles like, “I’ve got My Duke to Keep me Warm”
Tracy Brogan’s “Crazy Little Thing” is a great romance, and eccentric Aunt Dody is a main character.
Nalini Singh’s “Rebel Hard” and Jackie Lau’s “He’s Not My Boyfriend” both has awesome grandmothers. And both had really great peeks into their respective minority community (Indian in New Zealand and Chinese in Canada). As a Chinese-American engineer I found Ms Lau’s book bery authentic. And I loved Ms. Singh’s book. I’ve never read any of her other more famous books, just her contemporaries.
One of Anne Gracie’s older books, “Gallant Waif”, has an elderly grandmother of the hero playing a sort of matchmaker role. Another hero’s grandmother comes into the story late but plays a crucial role in “Fallen Angel” by Charlotte Louise Dolan.
Both of these books made me weepy in a happy way, I recommend them.
Another vote for Aunt Fanny in ‘Miss Lacey’s Last Fling’, who not only encourages the heroine’s convention-defying behaviour but gets married in her late 60s.