You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
No, you don’t have your days wrong and you aren’t hallucinating! Because we get so many HaBO requests, we’ll be running them periodically on Saturdays. We didn’t think you’d mind more HaBOs.
This HaBO is from Suzanne who is looking for a Regency (or otherwise historically set) romance:
Short haired, willowy heroine – why is it that the silly facts stick in my head? 🙂
Anyhoo – I’m looking for a Regency type romance novel.
The heroine is sort of boyish-looking – short hair, flat chest, etc. She falls in love with the hero and they marry. Somewhere along the way the hero “dies.” She is distressed and mourns him deeply. His friends take care of her and after some time – 2 years perhaps? – encourage her to find someone new.
During that time, though, her short hair has grown long and luxurious and her curves have filled out. She gives in to the peer pressure and allows the advances of another guy. They are in her bedroom and she changes her mind. At the same time, her long lost love reappears. He’s furious to find her with someone else, which of course ruins any tenderness she felt at seeing him alive. They argue, their friends intervene, and they eventually live happily ever after.
I’m very curious why the hero just peaced out for a while. I hope he has a good grovel.
Something Wonderful
by Judith McNaught
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Maybe The Ugly Duchess by Eloisa James?
Oooh, could it be Something Wonderful by Judith McNaught? That was my gateway book to epic regency romance, discovered in a library around 1999. Hero is a duke who accidentally compromises the late-blooming tomboy heroine (because he thinks she is a boy) while passing through her backwater village (I believe his carriage is attacked and she “rescues” him?). Her family demands marriage, and since he is all jaded and worldly he finds her delightfully innocent and charming but has no interest in her being a “real” wife. So he marries her and installs her with his grandmother, I think? Soon after he is kidnapped and presumed dead, and by the time he escapes and makes his way home the heroine has blossomed and the grandmother has introduced her to society. Being Judith McNaught the duke is basically an unapologetic alpha male on steroids, the heroine verges on Mary Sue perfection, and there are many eye-rolling plot obstacles to their eventual HEA.
No idea which book, but, for real? Ya gone two years and I’m supposed to keep my legs crossed???
Another one for Something Wonderful in all its 80s glory
I remember “The Ugly Duchess” being more about a plain young lady whose mother dressed her in clothes that were not good colors or styles for her. When she married the Duke (who was a childhood friend who never found her ugly – in fact, he compromised her by kissing her behind a screen – and, if I recall, left on their wedding night on Official Government Business(?)), she was able to start choosing her own clothing according to what looked good on her, not what was on trend, and established a reputation as a well-dressed noblewoman with impeccable style.
I don’t know the book, but several of Mary Balogh’s very earliest Regencies (mid-to-late 1980s) feature a scene where the heroine, newly-arrived in London for her first “season,” has her long, heavy hair cut into a shorter, more flattering style. The early 1800s marked the first time fashionable women voluntarily cut their hair and it would be another century before the flappers started doing it again.
If it helps, I can add some other details which (I think) are from Something Wonderful. Hero was thought dead, wife found out he had mocked their “marriage of inconvenience” to his friends, she was set to marry his cousin, hero came back and interrupted the wedding at the “any objections?” point, he was angry at her and his cousin, he “forgave” her when he found the memorial grave site she had tended after his disappearance.
Could maybe be Duchess in Love by Eloisa James – they marry when she’s too young to consummate the marriage, he runs off and returns years later to discover that his wife has become a beauty and somewhat notorious. I don’t remember short hair though.
I was ready to say this is The Ugly Duchess except I’m pretty sure the short hair is part of her transformation into an elegant babe, and also the hero peaces out and becomes . . .
SPOILER!!!!!!
. . . a pirate! With a shaved head and a face tattoo.
Hi Ladies – thank you! After reading the comments, I’m pretty sure it’s Something Wonderful, but the part about his cousin and the H/h animosity early on doesn’t ring a bell – but I’ve ordered the book from PaperBackSwap and I’ll let you know if it’s solved! Thanks! 🙂