Readers have asked me, "Why do you write about widows, especially in a romance?" I chose to focus my Regency novella series, The Merry Widow s , on young widows for several reasons. As opposed to a young miss who is seemingly (or truly) innocent and ignorant about love and sex, a widow has probably experienced these aspects of love and marriage. Notice I wrote "probably". There were many arranged marriages in those days, but putting marriage and sexual relations aside for a moment, a widow offers the writer an opportunity to explore a nuanced life -- multiple layers of experience, whether happy or sad or tragic, a more complex character who knows her own mind more at 30+ years of age than when she was a mere girl of 18 years or so. This opens up a vast field to play in, from the writer's perspective, especially in terms of the growing relationship with the hero. Now the play of seduction can go both ways. One of the most lusty widow...