56 pages • 1 hour read
Out of the Woods
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Background
Literary Context: Grief in the Romance Genre and the “Marriage in Trouble” Trope
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child death and death by suicide.
The core elements of a romance novel traditionally involve a central relationship and the promise of a happy future, with the resolution of most major conflicts by the end of the story. While many romance novels involve the beginning of a relationship, some specifically focus on established couples addressing new tensions. This is popularly known as the “marriage in trouble” trope of the romance genre.
Like Out of the Woods, these novels tend to rely on forced proximity or unexpected circumstances to bring an estranged couple together again. For example, in Sherry Thomas’s classic historical romance, Not Quite a Husband, the protagonists are unexpectedly drawn together years after their marriage was annulled as they process grief for a dead relative. In Sarah Maclean’s The Day of the Duchess, the protagonist returns to England to seek a divorce from her husband after a long separation due to their infant son’s death; in the end, he grants her a divorce, only for her to propose remarriage soon after. Like Out of the Woods, in both of these classic examples, the marriage in trouble trope is closely linked to the unresolved grief of the protagonists, and the 
