Around this time last year, I did an If You Like post about books involving weddings. It seemed appropriate now to do an If You Like, as a follow up, as it were, about books with pregnant heroines.
So, if you like books where the heroine is enceinte for all or most of the novel, you’ll probably like….
— Donna Andrews’s Stork Raving Mad
(mystery), in which murder and mayhem ensue as Meg Langslow is awaiting the birth of twins;
— Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s Nobody’s Baby But Mine
(contemporary romance), in which a physicist cons a football player into fathering her child, only to find herself married to the man (one of those plots that really shouldn’t work, but, because it’s SEP, somehow does);
— Susan Wiggs’s Just Breathe
(contemporary romance), in which the heroine discovers she’s pregnant just as she also discovers that her husband is cheating on her, and moves cross country to re-start her life in her old hometown;
— Georgette Heyer’s A Civil Contract
(Regency romance), which covers the hero and heroine’s first year of marriage, including the birth of their first child;
— Kathleen E. Woodiwiss’s The Flame and the Flower
(Old School Historical Bodice Ripper) in which the hero mistakes the heroine for a prostitute, impregnates her, marries her, and carries her off to his plantation in America.
What are your favorite novels with pregnant heroines?
Sophie Kinsella’s “Shopaholic & Baby”, Emily Griffin’s “Something Blue” and my favorite Brian O’Reilly’s “Angelina’s Bachelors”. Congratulations ! 🙂
I actually haven’t really read that many novels with pregnant heroines so I’m curious to see what books people will list!
I remember I really loved that book Simply Love by Mary Balogh and I believe the heroine ended up pregnant early on in the book.
Diana Gabaldon’s Drums of Autumn, though I suppose only one of the heroines is pregnant during the book.
“…..What are your favorite novels with pregnant heroines?”
None come to mind but…..ANY woman willing to put up with pregnancy is a HEROINE to me!
Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay is a heart-wrenching, but excellent time-slip where the modern-day heroine is pregnant for the majority of the book.
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant- the heroine isn’t pregnant for the whole book but there are several other pregnant characters early in the book and the main character is a midwife so lots of births and babies all around.
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. Another excellent, heart wrenching read.
The House by Danielle Steele. One of my all-time favorites.
These are all kind of sad though, clearly I need to read more happy pregnant heroine books.
The House she isn’t pregnant until the end. Also I didn’t like it at all, and that’s an understatement.
Quite a few movies sneaked in last time, so I am adding Fargo to the list.
Liz Curtis Higgs has a 4 book series that begins with Thorn in My Heart, then Fair is the Rose, Whence Came a Prince, and Grace in Thine Eyes. Pregnancies are in the first three, but be prepared for lots of tears, anguish, and surprise. This is 18th century Scotland. I couldn’t put these books down and was sometimes kept awake because I felt so involved with the characters. A real emotional roller coaster! At times I didn’t know if I wanted to continue, but was glad I did.
She has written many novels, including the best-selling “IM” books, ttyl , ttfn , and l8r, g8r . Her book Thirteen Plus One was released May 4, 2010. Myracle’s younger sister, Susan Rebecca White , writes adult fiction, including Bound South (2009), A Soft Place to Land (2010), and A Place at the Table (2013).
– In other books, the fresh start is just the opposite: it’s going back to the beginning, like Susan Wiggs’s Just Breathe , in which the very pregnant heroine leaves the wreckage of her marriage to return to the home town she hasn’t seen since college. Ditto Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s Ain’t She Sweet? and It Had to Be You , both about heroines starting a new life by returning to the scene of the old one, or Mary Stewart’s wonderful Nine Coaches Waiting , in which, after years in an orphanage in England, the heroine returns to her native France, this time as a foreigner and a governess.
Another pregnant heroine book is The Exile of Sara Stephenson by Darci Hannah – Sara is sent into exile to a lighthouse so as not to embarass her family with her pregnancy. There she meets another tortured soul and the story continues.