Admittedly, I wasn’t sure how to sum this up in a quippy title, so definitely sound off with some suggestions in the comments. This one comes from Katie:
I would like to put in a request for a Rec League!
As I posted in my comments in a previous Whatcha Reading:
The Tyrant Alpha’s Rejected Mate by Cate C. Wells: Let me start by saying that this trope was something I didn’t know I really wanted in my life, but I do, I really do. Now I want all the recommendations of books where one of the MC is rejected by the other at the beginning of the book and the rejecter then has to make up to the rejectee the whole story – whether fated mates or contemporary or historical or fantasy I need all the recs. No idea this was my catnip, but there you go.
Sarah: Well, there’s Romancing Mister Bridgerton, ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au | Scribd ) where Penelope hears Colin saying he’d never marry her, and then he has to walk that back as he realizes, hold up, she’s hot.
Amanda, would Lothaire ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Scribd ) qualify?
Amanda: Hmm! It’s not the whole book as it’s not a quick rejection and he then feels super badly but does play a good part of the climax/resolution!
Good call!
Claudia: I think Caroline Linden has a HR that may not fit the bill entirely, but I really like. The hero is about to ask the father permission to court the heroine, but he’s a minute too late and she’s already engaged. Years later she’s a widow and they not only have to reconnect but also get out of the friend’s zone. It’s A Rake’s Guide to Seduction. ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) CW the heroine suffers from depression.
Shana: In All the Feels by Olive Dade, the hero insults the heroine when they first meet but they still have to work together. He has an uphill battle to gain her friendship, and then love…but I’m not sure it takes the entire book.
Which books would you recommend? Let us know in the comments!
Oooh, I like these. Will be writing down suggestions for the ever-growing TBR pile.
My suggestions: The Marriage He Must Keep by Dani Collins. h & H have married for business reasons, and evil cousin (who resents H’s success) tries to drive a wedge between them, up to and including endangering her & baby’s life when she’s in labour by not calling an ambulance, and then swapping her baby’s identification tag with another newborn’s. This is all in the first couple of chapters by the way, so no spoilers. The rest of the book is him trying to win her affections back and realising that yes, he does in fact love her.
Also (found thanks to @doesitgrovel on Twitter), After The Billionaire’s Wedding Vows by Lucy Monroe. H realises he’s not been much of a supportive spouse after his disgruntled wife drops a truth bomb that the H’s brother is a better husband than H is. What starts off as a one-sided competition on his part ends with actual feelings growing wild and free.
Also, apologies for double posting, but Katie might like to try the other Cate C Wells books for she does this very well. The Heir Apparent’s Rejected Mate runs along similar lines (I don’t love it as much as Tyrant Alpha, but still an enjoyable book) and Run Posy Run is a mafia romance where the H first of all throws the h out, then kidnaps her back, then muddles his way into being a better partner for her, although the process is by turns scary and funny.
I love this request and love Cate C Wells – can’t wait for all the recs! Lothaire doesn’t grovel a whole lot until the end but it’s still one of my classic favs
A couple of suggestions—I don’t think the first one is a full book grovel, but still about patching up a bad start:
A WICKED KIND OF HUSBAND by Mia Vincy—a marriage of convenience where the husband and wife haven’t seen each other since they married two years ago and the husband is a complete jerk.
DARING AND THE DUKE by Sarah MacLean—hero and heroine have some serious bad blood from their childhood and most of the book is about their reconciliation.
Sarah MacLean is on record as loving a good grovel* and it looks like the Fated Mates podcast did a whole episode about it recently: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2022/5/30/s0437-groveling-in-romance-novels
*Groveling is not my favorite trope since the behavior that leads up to it usually has me hollering, “MAKE BETTER CHOICES!!!”
The aforementioned Cate C. Wells has, within a relatively short period of time, made “heroes who want to do better but sometimes lack the emotional bandwidth to do so without blunders” her stock-in-trade. I think her HITTING THE WALL fits the request too: a man’s eyes are opened to the true nature of his family when he discovers a young woman, pregnant with his child, was run out of town by his wealthy family seven years before. Now she and her child are back in town and he wants them to be a family but he has plenty of groveling & growing to do.
Several Harlequin Presents books have already been mentioned (Dani Collins, Lucy Monroe), but if you’re looking for “heroes who realize they have lost the loves of their lives and also realize it was through their own fault”, I would simply scroll through the synopses of books on the HP site. Look for books where a couple is/was married and the hero is determined to show the heroine he has changed. Almost every major HP writer (Caitlin Crews, Jackie Ashenden, Maisey Yates, Clare Connelly, Lynne Graham Melanie Milburne, Dani Collins, etc.) has written at least a couple of books featuring this trope. Happy hunting!
Hmmm. Would Loretta Chase’s Scoundrels (the whole series, pretty much, has the rejection-then-hero-makes-good thing?) qualify?
I’m thinking of older titles this morning, because the headline reminded me of Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane: he falls for her when she’s testifying in her own defense in Strong Poison, then the relationship continues in Have His Carcase and culminates in Gaudy Night, with a sort of epilogue in Busman’s Honeymoon (plus some hard-to-find short stories). I’m kinda fond of the premise: she makes him grovel because he had the temerity to save her life.
But both book-series might be missing the mark? And the Sayers isn’t in-genre, really (I dunno, Gaudy Night is prolly my favorite mystery-romance ever).
A WEEK TO BE WICKED. By Tessa Dare. The blue stocking heroine asks the rake to help her and her rejects her. They end up on a journey together where he tries to make it up to her. Love and sexiness ensues.
Kelly Siskind has a book called “50 ways to win back your lover,” which is coming out beginning of September. I don’t know if it fits but the title sounds promising.
Unlocked by Courtney Milan does about the best take I can think of on former bully makes good, but this is a tough one for me. My Libra can take a lot of sh*t, but once she’s done, she’s done.
Another one that came to mind is TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT THE DUKE by Loretta Chase. Another bluestocking, strong minded heroine who doesn’t take the hero’s sh*t and he spends a lot of the book trying to make it up to her/gain her affection.
My suggestion would be Never Sweeter by Charlotte Stein. Not quite on the button with how the rejection goes in Rejected Mate, but it’s a book long grovel with the “hero” making up for being one of the heroine’s bullies during High School.
Natasha Anders “The Unwanted Wife” starts with the heroine asking for divorce for good reasons. Set in South Africa, but iirc exclusively within the white slice of society there, if that is a dealbreaker.
I absolutely love a good grovel. I have a Goodreads shelf “hero-makes-up-for-it.” A recent favorite, though it’s not through the whole book, is Elizabeth Hoyt’s SCANDALOUS DESIRES – Maiden Lane #3. In exchange for a favor for her husband (earlier book), the hero makes everyone think the heroine slept with him for it. He’s pretty reprehensible, but he loves her from the start (and she is free to be with him now). Serious groveling, and I ended up falling hard for him. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions, I’m making a list :>).
Barbara mentions Natasha Anders, above. Basically, all/most of her books seem to start/be set up with a misunderstanding meaning the male is awful to the female, she quite rightly objects and decides to walk, and he realises his error and what he will be missing so grovels whilst appreciating she has every right to walk away.
I love them!
An old Jayne Ann Krentz book, Silver Linings, fits perfectly. The hero breaks up with the heroine, then realizes his mistake and spends most of the book trying to convince her to give him a second chance. If I recall correctly, she is not inclined to forgive him, so the grovel goes on for quite a long time.
And what about Lady Isabella’s Scandalous Marriage by Jennifer Ashley? Here’s the blurb: “Six years ago, eighteen-year-old Lady Isabella Scranton scandalized all of London by eloping the night of her come-out ball with the notorious rake, Lord Mac Mackenzie. After three turbulent years of marriage, she scandalized London once again — this time by leaving him. — Now the reformed Mac has returned, and he wants one thing: Isabella back in his life, his house, his bed. He’ll do anything he has to, play any game, as long as he gets her back.”
What about Tessa Bailey’s Too Hard To Forget? There’s groveling starting at the halfway mark for sure once he realizes what he’s done.
I’d second SaraGale’s Loretta Chase rec. Most of the books I could think of are more just “mutual dislike, then gradually learning to understand each other” than one party actively in the wrong and needing forgiveness, but while 10 Things I Hate About the Duke doesn’t really have a rejection, the hero’s immature and thoughtless behavior causes real harm to the heroine and there’s definitely a journey of him realizing he needs to change and grow up and proving it to her and fixing the things he messed up. (The first book, A Duke In Shining Armor, is good for context for this one, and both have heroes who have reached their 30s as wild, spoiled rakes meeting smart, serious women who have zero time for their antics and make them face the harm their lifestyle has caused and grow up and prove they can take some things seriously, though 10 Things is definitely heavier on the groveling and fixing things aspect.)
And on a completely different note, there’s a contemporary m/m hockey romance, Amy Aislin’s The Nature of the Game, in which one hero abruptly ditched the other and broke his heart. He did have reasons (though could have handled things better) but when they meet again years later, it takes most of the book for him to get past the issues that made him leave before, make it up to the other hero, and prove that he’s serious this time. (I don’t think I’ve ever seen Amy Aislin’s books mentioned on here but if you like m/m sports romances, her Stick Side hockey series is one of my absolute favorites!)
Four Nights with the Duke by Eloisa James. This one’s fun because the hero embarrasses the heroine when they’re teens and she has a crush on him, so when she proposes they get married he thinks she still does… but oops she really was proposing a marriage of convenience and why does that make him feel weird?! I’m a BIG FAN of this trope so I probably have more, but that’s the most recent one I read.
IDK why, but I’m also a fan of when the reader / everyone around the hero realizes he’s hung up on the woman he’s rejected due to his actions toward her, and is waiting for his “oh shit” moment. That was definitely one of my favorite parts of the Tyrant Alpha’s Rejected Mate, and if I recall correctly Four Nights with the Duke has it too.
Relatedly, one of these days I will totally submit the rec league request for books with a “She’s gone? What do you mean she’s gone?” scene – aka the hero takes the heroine for granted so she bounces without telling him, and his “oh shit” moment is the moment he realizes what she’s done.
OH MY GOD yesss. I OFTEN think there should be more groveling (how many books have I tagged as “needz moar grovel”? a lot.)
Here are 2 that I’ve quite enjoyed:
Desires of a Perfect Lady by Victoria Alexander. It’s like a book-long slow burn grovel. So good.
Ravishing the Heiress by Sherry Thomas. It’s not solely groveling, I think. Has a mix of Marriage of Convenience, Friends to Lovers, It’s Been You All Along, and some good yearning. Oh man, I should re-read this book.
This is my new favorite post. Following!!!
THIS IS MY FAVORITE TROPE! I’m so excited for all these new titles. I second (or 3rd) Natasha Anders’ top-tier groveling books. Maya Banks has a series called “Pregnancy & Passion” that includes a lot of groveling. Keep ’em coming!
I think Alisha Rai’s “First Comes Like” might fit the bill. The heroine is an Internet influencer being catfished by a guy posing as a Bollywood star. She approaches the star, he brushes her off/assumes she’s got ulterior motives, then realizes he’s being used as bait. He becomes interested in her online tutorials as he works to undo the damage. And has to apologize, a lot.
The heroine of Here’s Looking at You by Mhairi MacFarlane was bullied in school and 10-15 years later has to work with one of her bullies on a museum project. YMMV on whether the grovel was sufficient.
Maybe Pretty Face by Lucy Parker? The hero makes a really bad first impression and screws up several times. Groveling throughout.
Some other Olivia Dade books may fit the bill: Teach Me and Sweetest in the Gale (contains the story, “Unraveled”.)
@CourtneyM Eloisa James is a master at this trope. Duchess in Love starts with Gina requesting a divorce from Camden because he’s been absent their entire marriage. Later in the series, Rees and Helene patch up their marriage in Your Wicked Ways after Rees has basically been an a*s for their whole marriage. My recollection of Born to be Wilde puts it in this category (Parth and Lavinia each having to apologize and learn to trust after being judgemental), but the book description doesn’t quite match my recollection…
Another Sarah MacLean – the Day of the Duchess.
It’s a full book grovel, but check for CWs (I don’t want to spoil).
I would recommend The Earl I Ruined by Scarlett Peckham!
I came in to say Sayers too. Wimsey’s uncle says on the topic “I don’t think I have ever seen such patience”. But Wimsey’s efforts to persuade Harriet are not just a grovel on his own behalf but a response to the events she’s been through.
A third rec for Dorothy L. Sayers’ four novels featuring Harriet Vane and Peter Wimsey! A clumsy proposal and a rejection in Strong Poison initiate the groveling/move towards relationship equilibrium, Have His Carcase continues groveling (with banter and dancing,) Gaudy Night gives us groveling, angst, and Elizabethan innuendo (*fans self*), and Busman’s Honeymoon is a novel-length reward with incredibly steamy sex because DLS knows what the people want. And as catscatscats said, Wimsey’s attempts at persuasion are also, crucially, attempts at building a relationship based on common honesty rather than possession (as well as an attempt to salvage happiness on the brink of both middle age and a world war.) Clearly I’m not even remotely normal about these books.
Don’t remember how much groveling the hero does, because this is one of the first historical romance novels published, but look at The Flame and The Flower. His crew mistakes her for a prostitute, grabs her, puts her in his cabin, her comes in and, trigger warning is too shell shocked by all her experiences to speak up, so she can’t consent, is basically raped. Runs away the next morning. Her step-aunt, or aunt-by-law notices she’s pregnant 8-10 weeks later and tracks down the ship captain and forces the marriage. Obviously I’m leaving out quite a lot, but the emotions boosted Kathleen Woodiwiss to the top of romance bestseller list. And remember it was written in the 1970’s, standards were different then.
Sarah MacLean’s Day of the Duchess is definitely a full book grovel (also one of my least favorite books). The “hero” (who is a terrible person) builds an underwater grovel grotto. If you like groveling, it has plenty of it. But I think Sera deserved better.
@Ellie–Agreed, I spent the whole book muttering “Him? Really?”
There’s also
SPOILER
SPOILER
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a whole lot of moaning and bewailing about the heroine’s infertility that’s magically fixed in the epilogue, which is a huge frustration for me.
At the risk of being Debbie Downer, I do want to issue a CW/TW for Charlotte Stein’s NEVER SWEETER (mentioned above). While it undeniably well-written (Stein is so good at being in the heads of smart but insecure women), the beginning of the book features a scene where the heroine is being bullied so badly, she ends up injured and having to be hospitalized. The hero’s behavior (he was not the primary bullier) is somewhat ambiguous and gets clarified as the story progresses. However, he was undoubtedly there when the heroine was hurt, so decide if you want to read accordingly.
I am so excited to to see this Rec League because I was the original requester. Can’t wait to dig into everyone’s recommendations!
My contribution to the grovelmance recs: WHAT MATTERED MOST by Linda Winfree, in which a pregnant police officer discovers at the start of the book that her (somewhat indifferent) baby daddy is actually in love with his (female) partner and then more very bad things happen. I don’t think the grovel is particularly successful and I actively hate how the protagonists’ reconciliation is brought about, but I still enjoy the feelings of outrage from all the wrongs in the scenario.
A (hopefully brief) moment of meta: I’m usually paralyzed by the challenge “if you liked X try Y” book recommendations because there are so many variables involved that made X a favorite. The Tyrant Alpha’s Rejected Mate, for example, features an offense from the hero that was clumsily delivered but not cruelly intended, while the heroine is a strong, grounded character. In contrast, The Unwanted Wife (my second-fave grovelmance, ousted from the throne by Tyrant) features intentional cruelty from the hero and a heroine who is a bit of a wet kleenex (seriously, when she breaks out her childhood dog story, I had flashbacks to Phoebe Cates’ “why I hate Christmas” monologue from Gremlins). So the full-book grovel there definitely meets the guidelines of this rec league, but I can also see where a reader who came to the grovel party via Wells’ book might not get the same satisfaction from Anders’.
Lots of quick thanks and plus ones:
@Katie C for requesting the recommendations
@Empress of Blandings for giving me cause to re-think my (mostly negative) reaction to Monroe’s After the Billionaire’s Vows… (I hadn’t bought into the idea of the “one-sided competition” as the hero’s initial motivation for change; I just thought that was the heroine’s highly jaundiced perspective on him. If I actually doubt his sincerity at the start, this becomes a much better book.)
@Ellie for modeling how to acknowledge a book you wouldn’t recommend but that meets the guidelines
@ all of you for the recs
AND +1 @Courtney M for your proposed rec league. I hope if you submit the suggestion, it gets posted.
Another suggestion. How about Hold Me by Courtney Milan?
Not quite a FULL book grovel, but he insults her by making assumptions on first meeting, and has to grovel lots and grow when he realises how much he really likes her. Of course, I love this book for many other reasons too, so worth a read
Dear Enemy by Kristen Callihan is another option. The hero and the heroine met as children. The book starts with them meeting again as adults, so their history is told in flashbacks throughout. Not sure if it is a full book grovel, because the original reason that they end up back in each other’s lives initially appears to be more of his bad behavior. The insults are inventive (especially the ones exchanged when they were children and teens) and I was not sure that the hero could be redeemed. Eventually, he was.
I have 2 suggestions for this Rec League even though I’m not a huge fan of the grovel novel. I do like to see fair play though and a sense of balance. Both of these books involve reformed bullies, which is not everyone’s cup of tea. Both of them mainly focus on guys trying to make up for past bad behavior.
The Nature of Cruelty by L H Cosway involves main characters who were antagonists in childhood. Robert is the twin brother of Lana’s best friend. They met at middle school age; Robert bullied Lana severely; they parted and met again as adults. It’s been awhile since I read this, but I believe it worked for me at the time. I think adult Robert put in the effort to overcome Lana’s understandable aversion to him.
This Is Not a F*cking Romance by Evie Snow is a more recent work that I read not long ago. It revolves around bar owner Candy and her high school nemesis Trent. When circumstances bring them back together, Trent immediately recognizes that he owes mega apologies to Candy for his behavior in hs, but Candy isn’t having it. Readers may have issues with other elements in the story, but that boy does some excellent groveling.
I did just want to say that I have a hard time seeing Peter Wimsey’s 3 volume courtship of Harriet Vane as a grovel. While Lord Peter undoubtedly made some missteps in his interactions with Harriet, I don’t recall him ever acting with malice or deliberate unkindness. One of the great pleasures of following their relationship is watching both of them grow in both self-awareness and mutual understanding. I particularly adore Gaudy Night with its layered exploration of the intellectual lives of women as well as the costs and rewards of female independence. However, it is Peter and Harriet who carry that novel right up to the final “Placet.”
I really loved FLIRTING WITH FOREVER by Cara Bastone. The hero is a bit socially awkward, and unintentionally says something that is deeply hurtful to the heroine right in the first paragraph – it’s one of the first things he says to her on their blind date. I loved how remorseful he is. There is no grand gesture of apology – he realizes she doesn’t want to date him, and so just spends time being a supportive friend and building trust. It’s a slow burn, but very much worth the pay off. It’s the 3rd book in a series, but you could read it first. It’s my favourite of the trio.
I also loved WALL by Cate C Wells – it starts with cheating, and is about the process of the couple coming back together. I don’t love a cheating romance, but I found this to be really beautiful and emotional, as well as believable that they could be happy together again.
@deborah you see me – I LOVED TTARM but was completly unnmoved The Unwanted Wife. I think I gave up quite early on. Not for me.
I have read two Cate C Wells so far, and both of them have had plots which I would usually nope so hard on (police officer knocks up seventeen year old, girl falls for her old high school bully) but she’s executed them well. Part of the charm for me is that she gets the dark side of the small town dynamic so well. Small country towns are so often presented as cosy utopias in romances (where orchards and cupcake bakeries are profitable endeavours!) but if you’ve ever been the broke kid from the bad family on the wrong side of the tracks, they are considerably Less Fun. Even if you’re from the right side of the tracks, but you don’t go to THE church or any church at all, it can be less than fun.