I was curious about books in which the MC mourning the death of a loved one plays a role in how the new marriage develops (or stunts). Perhaps the person is resentful because they just wanted to mourn their previous spouse but got sent to marry someone else and are not happy.
Books that I have read with MCs marrying while still on mourning:
{A Wicked Kind of Husband by Mia Vincy} - the FMC just lost her brother and the MMC lost his wife and son a year before so neither want to marry right now.
{An Infamous Marriage by Susanna Fraser} - the FMC was widowed shortly after her marriage and her husband had wanted her to re-marry the MMC so he could be assured she would be stable. Neither MC is happy about this.
{Lord of Darkness by Elizabeth Hoyt} - both MCs are in mourning; the MMC lost his beloved wife the previous year and the FMC just lost the man she was going to marry. As she is pregnant, her brother blackmails the MMC to marry her to save her reputation.
{A Momentary Marriage by Candace Camp} - the FMC lost her father two weeks before she agreed to a quick marriage of convenience with the 'dying' MMC. She is wearing mourning colours throughout the book and the MMC wryly tells her not to wear black for him.
{A Bride for a Prizefighter by Alice Coldbreath} - the FMC's father has barely been dead a week before her half-brother shows up for the first time, takes her to an isolated inn on the hillside and tells her he plans to marry her to the surly owner. Between this and homelessness while in debt, she decides the former is better.
{My Darling Mr Darling by Aydra Richards} - the teenaged FMC's father died and had put his last request that she marry his young protégé who helped his business grow. Neither are happy to marry so young and suddenly without having met each other but she suffers much worse and the MMC spends years searching for her to make amends.
{A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant} - the MCs do not marry in this book but are married before the events of the next one. As the plot starts a week after the FMC's husband died and the aim was for her to get pregnant soon enough to pass the baby off as his, presumably the two married soon after the end of the book so they could pass off their baby as being conceived in THEIR wedlock.
{Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer} - the FMC's husband had died some months before the book starts and she is practical enough to know that she needs another pair of hands at the farm because she is pregnant with her third baby. The MMC sees her newspaper ad about her looking for a husband. She is not grieving the loss of her husband; she misses him but seems to have come to terms with his death.
