This HaBO is from Kay, who wants to find this romance:
Marriage in trouble with husband having an affair with the mother of one of his son’s classmates. There’s a graduation (high school) party for the son where the mistress attends with her daughter (the son’s classmate.) I think there may be the discovery of the affair or a confrontation of some sort at the party. At some point the husband leaves to live with the mistress in somewhat cramped circumstances with the mistress and her child.
There may be a scene where all parties to the drama are at the same restaurant and the mistress smirks at the wife.
For sure there is some kind of accident that puts the wife in the hospital. By this time the cheating husband has realized that he has made a mistake and wishes to return home. He tells his mother in law that he will spend the night in the hospital so his wife won’t be alone. For some reason he returns to the mistress and the wife wakes up alone and has to call someone else to pick her up when she is released.
Somehow the book ends with the couple reunited. There may be a second book that focuses on the mistress who mends her ways and has her own HEA or HFN.
Not sure how the “hero” is gonna get out of this pickle and feel fully redeemed.
Hmmm. I kind of wish the HEA involved putting the cheating husband in a trebuchet.
This scenario actually happened with a couple I know. They went to counseling and are still married.
Following
And this is a… romance??
It’s giving me half-a-century old (?!) Sidney Sheldon vibes, wherein the virtuous blonde all-American girl gets relentlessly trod upon by the other MCs (her all-American hero-type of a love interest turns out to have a spine made of Fluffernutter when it comes to resisting the vampy, sophisticated [European] brunette, and the Reggie uses his money, status & connections to fix Betty’s disasters so he can then twirl his mustache of indebtedness at her, as he waltzes her into his swanky bedroom and demolishes her high standards with his (un-vanilla) sex acts.
Oh, crap – those 70’s “romance” bestseller plots apparently burrowed deep into my adolescent brain like the earwig in that traumatizing “Night Gallery” episode (“it was a female!!”).
Tl;dr: @Kay – sorry; no clue… but if you’re looking for other shitty “heroes”, try taking a dip into the Sidney Sheldon pool of excess – though if you do, DON’T do it wearing a white bikini (Scream-face emoji).
Following.
@BetsyDub
Was that Night Gallery? I could never remember and thought it was Twilight Zone or Outer Limits, though I knew it was post Hitchcock. Sadly, my memory of the episode was perfect. *shudder*