We listen to you, we really do. And we’ve noticed that you, along with several of our reviewers, aren’t all that happy with most – not all, but most – of the historical romance that’s been published in the past year or so. Using our Power Search feature, we looked at all the Historical Romance reviews we’ve written in 2019. We’ve given out 19 As, 47 Bs, 21 Cs, 13 Ds, and 2 Fs.

Getting Cs, Ds, and Fs were several authors we’ve reviewed positively in the past: Victoria Alexander, Lorraine Heath, Madeline Hunter, Anne Gracie, Marguerite Kaye, and Laura Lee Guhrke to name a few. Several of the DIKs are debut books are are by lesser-known authors.

So, is there a problem with historical romance right now? And, if so, what is it?


There was a very strong response to this column, both on Twitter and in the comments below. AAR’s publisher has written a response to the criticism here.

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Impenitent social media enthusiast. Relational trend spotter. Enjoys both carpe diem and the fish of the day.