Whether beloved fiancée or husband, girlfriend or your first love, one of the fastest ways to have me losing respect for a love story is by picking apart a dead person’s relationship with your current leading man or lady. Now I have no problem with stories where there is no love lost for a deceased person, I am specifically talking about stories where we have a second chance at love.
While I understand it could be hard to write a hero where you have a leading character who has already experienced great love, I do not think that it strengthens your story to pick at the dead man (or lady). Indeed, I think it weakens your claim because if this story, this second love is so great, can’t it be great in its own unique way?
In Kristen Ashley’s latest, Own the Wind I was disturbed by how the heroine, who had been blissfully happy with her fiancé, is now doubting if he would have made her happy now that he is dead. It is true that she didn’t indulge the biker lifestyle with him (he was not a biker), but is being in a motorcycle club her only path to happiness? In no way did the doubts strengthen her new relationship, in fact all they did for me was to make me question if she knew her own mind or was strong enough to know what she wanted from life.
This is just one example, and to be fair it was done only mildly, yet still enough to make me irritated. I can’t tell you how many times a character in this situation (having their boyfriend/wife/fiancé/etc die, now finding themselves in new romance) suddenly starts thinking about petty shortcomings, about little things that show how maybe that love wasn’t so great, but the new guy/gal is better. Why undermine the past love? Why not embrace a second love?
It is my belief that we have lots of paths, opportunities, and ways that we could live a happy life. You can’t do everything. I mean, at one point or another I have thought of doing lots of different things. As a kid my goals went from being a top CIA agent to veterinarian, running my own bakery to being an elementary school teacher. In the end I did none of these things but does that mean I am not happy, or that I couldn’t have found happiness on one of those directions? For that matter, if I had never met my husband does that mean I’d now be a miserable, lonely, loveless person?
When I read a romance novel, one where death took away a great love and a character is finding a new love, I don’t want the dead person picked at and put down. They were a great part of the character’s life, a vital part of that person’s story and who they are now. Perhaps the loss has left them frozen in time, maybe they don’t want to be open to the hurt of another love, but the love was there and that doesn’t need to be erased or doubted.
To truly show me how great this new love is, focus on the relationship and potential it holds. Show me how this couple is special, why they are meant to be, and give me a reason to believe in their happily ever after.
In Elizabeth Hoyt’s Scandalous Desires, her heroine gave everything for her love only to find that not only did her husband not trust her, but perhaps he had never loved her as deeply. Now a widow, she finds love with the man who ruined her first marriage – a man who clearly sees how special she is. This is one (rare) example where I do not mind the dead man being thought a bit less of because at the end of his life he deserted his wife, showed the depth (or lack of) of his respect for her.
Perhaps that is the real detail that sticks for me. It is one thing to have a marriage of convenience or a past relationship that wasn’t a true love and soulmates situation, those I understand and see reason to examine and pick apart even as a character looks to start a new relationship. What I don’t want to see, ever, is for a happy in love couple separated by a death get analyzed and picked apart because someone new is on the scene and a romance author is too lazy to strengthen the relationship through positive means, instead picking at the easy target, the dead person.
I know there are stories where a character has been deeply in love and in a relationship with someone else (who is now deceased) and is finding love for a second time that are done well… and yet my mind is a blank. All I can think of are widow/widower stories where there was no great love the first time around. So please, do feel free to give your recommendations in the comments!
Excellent example with Tohr and Wellsie. If was even said that he won’t have a bonding scent with Autumn because he had already had the love of his life (not those exact words though)
I am stuck in Ty/Zane land and the fact that Zane was married for so long but we never hear them disparage that relationship, impresses me. The most we see it referred to is when Zane finally takes his wedding ring off.
Ty/Zane I’ve not read them all, but this is good to hear!!
Tohr/Wellsie… yeah. I didn’t read that far into BDB and not sure I will.
” this second love is so great, can’t it be great in its own unique way?”
This. I don’t mind if the heroine or hero explores their grief over a lover who has passed…but I don’t like it when they start to have doubts over the late lover.
You are allowed to love the dead lover AND a new person. I personally don’t need to feel the dead lover was less of a person, or would have had future troubles with the hero or heroine.
This definitely bothered me in Own the Wind.
And that’s why I still haven’t read Lover reborn. Seeing Tohr say he never loved Wellsie as much as he does his new love would have broken me. Breath on Embers by Anne Calhoun does a great job of maintaining the love for the heroine’s deceased husband even while she’s moving on with the hero but that’s the only one I can think of right now.
Ah – Breath on Embers is an excellent example of mourning well done!
I’ve never been a fan of making the dead ex a monster in order to negate any guilt for H/H hooking up.
Kristan Higgins, Jill Mansell, MJ Fredrick, and Brooke Moss are just a few authors who tend to stay away from abusing the poor dead ex in their rom cons.
An example of where this was done well: What I did for a Duke by Julie Anne Long.
The duke in this story is 40. He lost his first wife and their baby when he was young. He owns his love for his first wife. The pain he still carries with him (about his lost love) just gives his character more depth.
Also, as an aside, your post is timely for me because I’m 30 pages into a manuscript with this theme right now (but there are no dukes in it).
I like that you put it this way – he “owns his love for his first wife”. YES.
IIRC, In “The Madness of Ian MacKenzie”, Beth’s love for her first husband was treated well and her love for her first husband was not diminished in any way. I also truly dislike when an author raises undeserved criticism or issues about a character’s first love in order to diminish that relationship. All that does is make me question the hero/heroine’s judgment and the foundation of the new relationship .
In the 2nd of Lorelei James cowboy books, Gemma was a widow who found love again, and that was handled very nicely :-)
Lynnd – agree.
Sofia – thanks for the rec!
I really like Loretta Chase’s Lord Perfect for this- the hero didn’t have a great marriage, but the heroine did, and in a later book her daughter talks about how the mother was lucky enough to have two great loves.
I think this book also does a good job of showing how the heroine’s first husband was a perfect fit for the person she was then, and the person she would have continued to be if he had lived, whereas the hero is perfect for the person that he has become as a result of experiences like widowhood and single motherhood and such.
Oh you put this so well- YES!!
Speaking of dead husbands, a book that really bothered me was Jennifer Haymore’s A Hint of Wicked. What happens when the husband you loved comes home, and you’re married again? Now that sets up a whole ‘nother level of questions and issues. A few other authors have pulled that one, and it doesn’t sit well with me at all. I think it might have been Lavyrle Spencer that did that too.
I can’t recall who did that, but I know I’ve read a few “and now he’s home…” and EVERY time one or the other was made out to be a super bad guy/definitely not her “true love”….
If I know that is coming in a book I will avoid it altogether. Worse than a love triangle in my opinion!
I also dislike books that run down the first love in favour the second. The one book I can think of that did a “second love after losing first love” scenario very well, I think, was The Butterfly Tattoo. The hero’s first love was a man, and his second was a woman. I loved that book but was a really hard read because of the degree of grief the hero experienced for his first love. I keep thinking I will read it again, but then wonder if I can cope with the emotional ride.
I haven’t read that book, but I have heartd it is excellent and I’m glad to hear it is one that deals with grief/second love well. Thanks for sharing!
I also dislike books that demonize the ex for no other reason than to introduce conflict. There’s nothing wrong with a relationship running its course and for the players to move on to new loves. We don’t all hate our ex(s) and it’s okay to remember the person/relationship with fondness and even love. I should note that I would be lying if I said that I did not enjoy the evil ex, just as long as it makes sense to the story.
Having said that, I did not have a big issue with Tabby questioning the relationship with her late fiancé. Maybe because we did not experience the relationship through her eyes and only saw the bit that Shy witnessed. I had the feeling that Tabby settled with a man that was the direct opposite of Shy for obvious reasons. The relationship with the fiancé would have likely been okay had he survived but alas he did not.
Like someone else said, Beth’s love for her first husband was handled very well in “The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie”. I liked the fact that she loved her late husband and had a good emotional and sexual relationship with him.
I haven’t read “Lover Reborn” either in part because I haven’t moved on from Wellsie’s death. The devastation it caused to both Tohr and John Matthew is something I still have hard time dealing with.
I’m late to the party, but ‘Kiss of Snow’ by Nalini Singh was a good example of a second chance at love being done well. Hawk found his mate as a child & she died. Wolves mate for life, so Hawk & Sienna’s relationship was tough in the begining. But even as they both moved on, they both were very respectful of the deceased. And they both understood that she would always have a little piece of Hawks heart.
Julia Quinn does this beautifully in When He Was Wicked. The three were actually really good friends together as well as related. I remember crying (in a good way)in several parts of this book. I cannot recommend it enough. Also I felt Tohr (whick I DID read) handled the second love pretty well in Lover Reborn. Although I felt his angst was dragged out a bit.
I was a little bothered in “Own the Wind”, but I don’t think ultimately that Tabby ever decided she never really loved Jason or any bs like that. I just think given the major disparities in lifestyle and the choices she made to be with Jason it made sense (somewhat).
Kristen Ashley’s “At Peace” has a fantastic second chance at love romance with no dead-husband bashing/belittling.
I really do get tired of the villain-izing of the dead spouse though. A few months ago I read n historical romance where the heroine had been married to a much older, wealthy man who she had loved deeply and still mourned and it was fantastic and for the life of me I can’t remember which book it was!