the ask@AAR: What’s your favorite tearjerker romance?

I’ve ugly cried many books, some mentioned above, but one that always sticks out for me that has not been mentioned is The Silver LIning by Maggie Osbourne. The heroine is called Low Down – a ragged prospector in a camp of all men. She nurses the camp back to health after they are all afflicted with the pox and as compensation they say she can choose whatever she wants. She says she wants a baby and the man who has the scratched marble in his hand indicating who will make her wish come true is Max McCord, who’d left his wealthy fiance for a last fling on his own before marriage, There’s a scene on the kitchen floor that broke me.

Finally thought of one…In Mary Balogh’s Slightly series when Lord Alleyne (thought dead) returned to his siblings. I cried fat, happy tears!

Last book that made me ugly cry was My Oxford Year by Julia Whelan. Would you categorize that as a romance? It has an ending that would certainly qualify as HFN. And I second your thoughts about The Time Traveler’s Wife. I’ve probably read/listened to that book a dozen times. It is a beautiful, gut-wrenching love story, but definitely NOT a romance!

You may have already read these, but three books that come to mind are Ravishing the Heiress by Sherry Thomas; Written on Your Skin by Meredith Duran; and The Duke & the Lady in Red by Lorraine Heath. All three books will bring you to tears.

Sherry Thomas’ book is a marriage of convenience/ friends-to-lovers story about a woman that has an actual career. The heroine knows what she’s getting into with marriage, but her heart is still broken for part of the story. Meredith Duran’s book is about a burned out spy who is reunited with the woman that once saved his life. The hero suffers what we now know to be PTSD and eventually learns how much the heroine suffered for helping him. Finally, Lorraine Heath’s book is heartbreaking for a secondary character. The heroine’s brother is disabled and Lorraine Heath does a wonderful job telling his story. The main characters are great too, but the brother’s plotline shines through and will reduce the reader to tears.

Traditional romances rarely ever move me to tears, despite some of them dealing with quite emotional subjects.

Most tear-jerkers for me come from other genres. If you like historical fiction with a romance in it, I remember being moved to tears by Helen Simonson’s The Summer Before the War. The death of a supporting character and its affect on nearly every character in the novel left me with a lump in my throat.

When I cry at romances, it’s because of secondary characters (like Carla Kelly’s The Lady’s Companion which is wonderful) or because the leads have gone through so much to be together/reach a point of happiness – that was Courtney Milan’s Unclaimed for me. Tears can come for a lot of intense, emotional reasons, not just sadness.

The two books that sprang immediately to my mind are both by authors I haven’t read in years, not since their new releases began to irritate me beyond reason. But I’ve reread these two books and cried every time.

Lorraine Heath’s Always to Remember (still perfectly heartbreaking and lovely) and Mary Balogh’s The Secret Pearl (admittedly marred by the heroine’s trademark Balogh martyrdom but still a moving read).

[Possibly a duplicate post…sorry. I tried to post earlier and lost what I’d written. Naturally, I hadn’t saved it, so am recreating from memory.]

The first book that came to my mind was Kati Wilde’s GOING NOWHERE FAST, a “New Adult” romance that works even for people like me (who hasn’t been a “new” adult since Jimmy Carter was President). Wilde seamlessly blends elements of many tropes (antagonists-to-lovers, friend’s sibling, road trip, enforced proximity, even a Pride & Prejudice retelling) in this story of a young woman taking a camping trip through the Pacific Northwest with her roommate’s brother. There’s a vein of melancholy running through the book (the heroine’s father has recently died, the hero has yet to come to terms with the death of his parents years before) and it has absolutely the most gutting breakup scene I’ve ever read—it’s a long one that takes place over several days, and no matter how often I read it, I always cry.

Wilde has several other books that have crushing breakups, especially FAKING IT ALL. It’s the story of a woman who is paid to pretend to be a famous (married) actress. She falls for the man who is protecting her (he thinks she’s the married actress and the heroine can’t tell him the truth about who she really is). So much heartache. I also find Wilde’s SECRET SANTA hits my tear duct buttons—but that’s less because of any breakup and more because of the heroine’s hard-scrabble life.

Molly O’Keefe’s ONE LAST CHANCE is the story of a married couple who have been apart most of their ten-year marriage. It has an epic, sob-worthy reconciliation scene after the hero realizes the part he has played in the mess his marriage has become and the steps he must take to repair it. (O’Keefe’s more expanded WEDDING AT THE RIVERVIEW INN has a similar set-up and really puts the characters through the wringer.)

Kelly Hunter’s MAGGIE’S RUN, about a woman who attempts to turn a rundown sheep station in the Australian Outback into a destination wedding venue, is beautiful and melancholy. Maggie reconnects with a neighboring rancher—a man with whom she has a long, complicated history going back to their teens—but it is certainly not smooth sailing.

A. Zavarelli has been hit-or-miss for me, but her TAP LEFT is the gold standard for devastation. As she approaches her 30th birthday, the heroine resolves to get her life out of the rut it’s in. This includes joining a Tinder-like dating app called Tap Left and finally resolving the long, complicated, and unconsummated relationship she has with the brother of her long-dead teenage boyfriend. There’s a scene where the heroine goes to a coffee shop to meet the guy she’s been “talking to” on Tap Left that will absolutely wreck you.

Laura Florand’s SNOW-KISSED features a couple whose marriage broke down under the weight of the heroine’s miscarriages and subsequent descent into depression (for which she refused to get help). Then they find themselves stranded alone together in a snow-bound cabin. Incredibly sad, but ultimately uplifting.

And I know I’m an outlier with my love for Harlequin Presents—but almost any HP (especially one written by Caitlin Crews) will have at least one scene so sad you’ll be grabbing the Kleenex box.

It goes without saying that all of the above books, however much you might cry while reading them, have HEA/HFN endings. For this reason, I did not include Taylor Fitzpatrick’s THROWN OFF THE ICE, which will break your heart, but not put it back together (at least not in an HEA/HFN fashion). However, if you really want a love story that will devastate you, THROWN OFF THE ICE is a great choice.