'I set up a dating app for widows - now thousands have signed up for hook ups with no strings attached'

A woman who lost her husband at just 49 has launched a dating app for widows and widowers craving sex with no strings attached.

Nicky Wake, 51, lost her husband, Andy, 57, in April 2020 to Covid - after he was put into a care home in 2017 after a catastrophic brain injury. Nicky tried dating again six months after becoming a widow, but claims it was like the "Wild West" and says it was hard for people to understand what she was going through.

She launched her first app Chapter Two in November 2022 - and already has thousands of widows looking for a second chance at love. Nicky realised many people who had lost their partner weren’t quite ready for a committed ‘chapter two’ relationship, but were still craving physical comfort and human connection so she set up another app, WidowsFire, for casual hook ups.

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Nicky, an entrepreneur, from Bury, said: "A lot of widows are not ready for their chapter two - they are not ready for a committed relationship. But it is a really well-known and documented fact that widow's fire is a thing.

"It's a term commonly used within the widower’s community - and describes the intense, uncontrollable, or all-consuming desire for sex following the bereavement of a partner. You lose your life partner - I shared my bed with my husband for 20 years and then all of a sudden he's not there.

"If you have a healthy sex life, that is going to be a gaping void - one of the things about widow's fire is finding comfort. We all need and crave affection, cuddles and stolen kisses and actually very often widows are not in the right mental space for a committed relationship.

"We want WidowsFire to be a fun and flirty, non-judgemental place