CONVERSATION: May/December Age Differences, Part II — Recommendations and Examples
Possible triggers
Yesterday we discussed big age differences in romance. Here is the second part of that discussion, where we talk about specific examples of the trope.
What is the most recent book you’ve read that featured a significant age difference between the main characters, and how did you feel about it?
What are some examples of books with significant or unusual age differences that you recall liking a lot as well as ones you disliked a lot?
Janine: A recent May/December book I tried to read was Meryl Wilsner’s Mistakes Were Made. I liked their earlier book Something to Talk About, also May/December. Emma was about twenty-six and Jo around forty, as well as her boss—it could have been sketchy but Jo was so ethical about everything that it wasn’t. Mistakes Were Made was a different ball of wax.
In that one Cassie is only a college senior and Erin is thirty-eight and the mother of Cassie’s good friend. They hook up not knowing that but the squickiness is compounded after they find out. There are multiple power gaps besides: Erin is a doctor; Cassie, though bright and ambitious, comes from an impoverished background. Cassie a guest in Erin’s home. Erin bought Cassie’s plane tickets. Cassie was abused and neglected by her mother, and Erin is the mother of her friend. I don’t think it’s intentional that it be a predatory situation but that’s what it reads like.
On the other hand What I Did for a Duke by Julie Anne Long (stellar review by former reviewer Janet/Robin here), a book a few of us mentioned in the Part I post, worked so well for me because the power differential was acknowledged upfront. Moncrieffe assumes that because she’s so young she’ll be easy to seduce and to dupe. But Genevieve thinks he’s too old at first and later turns the tables on him. Moncrieffe introduces Genevieve to the wonders of sex and somehow it’s not creepy–possibly because he is a guest in *her* family’s house. It also helps that her heart was recently broken and Moncrieffe’s presence in her life not only mends it but makes the other guy aware of what he’s thrown away.
Jennie: Last year I read another Julie Anne Long book – After Dark with the Duke – that featured the biggest age difference I’d seen in a while. The heroine was, *I believe* 25, and I think the hero was in his early 40s. Long really made it work and I gave that book a high B+. The h/h were opposites in a lot of ways, and so their age difference was just another obstacle, and not the largest one. Ultimately their differences ended up being complementary, and the age issue was softened a bit by the fact that the heroine was a least a bit worldly.
Janine: Many of Long’s books have large age differences. You Were Made to be Mine, which Jennie and I reviewed last year, has a twenty-one year old heroine and a hero who is thirty-five. It worked less well for me in that book than in What I Did for a Duke or After Dark with the Duke because Aurelie came across to me as a lost lamb. Long doesn’t completely fumble it, though. She’s good at this trope—Beauty and the Spy had a similar age gap and I loved it.
Rose: A few months ago I read Sinner by Sierra Simone, in which Sean is 36 and Zenny is 21, and he’s pretty much known her since she was born (her brother is his best friend, but he hasn’t seen her in years). In this case, Simone made it work because Zenny knows her own mind and is very clear about what she wants; also, Sean’s emotional development stopped somewhere around the time he was Zenny’s age following a family tragedy, and he recognizes that he’s been functioning in the shallow end of the pool while she hasn’t. Whatever power he has in their relationship is power that Zenny chooses to give him, and they both learn and grow during their time together.
Janine: As I said in the earlier post, equal maturity can help. Judith Ivory’s Beast has some problematic elements but I loved it at one time. Louise/Lulu is eighteen and Charles is thirty-five, but they felt pretty equal to me then because in some ways she was more mature than he was.
On the other hand, I recently reread Kiss of Snow by Nalini Singh, where Hawke is 36 and Sienna is 19, and it didn’t work as well for me as the first time I read it in 2011. Sienna is old beyond her years so I think the issue is more that Hawke held too much power relative to her and also directed their relationship. I wanted more equality.
Sirius: In that Lanyon’s series that I mentioned yesterday, I Spy, the younger man may be 29, but he is an experienced spy and certainly has life experience because of his work that the other man could not even think of. Now does he need the older man? Of course he does, because he offers things Mark needs a great deal, love, support, care both literally and figuratively. They both can offer something that other lacks so to me in a sense that makes them stand on more or less equal footing.
Layla: I read and really enjoyed a Karla Sorensen’s contemporary Forbidden recently—someone recommended it in a DA comment thread. It has a shy young lady who manages a gym and develops a huge crush on her boss the owner whose a widowed famous former MMA fighter. It was super sweet and the hero was very sexy and I would love to read more like it.
I tend to like May/December more when there are other tropes I like — unrequited love or crush, celebrity, or initiation fantasies.
Rose: Re Forbidden by Karla Sorensen, I think Aiden is 35. He’s a widowed single father; the first wife was wonderful and he and his daughter miss her a lot. It’s the last of the Ward Sisters series, in which the FMCs’ mother left them when they preteens/teens, and they have various issues related to that. Isabel from Forbidden is very cautious when it comes to relationships, and the slow burn with Aiden makes a lot of sense.
Sorensen has some other books with age differences of 9-10 years – IIRC The Bombshell Effect, Floored, and The Plan. In the last two you definitely feel the age difference, but not because of maturity differences so much as characters at different points in their lives.
If I had to rank the four I mentioned, it would be 1. Floored 2. The Plan (much to my surprise) 3. Forbidden 4. The Bombshell Effect. Floored and Focused are probably my favorites by her.
Jayne: I have thought of one contemporary that I liked. Jane Lovering’s Slightly Foxed which unfortunately isn’t available digitally.
Janine: A contemporary I enjoyed with this trope was So Sweet by Rebekah Weatherspoon. Michael, a “silver fox,” is in his fifties and Kayla in her late twenties. There are also multicultural differences. I was a bit unsure about this book at first because they meet though a party arranged by an internet service that matches attractive younger women with wealthy older men (the ex-husband of one of my friends used a website like that to meet his next partner). It’s not a romantic premise but Weatherspoon really makes it work because Kayla is reluctant to go but encouraged by her roommate and Michael is mainly there because he owns the service. The unromantic beginning turning into a hot romance is part of what’s so enjoyable about the book.
Layla: Actually you all made me remember I used to love this book called Daddy Long Legs when I was a kid— and as an adult when I looked back and saw how old her guardian was it was a shock!!!
I like when the May/December books focus on heroine’s growth I guess that’s appealing to me a framework for coming-of-age.
Daddy Long Legs is much more about her growth as a young woman though and it’s a nice epistolary fantasy about a poor girl being saved (I am drawn to those lol).
Jennie: I reviewed Daddy Long Legs! I really liked the heroine but not necessarily the romantic aspect of it. She had a lot going for her and I wanted her to have the adventures she had been dreaming of, rather than settling down at 18.
Janine: Like I said the other day, the older woman/younger man trope can be refreshing. One that I think of as groundbreaking is LaVyrle Spencer’s contemporary romance Family Blessings (1993, horrible title). Lee, 45, and Greg, 30 are brought together by their shared grief for her 25 year old son, who was also Greg’s friend. It worked partly because partly because of the intensity of that commonality and partly because Greg was mature for his age.
An earlier (1990) older woman/younger man romance is A Promise of Spring by Mary Balogh (reviewed here), but it was less successful for me because Grace was so insecure about being older and for reasons unrelated to the age difference too.
Lisa Kleypas published a charming historical, Suddenly You (2000), which uses an eye-rolling trope. About to reach 30, Amanda hires a male prostitute to divest her of her virginity (so much for historical authenticity, LOL), and there’s a case of mistaken identity when Jack (mid-20s) shows up. This was a sexy book and the fact that Jack was more experienced did a lot for it.
Kaetrin: What was that Mary Balogh Westcott book with the older woman/younger man? I forget the title right this minute but it was very good and the age difference was front and centre.
Rose: Could it be Someone to Trust? I haven’t read it myself (the Westcott series has been iffy for me) but maybe I’ll give it a shot someday.
Kaetrin: Yes, it’s Someone to Trust. Elizabeth is 9 years older than Colin.
Rose: Another historical in which the age difference is very much in the forefront is Listen to the Moon by Rose Lerner, an MOC story with an older man (40)/younger woman (early 20s). They’re both servants, but within that class he’s much more privileged and experienced, and they have to figure out how to make that work.
Jennie: I actually gave Listen to the Moon an A- back in 2015 – I don’t remember it well but I do remember liking it a lot (I recall more the class differences than the age, but maybe it was all of a piece).
Rose: KJ Charles’s The Henchmen of Zenda also fits the bill: Jasper has to be at least a decade older than Rupert, and vastly more experienced (with men) and jaded.
Good Time Bad Boy by Sonya Clark (contemporary, M/F) also has a 14-15 year difference between the main characters, and it’s notable but not the focus.
Jayne: Years ago Sunita reviewed the Sonya Clark book and loved it. I’ve always meant to give it a try.
Janine: Good Time Bad Boy was my favorite romance of 2015. So so good.
Kaetrin: Another age difference romance with the woman being the older one is Liberating Lacey by Anne Calhoun (reviewed here) which I remember enjoying a lot.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on books with big or unusual age differences, readers. Do you have any favorites? Any you would not recommend? Any that you used to love where the age difference doesn’t hold up anymore?
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty has a big age gap. It wasn’t unbelievable so much as it was distasteful* (to me). The title and the lush scenic descriptions are the best part of this book.
This is my adult version of “icky”.
I forgot about You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty. It wasn’t icky to me but it also wasn’t sexy or highly romantic. It read more as women’s fiction (not my genre) and I wish I’d known to expect that. I agree the lush scenic descriptions (and the food descriptions) were the best part but there were other good things too. I liked the stuff about the heroine’s work and the blow up at the end was so well written.
I don’t usually pick up books that I know have an age gap, but I don’t mind that trope in older books (like Heyer).
The only contemporary that I can think of is Lucy Parker’s Pretty Face. I haven’t read it since it came out, but I seem to remember they had to have actual conversations and address the fact. But was he also the director of her show? Now I can’t remember the details. :)
I like Bujold’s The Sharing Knife series, which has a definite age and life experience gap. It never squicks for me when others do because I think Dag never sees Fawn as anything other than his equal.
Lucy Parker’s Pretty Face … as mentioned above, there’s about a 16 year gap? She’s 26 and he’s 42. But they do actually try NOT to get involved because of the age & power dynamic issues. She is actually pretty mature for her age, and they have several conversations about boundaries.
It’s one my comfort shelf reads
@helbel: I haven’t tried that but I love her first two Chalion books. Maybe I should try the Sharing Knife books too.
@Misti & KarenF: Interesting re Pretty Face. However everyone loved Act Like It and that book really pissed me off, so I don’t think I’ll try Pretty Face.
@Janine: The Sharing Knife series was great on audio too.
@Kaetrin: Good to know.
Georgette Heyer’s THESE OLD SHADES has a large age differential, and I remember even when I read it ages ago I didn’t like it. Not so much the ages (although, IIRC, Leonie is late teens and the duke is in his 40s) as the power differential and, most of all, that Leonie is so very adoring that she comes across as his lap dog rather than an actual person. The book also has an undertone of “breeding will tell” that I didn’t care for.
Carla Kelly had big age differences in several of her books. I generally liked her books a lot, but there were times I mentally added 10 years to the heroine’s age (I think the heroine in MAGGIE’S CHRISTMAS WISH is 16).
I talked a bit about These Old Shades in the other thread, though not in detail (mainly to say that I hated that he kept calling her “Little One” — I can’t stand that). I actually liked Leonie better than Avon but it puzzled me all the time what she saw in him since he was so off putting to me. I agree about the eugenicist undertone, in fact, it and books like it inspired me to write a manuscript where the hero was switched at birth and grew up thinking he was the heir, when in fact he was the son of a stevedore. Alas, it didn’t sell.
(Not saying that’s *why* it didn’t sell, but it probably didn’t help.)
I really struggled with the age difference in one of Carla Kelly’s books, The Lady’s Companion (I also thought that book was one of the most depressing romances I’ve ever read). On the other hand Miss Whittier Makes a List is my favorite of her books and that has a big age difference as well.
And wow, 16! I didn’t realize she had a heroine that young. I believe the title is Marian’s Christmas Wish, but I’ve never read it. And now I won’t.
@Janine: Apologies for misnaming the heroine of the Kelly. The thing is, other than the extreme youth of the heroine, it’s a lovely book. It took a lot of mental energy for me to ignore how young Marian was, which certainly reduced my enjoyment, but Marian is charming and Kelly writes such wonderful beta heroes. If it ever crosses your desk, I would read it.
Late to the conversation but there is a big age gap in the Thomas Elkin trilogy by N.R. Walker that worked quite well for me; and the age gap between the MCs is a big focal point of the story. Basically, a successful architect and partner in the firm realizes a good friend of his young adult son in a group of interns hired by his firm. I thought Walker handled the gap well – not pretending that there were no issues but giving the MCs opportunities to work through them. To be fair, though, the younger MC is very serious about his career and is written as very mature for his biological age.
@nblibgirl: Ooh, that sounds really good. Those are exactly my favorite kind of age difference books, where the difference in age (and the other power disparities, if there are any) are acknowledged and worked through.
Also late to the party, but I’ve been reading along and thinking about this. Age gap is not something that I seek out because I tend to really dislike romances with a big difference in power. Also, I worked with undergrads for far too long to find the idea of a contemporary romance between a college student and an adult sexy instead of alarming.
That said, one of my comfort re-reads is an age gap mm romance between a 19 year old and a 30-something – For Real by Alexis Hall. I think the reason that it works for me is because it’s BDSM and the younger MC is the dom. Also, it’s written in a way that manages to not be squicky or exploitative.
And interestingly enough, the only other age gap romance that I liked that I can think of is Tender with a Twist by Annabeth Albert. Another mm BDSM romance where the younger MC (in his mid twenties this time) is the dom. It’s also a comfort re-read for me.
I also remember loving Daddy Long Legs, despite picking it up reluctantly & expecting NOT to like it. I might have gotten the recommendation from Dear Author, actually? It was a long time ago, long enough that I don’t remember the book super well, but I definitely needed a push to give it a try & found it super charming.
The Mary Russell series by Laurie King features a pretty extreme May/December romance, between Mary Russell who starts out as (IIRC) a teenager and Sherlock Holmes, who in this AU has finished his career and *retired*. It takes a while to develop into a romance and I remember liking it a lot–you get the sort of wish-fulfillment, slightly taboo aspects, because Mary *idolizes* Holmes, but she also builds her own career and is never dependent on him.
I, also, have had less interest in May/December as a trope as I get older… but I don’t hate it. And I still tend to think that when you tackle a trope like this, it’s *better* to tease out some of those uncomfortable qualities. If a book solves all the problems inherent in the trope before they can cause any grief, what’s the point? I mean, maybe–hopefully–it’s something else entirely. Otherwise, blah.
(Has anyone pointed out, though, that the most recent incarnation of the May/December trope is the ‘Daddy’ craze? Because boy does that not interest me at all, but it’s definitely a thing.)
@Erin Satie:
Yes!
And yes, the daddy kink was brought up by DiscoDollyDeb in the first thread on this topic:
https://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/conversation-may-december-where-we-talk-about-age-differences/
You might find that one interesting also, since I think some of us in the post itself discussed the things you brought up.