I've read a few books recently featuring widowers who love again. These widowers claim to be so devoted, so in love, and therefore so broken over their late spouses... only to fall in love again with another woman any time from six months to one year after the late wife croaked. The "one year ago" thingy seems to the most popular device used by authors when it comes to widower heroes.

I don't know. It is a little hard for me to believe that a man, so battered over the death of a spouse to the point that "I still miss her!" is an internal conflict between him and the New Woman, will actually get over the late wife so easily within one year. Getting a friend with benefits one year after the death of a spouse, that I can see happening, but getting a new wife that he claims to love just as much when just 150 pages ago he was melodramatically trying to push the New Woman away is not something I think I can believe.

I wish more authors would give their male characters a little more time to mourn the late wife in instances such as this. Why not make it, say, five years before the widower hero settles down again? Curious.