Elizabeth Bowen’s major novels display her lifelong preoccupation with disappointment, discord, and desire between mismatched lovers. Like their author, these characters seek genuine connection to remedy abandonment by beloved figures. This chapter uses ‘love’ in its most comprehensive sense, encompassing infatuation, sexual attraction, and unconsummated desire, as well as romantic and sexual attachment. Bowen’s keen awareness of social norms and customs shapes her plotting and foregrounds the complex interplay of private desires and public expectations. Three thematic strands dominate her portrayal of lovers: unrequited love, typically involving younger female protagonists and older, more experienced partners; transgressive love, for entanglements featuring characters who break taboos through their relationships; and illicit love, featuring secretive protagonists fearing exposure to public judgement. Across Bowen’s oeuvre, past lovers or previous relationships haunt the narrative present. Unrequited, transgressive, or illicit love might be buried or repressed, but ultimately it causes emotional disturbances for lovers in the present.