#historical romance novels

[alexa-santi-author]

@mermaidsirennikita's posts earlier about outdated (and often offensive) themes and plot points in romance novels that sometimes require cultural context to really understand made me think of the book that was my ur-book, the one that really kicked off my love of historical romance. Almost no one has heard of it, because the author has wisely allowed it to go out of print. I'm going to share what it is, what the context is that it was written in, and why it was best to let it go out of print.

The book is Bitterleaf, and it was published under the name of Lisa Gregory in 1983. Lisa Gregory was the original pseudonym of a historical romance author still popular and publishing today: Candace Camp.

I'm going to be up front with everyone and put the rest of this essay under the fold so you can stop reading if you want: this book takes place on a South Carolina plantation before the American Revolution, and the storyline involves slavery. The heroine owns slaves.

If you want to nope out now, please feel free. I'm going to go into some of the cultural context about why this book was written with this plot in 1983, but you don't have to keep reading.

One thing to understand about the early 1980s is that Gone With The Wind -- both the book and the movie -- was still hugely influential in terms of historical romance. Many, many historical romances were written about antebellum plantations in the American South, and pretty much all of them hand-waved slavery away.

Except for Bitterleaf.

What's pretty wild for a historical romance novel published in 1983 is that slavery is central to the storyline of this book, and the hero, Jeremy Devlin, is the one who mostly carries that storyline. The reason it takes place prior to the American Revolution is that Jeremy arrives in South Carolina as an indentured servant. He has been kidnapped from his homeland, thrown onto a ship, and dragged in front of a crowd to be sold at auction. The "meet cute" is when the heroine Meredith's stepfather buys Jeremy, along with several Black captives.

Much of the plot seems to be modeled on the movie The Long, Hot Summer. You have the father figure who decides his daughter needs a Real Man to marry her instead of the milquetoast who refuses to propose and the irresponsible rake who decides to take the old man up on his bargain but ends up falling in love.

But slavery and discussions of slavery continue to play a huge role in the story. Jeremy is freed once he marries Meredith, but after his own experiences, he's uncomfortable owning other people. We're also introduced to the story's B or secondary couple, who are Meredith's lady's maid Betsy and a recently enslaved man, Neb. To have two enslaved people as the secondary couple of a mainstream romance written by a white author is pretty ballsy in itself for 1983, but add in Jeremy's decision to free everyone on the plantation (which requires Meredith to spend days writing up manumission papers for them) and you have a book that, however clumsily, actually does attempt to grapple with American slavery and give us lead characters who don't just go along with what most books normalized at the time.

Is is perfect, especially by modern standards? Hell, no. It's pretty cringey, and that's even before you get to the forced kisses and other standard historical romance tropes of the time. Camp's writing is much better now than it was 40 years ago.

But I have never run across another historical romance published in that time period of the early 1980s that took place in the American South before 1865 and even attempted to deal with the moral implications of the lead characters literally owning other human beings.

The book is very much a product of its time, in that it's making an implicit argument against other books on the market with a similar setting, but if you read it as a standalone today without any cultural or historical context, it's just a weird book that has slave owners as the central romantic couple for no apparent reason and what the hell did I just read?

As I said, the book was republished at least once under Candace Camp's name (I have copies of both the original and the reissue on my keeper shelf), but she seems to have let it fall back out of print. She has released two of her other Lisa Gregory books as ebooks (one of which has a free Black couple as the secondary romance), but not Bitterleaf.

And that's probably a wise decision. As we get further away from the cultural context in which she published it, the book becomes more and more offensive instead of being seen as the corrective it was written to be.

Why do I love this book? Because it's one of the first books I read that helped me understand you don't have to knuckle under to what's most popular in the genre. You don't have to accept that the model for your subgenre (in this case, Gone With The Wind) is above critique and you can only imitate it without questioning it.

It's also a harbinger of why American historical romance had a huge dip in the 1990s -- white authors and publishers realized they would need to grapple with slavery and the effects of it on our society as a whole, and they didn't want to do that. After that, we pretty much only got Western historical romances until Gilded Age romance that took place safely after the Civil War finally came along.

So there it is. The book that changed my life and made me a historical romance fan for life is one that most people have never heard of and likely will never read because of the culturally offensive content. For me, it will always hold a place in my heart for what it tried to do even if, with the passage of time, what it tried to do is no longer enough.

[sarahmaclean]

Heartbreaker is a Best Romance of the Year!

I'm so incredibly thrilled to be a part of this roundup at the Washington Post with some of my favorite people (and favorite books!) of the year! I can absolutely cosign Kennedy Ryan (the best drama/angst writer writing right now), Angelina Lopez (so much 🔥🔥🔥), Christina Lauren (the best adventure romance of the year, hands down), and Tracey Livesay (god I love this book so much) -- and I'm adding the others to my TBR right now!

Read the whole piece (and sort your end of year reading!) here.

[pollyssecretlibrary]

"The Baron Takes a Bet", by Matilda Madison

I read this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review RELEASE DATE - Aug 22nd, 2024 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Beauty in simplicity is a very appropriate sentence to describe the plot of this book. It is very straightforward and easy to love. The second book of the “Gambling Peers” series by Matilda Madison opens with a young widow named Holly Smyth and her two seventeen twin siblings, Jasper and Katrina. Before agreeing to marry John, Holly was barely surviving the loss of her parents, the debts and the decay of the farm that her brother is to inherit. John was a gentle man who offered marriage on his death bed so he could help his beloved friends and give her a little hope in form of inheritance. Or that’s what Holly thought.

What John actually did was trick her and his own nephew and heir Gavin, uniting them forever by what’s called “marriage by proxy”. For those who don’t know, in this kind of union, the groom is actually acting as representative of the person who is actually married, in this case John for Gavin, who not only wasn’t in England at the time, he doesn’t know Holly at all. When our two protagonists discover what John has done to them, after the initial shock, they decide to have an annulment only to find out that the cheeky man that was John, had had the ceremony of the wedding following the laws of the Catholic Church, they will need the Pope to consent to the annulment… but that will take time, perhaps long enough for them to fall in love.

In the meantime they have to deal with their respective families and responsibilities, and they somehow naturally approach all that as a team, a perfectly matched team. What could have John foreseen that they couldn’t?

Matilda Madison writes some comfort books in my opinion. This is one of her best books, for it is about two very human characters with their flaws and insecurities, but none of them are too overdramatic about whatever burdens they carry on their shoulders. The plot is unveiled very slowly, although the romance doesn’t fall into the slow burn trope, nor does it go the fast lane. It has romantic moments with the couple that are incredibly tender and moving, beautiful, and sweet. The family moments made Holly and Gavin feel like a couple before they themselves realized. Navigating their struggles with aunts and siblings, their shenanigans… They say that sometimes family puts a strain on a couple’s relationship, in this case, they made them stronger. I devoured this book in two days and now I can’t wait for the next book!

[comepraisetheinfanta]

Anyone got any Historical Romance (Georgian Era/Regency/Victorian) book recs where the hero ends up getting physically Hurt™️ at some point?

Apparently I’m like in Nightingale mode rn or something and I need dudes with broken bones or are bruised and bloody and stuck being physically vulnerable for a bit ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Only other reqs are: it can’t be anything by Juli@ Quinn (I simply cannot get into her books though I’ve tried) and I prefer a bit of angst but don’t mind if it’s more of a RomCom type of HR

THANKS!

[artismyhammer]

The next writer who uses the phrase "reformed rakes make the best husbands" I SWEAR TO GOD

[sadbookworm]

Review of the Gentleman's Gambit by Evie Dunmore

This book tries to do a lot of different things and address many different issues. I think that it does a pretty overview of most of them. There wasn't much heist content, but there was a lot of discussion about the ethics of collecting artifacts and the politics involved. The Gentleman's Gambit is narrated in 3rd person, and mostly focuses on Elias and Catriona, though the MCs of the previous books also get a little narration time. One of the big questions this series asks is "What if first wave feminism was intersectional." It doesn't find the solution to world peace, but by actually talking about the causes and issues women were fighting for at the time it you can enjoy these romance novels without feeling like you have to turn off your brain.

Catriona is bisexual and autistic coded. Though "whoops! I've seen you naked" is not my favorite tool in a romance novel, I really enjoyed the love story. They are two odd ducks that complement each other well. It is a sexy/spicy novel with sex scenes on the page. 4.5 stars, I listened to the audiobook via Libby.

[slytherinsomniari]

I really need to get back into reading historical romance novels. I feel like reading them would possibly help me improve my fanfic writing and give me ideas but I tend not to like them since the genre has a lot of tropes I hate (e.g. insta-lust being mistaken for insta-love, men not letting women decide/do things for themselves, characters literally only thinking of lust, character changes, etc.). I used to read some in high school but I went through them a few years back and got rid of all but one of them. They were really famous ones too so it does make me feel a bit iffy. But I love historical romance and the historical genre so I’ll be on the lookout for some novels that pique my interest. 

[save-the-data]

Meet You at the Blossom | S01E12

Chinese Drama - 2024, 12 episodes

Episodes | GAGA |  YouTube | iQIYI | WeTV | Viki | Youku | Catalogue

Native Title: #花开有时颓靡无声

A: “Hua Kai You Shi, Tui Mi Wu Sheng” (花开有时, 颓靡无声)

Genres: #Romance #Historical #LGBTQ+

Tags: #Adapted from a Novel

Cast: #Li Le #Wang Yun Kai #Li Jun Liang

[forsythiaproductions]

Ending Soon! 😱💖

All your support means the world, thank you for being here with us! Of Sense and Soul is our Queer Victorian Romance visual novel and it has...

Two lives, one love story 🎩👓

Victorian setting 🕰️

Soft queer romance 🌈

Slow burn pining 🔥

Happily ever after 💖

Help us make Of Sense and Soul a reality and back our campaign here! 💪

(Backing is just one way to support the game; you can reblog & like this post to help us with our community challenges, too!)

Play our demo | Get our newsletter | Send us an ask 💌

[oliveoilcorp]

🏔️❄️🐺❤️🩸

(sharing some proof of life to say that DARLIN' part 2 isn't dead, I've just been busy trying to Pay The Bills™)

[alexa-santi-author]

Every so often, I’ve gotta do a sales post, because … that’s how indie authors sell books. And this is a big one with more than 75 participating authors!

[sarahmaclean]

KNOCKOUT Hell's Belles Book 3

Coming Summer 2023

Thoughts and Prayers for Tommy Peck

[triviareads]

The good, bad, beautiful, and problematic: romance novel cover art painted by John Ennis. He spent decades painting cover art for various publishing houses and recently retired, and I had a lot of fun attending this exhibition!

[bitchcakegreen]

Let’s talk timeline. Yes Pen could be preggers by the butterfly ball. The editing in the show is a bit misleading. It’s at least 4-5 weeks to the wedding day which means it’s likely 5-6 weeks since their nookie party on the sette. That means when Pen holds Colin’s hands to her tummy (photo below) she could be about 8 weeks preggers. It’s pretty specific placement.

She likely wouldn’t know for sure, but she’d probably have an inkling as her “courses” would not have shown up. Bridgerton

[crinolinedream]

Can we talk about how gorgeous the cinematography is this season? These shots are not only beautiful but look exactly like stepbacks from historical romance novels. Someone did their research. 😍 SWOON

[asteriass]

The progression of the “Villainess” trope

Y'know, thinking about it, it's very ironic how a trope made to subvert one's expectations & give more depth to 1 dimensional villains in cliche novels by "humanizing" them more & providing their side of the story, eventually became oversaturated with cartoony villains & flat MCs. Thus, completely failing in its goal to "subvert expectations" as it too turned into mind numbing cliche, becoming the exact opposite of what the troupe initially aimed to achieved.

I am talking about "Villainess" series.

I remember seeing a twitter post a while back saying how a lot of the villainess stuff the authors & studios are putting out nowadays lack any sort of nuance when it comes to its characters. And how a lot authors simply switch the roles of the cast (Like: OG MC -> villain | OG villain -> MC) & call it a day. And I 100% agree with that.

This troupe kinda ended up becoming the dictionary definition of the saying, "You either die as a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain” lmao

What could've been an opportunity to write nuanced villains & morally ambiguous main characters, turned EXACTLY into the cliche it was pocking fun at.

In an attempt to reveal how the MCs of your typical cliche novels can also be in the wrong at times, flaws that the story & its (in-canon) fandom may purposefully ignore, the villainess stories ended up doing EXACT SAME thing EXECPT this time it's the "villains" doing it rather than the OG FL or OG ML of the “OG novel”. In an attempt to stop cliche villains from remaining cliche, while we did ended up getting slightly more nuance for the “OG villain” characters, in the process, the OG MCs turned exactly into those flat cliche villains.

Alot of villainess series poke fun at the troupes they themself use, but not in a satirical way.

So many villainess series poke fun at the OG novels for being problematic or stupid & the fandom of said novels basically ignoring its flaws & problems, only gushing over the OG FL. Which yea, is nice & all, but y'know... that's exactly what those villainess series do too. SO MANYY of them borderline have the FLs participating in literal slavery. & More often than not have a borderline colonizer ML. Not to mention the numerous which carry weird undertones of colorism, and many such other things. All the while, the fandom of these villainess series continue to ignore their glaring problems & flaws & instead just gush over the FL and ML.

And I'm not even saying this in a hating sort of way (well, aside from the series with issues of colorism, orientalism, etc). Moreover, this is all not to say that one can not enjoy such stories, because admittedly, there is indeed fun in just reading a simple and familiar story line. But this is all more me being intrigued by this trope’s almost ironic progression as companies rush their staff to produce something which they think will be able to ride the waves of the current trends, only for the vast majority to simply drown in a sea of mediocrity (with many even being canceled due to this)

[Though I mean, something as simple as villainess tropes won’t be the only one to go through this. Like a lot of Shakespearean works, a subversion of the classics & typical troupes back then, got turned into ones of those classics and by many are now considered cliche. And that's just scrapping the bottom of the barrel!]