In October of 2019, we asked you whether you thought historical romance had a quality problem. That column is still the most commented upon Ask column and it made many angry. In the past twenty months, the world has changed drastically. Has historical romance?
In 2020 and in 2021, we’ve reviewed 157 historical romances. We’ve given 32 of those DIKs and 14 Ds. Grades, in 2021, have been higher for historical romance than in 2020. (No Fs have been given!) What does this tell us about the genre and, more importantly, what do you think about the current state of historical romance?
Impenitent social media enthusiast. Relational trend spotter. Enjoys both carpe diem and the fish of the day.
Okay, I’m going to dive in, despite being a little late to the party I guess.
Here’s what I’ve decided, about my own historical romance reading:
I’m really not interested in reading historical romances as pedagogue, period. If the main characters are appealingly bland or virtuous, their arc has few tangible conflicts, and most of the energy of the book is spent on instruction in seemingly peripheral issues or ensuring the narrative is as widely accessible/palatable as possible, than I’m not interested. Personally, I don’t see this as a bottom-up problem — I don’t subscribe to the notion that authors are reacting to pitchfork-carrying mobs on Twitter, for instance. I think this is a bottom-down issue that reflects how publishing companies have consolidated so there’s less richness in competition. I also agree with the theory that posits that this same-ness in storytelling is a direct result of the genre’s increased visibility. As romance is more and more respected, the stories romance tells become more and more respectable, which means fewer batshit crazy stuff like sex-on-horseback scenes but also fewer instances of fun & impactful innovation.
Well said.
I totally agree with 99% of this post. The problems in HR right now really do lie with the publishing companies. And you are spot on about the more respectable a genre becomes, the more standardized it gets.
As for not subscribing to the idea that authors are reacting to pitchfork-carrying mobs on Twitter, I have to dispute that just based on personal experience. As a writer, I’ve been in situations and known of other writers in situations where social media pillorying is a real fear. Now, is it as big a problem as publishers who refuse to support the authors they greenlighted in the first place? No. I totally agree with you that it is a top down problem.
But to say authors don’t react at all to potential future controversy simply isn’t true. I know of authors who have scrapped projects before they ever saw the light of day simply because they feared public backlash. Authors have forums where they discuss whether or not they should let a character of X race do Y not because they want to be accurate but to avoid internet ire. There have been freaked out erotica authors who have written rambling paragraphs about being genuinely afraid to write a black character in a compromising position- in a smut piece. So the concern of being chased down with a virtual pitchfork definitely exists among authors, and it is influencing available stories somewhat. If an author is too petrified to write something because of a noisy opinion, that’s one less potentially interesting story in the world.
I can only speak for myself as a romance writer, but once I wondered about a plot point in a manuscript I was writing, where the villain pretends to be disabled so that the heroine will trust him. Think Ted Bundy. The story also had a secondary and good character who really was disabled. On a discussion board for writers, I asked what people thought of the villain faking it. Here are two of the responses I got :
“How many times have you thought about the impact on chronic migraine patients when you read the ‘lying about a headache’ plot device in a book? I’ll bet never, but I think about it each and every time I come across it because it’s another form of abled authors promoting the idea of the disabled community faking and it causes real harm.”
“It also encourages people to be abusive to disabled people as it reinforces the idea that most disabled people are faking it […] Think of someone who had that happen to them and imagine them reading your book.”
This is from a moderated discussion board which stresses respect to fellow writers, so I can only imagine what the reaction might have been on Twitter.
This reaction was not unanimous. Other people, including someone with a disability, made it clear that they didn’t mind the villain pretending to be disabled – as someone else put it, villains do villainous things. However, if someone on a big social media platform accused me of causing harm to the disabled community or encouraging people to be abusive towards those with disabilities… well, who knows what would happen from there?
Exactly! And I totally get everyone’s concerns here. I can definitely see somebody who gets accused of being a faker in real life getting irritated with offhanded remarks in books, just as I can see people with the same medical issues rolling their eyes and saying, “Puh-leeze, it’s just a story, and people really do things like that.” No group is a monolith! Everyone is an individual!
The sad thing is, the fear of that noisy minority who seems to take exception to everything is making it unpleasant for everybody else. There are authors who genuinely don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, but the more people go ballistic on social media, the less authors care about what affected groups actually think because they’re too busy being worried and annoyed about the kinds of people who lambast a single line out of context. Genuine concern for nuance and sensitivity gives way to an obsession with pre-emptive damage control measures.
Ultimately, I think the solution to these problems is to publish more books and put more small presses on the radar than to nitpick already published work- especially books pushed a decade ago. On that note, I’ve been extremely impressed with the growing number of literary and science fiction small presses that focus on a single niche. These are often started by people who said, “Dang it! I’m tired of these cliché portrayals of ABC, and I think a lot of other people are too. Let’s start a press that does XYZ instead!” Just off the top of my head, I know of small presses for vegan literary fiction, vegan science fiction, queer speculative fiction, hopeful solarpunk fiction, subversive literary fiction, bizarro literary fiction, inclusive literary erotica, and feminist bicycle science fiction (yes, really; they are heading into their tenth anthology).
Maybe one of the solutions to promote more varied, high-quality HR is for someone to start small presses devoted to it. I know that’s definitely easier said than done, but I think the idea bears investigating. That way, these talented, diverse HR writers who are getting rejected by the mainstream but would rather not go the self-publishing route can find a home for their work. Of course, I know there are risks involved here too. Samhain went belly-up, whereas Harlequin is extremely unlikely to. *Sigh* No easy answers to this…
Okay, first of all, I think we disagree on this issue and that’s completely fine. Here’s my take:
I would agree with you that it is difficult to be a public figure right now, which romance authors are by virtue of releasing their work to the public. Through social media, which is often a necessary tool for promotion, writers have direct and immediate access to their real or potential audience, and vice versa. For some creative people, I think this parasocial relationship is a boon to their creativity (Katee Robert and Sarah MacLean both seem to thrive on these platforms and enjoy being representatives of the genre, for example) but for many, many others, like yourself or the writers you mentioned on the message board, I understand that social media (or the fear of garnering a largely critical response on social media) would have an inhibiting effect on your creative process.
However, I do NOT think that the much broader issue of staleness/subgenre stagnancy in traditionally published historical romance (which I’d argue is where my complaint lies) is born from authorial inhibition or fears of victimization at the hands of Twitter users. For me, that explanation shifts the blame for this problem onto the authors and individuals on Twitter, when it seems like an issue originating in publishing.
Well, social media isn’t going away, nor are the vocal minority that will always find something to howl about. I’m not belittling the stress involved in writing and publishing in the midst of all this noise, but in the long run the only way to go is forward, and if enough people continue to write their stories, and enough people buy them, then the howlers will shift to something else. Literally 10 years ago I couldn’t get a mm review published on a romance review site because they were afraid of backlash. Now that site publishes mm romance reviews frequently. Someone simply pushed through the noise and pretty soon it was too common to comment on.
No amount of pointing out the fact that twitter rage is wrong is going to change anything. People have to decide to do the thing anyway. Or not. Those are the two choices.
I was just getting into Romance novels in the fall of 2019, so I am not really qualified to answer this question. However, I have already noticed I suffer from trope fatigue. How many books have been written about the handsome rakish duke (or earl or marquess or <insert title here>) losing his heart to a sweet young virgin/ feisty spinster/ surprisingly talented woman of a lower social status? The first few times I encountered one of these books, it was fresh and fun. Now it’s just boring. So I wonder if the perception of reduced quality is partially attributable to overuse of tropes? I recently finished Joanna Bourne’s Spymaster series, and I was so happy that those books were well-written, did not take place in the Regency, and none of the heroes were dukes. And just to throw in another pet peeve, no one said, “Full stop” at any point. Yes, I’ve already encountered that phrase in several newer historicals. Takes me right out of the story when a character uses modern slang. Full stop.
On Dear Author, I recently read a review of a historical romance where the characters use the words “toxic” and “closure” to discuss relationships.
Loretta Chase writes about Dukes but her books, usually, breathe new vigor into tropes that seem bland in the hands of some others. I, for one, love forced marriage stories but only when done with panache.
I know many loved Chase’s latest, 10 Things About the Duke. I agree that Chase’s writing is above average, and I enjoyed the humorous banter, but the plot was predictable because she was using a trope and I never warmed to the characters. In addition, I had just read another book where the flawed female protagonist kept criticizing the hero without owning her own flaws, so it felt repetitive and annoying to me. I would have given it a B+ at best. Obviously, many others have a much higher appreciation for different variations on a trope, as evidenced by the continued high sales of duke books!
Have you read Chase‘s Lord of Scoundrels?
i love that book so much but wonder whether fresh eyes would love it less?
Oops, I am editing this, because you said Lord of Scoundrels, but my brain went to Devil in Winter, which I also loved, so here is my newly edited version, Liselotte.
Good question! Lord of Scoundrels was one of my first reads after finding AAR and perusing the Top 100 list. I loved it! I thought Sebastian was a unique character with a fascinating backstory, and I enjoyed his and Jessica’s journey. It was both funny and moving and always kept me interested. I’ve found that Top 100 list to be my most reliable source of good reads as most have stood the test of time and have something really special about them.
Thanks Becky!
It is the one of her books that I reread most often and find most perfect in the detail of it.
And her other books are on a scale of closer or less close to that perfection, on my Chase scale.
While 10 Things is a very good HR for 2020, it does not come close to that book. There is no special stand out moment I remember as well as some 3-5 out of LoS.
i will look at the top 100 list again – I read romance since the late 70-ies, when I felt adventurous reading such stuff at 12+, so the whole evolution is kind of Journey down memory lane for me.
Checking my reading logs, I read 59 historical romances a decade ago in 2011 and just read 33 last year (2020). I don’t think that reflects any influence from quality, just too much competition from all the other books I want to read.
Opinions about accuracy are shaped by our own knowledge, so one reader can completely miss an error another reader is bothered by, and in the opposite direction, a reader can THINK something is an error when it isn’t. To give an example, a contemporary I just read had the heroine tell the hero she has a lot of student loan debt because she was too late for grant deadlines a couple sentences after mentioning the complexity of Pell Grant applications. I read that as an error because the Pell Grant processing cycle runs year-round, but it’s possible the author was thinking of other grants by the time she mentioned deadlines.
On the absence of religion mentioned in another post, that isn’t just a historical romance issue. With the exception of inspirational romances, very few contemporaries that I’ve read show the impact religion still has in modern American life. This isn’t even just a romance issue. A lot of fantasy worlds are modeled on medieval Europe, yet have no visible religion.
I think a large part of the dissatisfaction is that many of us are long term historical readers who have been lucky to have been reading while innovation after innovation happened in the genre. We lived through the days of crass, over the top “bodice rippers” to times when plots, heroes and heroines became more nuanced and more progressive.
Or maybe you’re a “newer” reader who went though all the best lists and started with Joanna Bourne, Meredith Duran and Sherry Thomas.
Because we are avid readers we sought out “the best” books. The best reviewed, best word of mouth etc and many authors had their “renaissance” so to speak from the 90’s through the 2010’s.
Now it’s 2021 and it’s harder and harder to find new things to be original about. I don’t find it surprising that many readers find the new proliferation of same sex historical romances to be the freshest and most innovative. You have authors with fresh voices exploring relationships- that may not have been completely “taboo” in the past decade or two, but certainly wouldn’t have gotten major publishers or PR campaigns like they do now. All those dynamics of these couples are often different or from a more contemporary point of view.
At the same time you have the publishers, who also like to make money with a sure thing, pumping out tons of “safe” wallpaper books that regurgitate many of the same plots over and over with just some window dressing being changed, to attract the casual reader. The kind of reader who picks up a historical romance when one catches their eye and who maybe doesn’t remember the previous plots because “they are all the same” and doesn’t delve deep into the themes or history but just likes them for some quick escapism. And that’s fine we all don’t read or digest things in the same way.
Of course to readers who have read decades worth of romances and know the “really good stuff” those books are boring pablum. It’s like asking Siskel and Ebert to recommend Rocky III. We’ve seen it done better- many times before.
Again, I think it’s tough to write compelling prose when you’re churning out stuff. The WaPo just (kindly) trashed The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah and said she’d be a much better writer–her author bones are excellent–if she’d just s l o w d o w n.
Hah – that’s interesting. Maybe some authors would actually LIKE to slow down, but they’re locked into contracts that tell them to do otherwise…
A couple of notes on Kristin Hannah: I went to see one of her author talks when The Nightingale was just starting to take off. She was very humble and astonished by the book’s reception, and she gave a lot of credit to her new editor, who encouraged her to up her game after she had spent many years writing solid but unremarkable women’s fiction. So that is a testament to the power of a good editor. Since then she’s put out a new book every 3 years, so I don’t think she is rushing. I haven’t read The Four Winds yet, but it is another well-reviewed blockbuster for her.
I’m definitely a “newer” reader in that I started reading HR in a really big way in the early 2000s; I’d read some before that (Heyer, Stella Riley and a few others) but none of the really “big names”.. Partly that’s due to the fact that you just couldn’t find them in shops; the advent of Amazon opened things up in that I was able to actually buy the books whose titles I found at sites like this, and then the Kindle meant I could buy books without needing to buy more bookshelves!!
I think it’s probably natural, when you do anything “long term” to find your focus narrowing and your expectations getting higher.
This really hits the nail on the head for me! It feels as if so much of the romance market is currently invested in expanding to non-genre readers — the rise of blobby illustrated covers in trade paperback being another symptom of this.
I’ve found much HR disappointing, often puerile over the last 3-4 years. Nearly all of my romance reading is on my kindle and I find that many HR novels that I purchase enthusiastically turn out to be a DNF for one reason or the other. I won’t rehash all of my issues with HR for, as Dabney said, we’ve been round that block more than once. I just find the quality of the prose, the lack credibility and the general narrowness of interpretation to be stumbling blocks. This also often applies to some of the CR I read. I recently did a DNF and then selected “permanently remove” from my (overloaded) kindle and, to my surprise got refunds from Amazon. The titles that I just could not stomach were:
A Warrior to Love[Kindle Edition] By: J.M. Madden; and
The Beast of Beswick (The Regency Rogues Book 1)[Kindle Edition]
By: Amalie Howard
Right now I am awaiting with great anticipation No 9 in the Outlander saga coming in November. I am sure that will more than make up for many previous disappointments!
From a purely statistical point, are more HR being written now than, say, 5-10 years ago? Is it that there’s more dross to sift through making it seem worse?
I think there might be more due to the advent of self-publishing, but that’s true of pretty much every sub-genre, so as a percentage it might be around the same. But that is purely a guess on my part – I do look at all the new releases on NetGalley and sometimes there are lots of historicals, sometimes hardly any – and also when I’m compiling the monthly Coming Soon lists, I get a feel for what’s coming up. I’d argue there’s more dross simply because there aren’t so many really good HR writers around.
Thanks, Caz. If the numbers are about the same….do you think that the smaller numbers of “really good HR writers” might be blamed on a lack of editorial oversight? No talent grooming? Are publishers pushing out second-rate stuff?
I’ve said before – and in reviews – that it seems a number of newer authors are published before they’re properly “cooked” – by which I mean they have talent but need more time to hone it. Then there is the possible (probable?) lack of good HR editors – an author friend of mine said that even as far back as the 90s, she was fed up with being assigned editors who had no idea how to work with an historical romance. But without decent editorial guidance those new authors put out middling books, and never move beyond that. I can think of one in particular who has a new book (from one of the major publishers) out soon that we’ve given a C or C+. I reviewed her first book, and gave it a C+. She’s written maybe 9 or 10 books in between. Shouldn’t she have improved over that time?
So yes,I think there’s a lack of guidance for new writers. And maybe the more established ones are given free reign
It’s also so difficult to put out a quality historical book in under a year.
Yes, I think that’s definitely an issue. Big name authors used to put out one book a year (unless they were Grace Burrowes!) but most are having to do two and that can’t leave much time for research. The exceptions were/are the M&B/Harlequin authors, many of whom do manage to put out two or three decent books a year AND have a more limited page count. They’ve never been given enough credit, IMO
There’s a double edge though. If we want interesting, emotional, entertaining, reasonably accurate HR that is not a cookie cutter type story coming from some publishers, we must be willing to weed through the dross of self-published authors. My characters often encounter uncomfortable issues or dangerous situations, and those things are the most remarked upon, for both positive and plenty of negative comments. There is a popular reviewer who grades my books between a 4 and a 5 and remarks in those reviews that my ‘trademark’ is the sometime gritty nature of H/H journeys which is much of the reason she enjoys them so much. However, there’s plenty of 1 stars where I hear from people that say they just don’t want to think about the things I write. I read them all but make a concerted effort not to allow any review to change how I write or what I write about. One thing for certain, writing books too fast, whether self-pubbed or traditionally published, makes your Amazon rankings soar but often reduces the quality. I wrote and published my last book in 9 months which is a record low amount of time for me but it was during the pandemic and really, what else was there to do.
I think it would help break the monotony of the Regency period if there were more HR set in the US and if more readers were open to the setting. There’s a very few of us writing it and not terribly many reading it.
Finally – whew I’ve talked too much! Church was a critical part of life for centuries yet other than Balogh and Kelly, it is often excluded. Churches were the heart of the community at that time, for information, for social events, and for faith and comfort. My characters go to church in many of my books, because, of course they did in real life!
I think that’s a good point. For some readers, romance is completely about escapism and they’re happy with total fluff; others don’t want that at all. (I tend to be in the latter category and like there to be some substance to it, although I don’t mind the odd piece of very well-written fluff!).
And the substance unfortunately includes a life expectancy of 50 and just the very beginning of medical and industrial advances that we take for granted. I don’t want to overwhelm my readers with worms and unabated sewage but there are some realities that caused the conflicts that drive a story including a romance.
Yes, and the same is true of Regencies where nobody writes about bad teeth and body odour and all the dukes are young and hot. But as you say, there are certain ‘conventions’ that we accept as part of that escapist picture – and I think the same is largely true in contemporaries, where characters are most often in their twenties or thirties, fit and good-looking. But accepting those “fantasy” elements doesn’t mean authors can’t tackle interesting and diffcult subjects – provided it’s appropriate for the story they’re telling.
I’d suspect less.
Right now, in general, I’m getting a definite hit-and-miss vibe from HR. Like Caz, I think Harlequin has been coming out with some good stuff lately. A Marriage of Equals by Elizabeth Rolls is one of those books that I feel like screaming, “Yes, yes, yes!” while pointing to it with a big, fat, neon arrow. The FF The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows by Olivia Waite and MF Regency Lady Derring Takes a Lover by Julie Anne Long (both from their imprint Avon) also deserve that designation. And I’m hoping, hoping, hoping I can add the upcoming A Blues Singer to Redeem Him, a Jazz Age romance by Elle Jackson, to the list.
But what I think is dragging down the genre as a whole are the kind of ongoing anger-filled controversies that are enough to make writers say, “Forget it” when it comes to exploring complex issues, three dimensional characters, and situations that make sense for a given time period. The online mobs who scream about a single controversial line- and the publishers that give into their shrieking with rewrites or excisions- are a big part of the reason why, as the saying goes, we can’t have nice things.
As an aside, author’s notes about history are a great idea, especially when the research has uncovered something the average reader would find difficult to believe. I’m seeing them a little more often, and think they’re great. It would be even better if HR authors took the Beverly Jenkins route to include actual sources for further study.
I think there’s a definite shying away from things that may not be palatable to a modern audience. I’ve long said that one of the reasons there are so few medievals around is that it’s very hard for a contemporary audience to understand the mindset of the time – the importance of religion, for instance, the view of violence and of course, the position of women, and so many other things. And I suspect those issues with the mindset are now being applied to the 19th century. I don’t know what the answer is or if there even is one; as newer writers are brought up on a diet of ahistorical romance, the good stuff is going to drift farther and farther away.
This all sounds depressingly true. Basically, I want historical fiction of the caliber of Shogun combined with a period-appropriate HEA/HFN. Is that too much to ask or expect? I mean, that’s kind of the point of my reading HR in the first place…
Regarding religion, it’s weird how that never seems to play a role in daily life for historical characters. The only times they seem to go to church are when they’re getting married (and most of the time that’s done by special license anyway). I remember watching an episode of To The Manor Born where Audrey makes it clear to Richard that in his new position, it’s his responsibility to attend church every Sunday. It’s got nothing to do with belief and everything to do with tradition.
But as you said, this doesn’t jibe with a modern mindset, especially if religious is equated with conservative.
Madeline Hunter’s Medievals are good for religion. But it is interesting how little role it plays in Regency romance.
That’s one reason I enjoyed Phillipa Gregory’s Wideacre so much. After taking away common land and starving a village to gain enough money to break an entail, the anti-heroine still has to go to church every Sunday because this is expected of her family. As they walk up the aisle to their pew, all the villagers make signs with their hands to ward off evil. So she weaponizes the sermon, and the vicar, giving in to her, preaches “render unto Caesar”. It’s a very well-written example of religion in the lives of both the rich and the poor. But Wideacre is historical fiction, not romance.
Julie Anne Long’s Pennyroyal Green denizens all go to church every Sunday and say grace at every meal.
Just wanted to pop in and say: HUGE Wideacre fan here! And the third book in the trilogy has a romance subplot that ends with HEA, if I remember correctly…?
Yes, Meridon does have a happy ending to the romance, though the first book was the one I enjoyed most. I always hoped the other heroines in the trilogy would be as confident and daring as Beatrice, but Julia was… not like that at all.
Carla Kelly is one of the few authors of Regencies where the characters attend services in the books. Often it’s based around their participation or enjoyment of church choirs and they are typically Church Of England members but she has also included positive views of Quakers and Catholics as well in her stories.
She has also written books where the Mormon faith is central to the plot (which I believe is her personal religion).
Maybe authors who have a positive view of a religion (any religion) don’t shy away from positive depictions of religion in books, even religions that aren’t theirs.
I think there is a large reluctance by the majority of authors to include religion in any specific way in their works lest they offend some group of readers.
I think it is more lack of knowledge.
If institutionalized religion is not part of your own life, you would be hard pressed to describe it as part of someone else’s – just like manners: automatic deference to elders, not interrupting people even if they were rude, worrying that your rapid walking showed your ankles. Our society has less and less such references, of behavior you just “must” follow in daily life, no matter what, in your personal life, and so portraying it gets harder.
When you read books from 30-40 years ago, worrying about keeping fires going in winter, and getting up at night to top them up, or rooms freezing in the morning, and characters sitting in drafts, showed up a lot because many authors still knew about it having either lived it as children or visited where that was still an issue.
Today, few historical books have that.
Maybe it is as simple as that.
So:
Are books about physical adventures getting much more realistic because many authors have personal experience of sports and effort?
Yes throughout history, particularly in the Middle Ages and even beyond it was common for many people to attend Mass everyday. Obviously usually wealthier aristocrats who had private chapels in their castles etc.
Even in the 19th and 20th century servants in great households were expected to attend services on Sunday as part of their duties. You wouldn’t keep your job if your aristocratic employers thought you were “ungodly”.
Judith Merkle Riley comes to mind. The female lead herself believing in her limitations because she is a woman of her times, and yet pushing on.
or Rose Hawley Harman‘s We will speak no Treason
not romance, but really deeply showing how people believed, then.
I love historical fiction and historical romance. However, reading historical romance often reminds me of Wordsworth’s little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead – When it is good it is very, very good and when it is bad it is horrid.
Hah, yes – a perfect description!
While this ask isn’t about historical accuracy in historical romance, for those interested in that topic, there’s a great article by Vanessa Riley in the WaPo.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/historical-fiction-accuracy/2021/06/13/8a018ee0-cae8-11eb-a11b-6c6191ccd599_story.html
What annoys me – not about that article or author – is the fact that those people who were so outraged by what she was writing have caused those of us who care about historical accuracy to be branded as racist bigots. As someone who comes from the country in which most HR is set, I have never said there were no black people in historical England, or that queer people didn’t get/deserve happiness (for example). Yet now, whenever I see the words “historical accuracy”, the term is derided because of the sorts of extreme reactions Dr. Riley is talking about.
THIS!!!
It seems from the article that some historical writers (like the ones she mentioned) are looking to tell the more “hidden” stories of history, those involving marginalized people. Do you think now the pendulum has swung to outrage over the more common stories about nobility, etc who were mostly white? Do you disagree with her? I’m asking this in all sincerity because I am genuinely confused. Is what you and Nan are saying different from what Riley was saying?
Certainly, and I applaud this- especially when their work is grounded in solid historical research, and is written well. But there is a huge difference between working within the bounds of historical plausibility vs using a historical backdrop to dress 21st century time travelers in pretty costumes. And unfortunately, as Caz is saying, those of us who point out that difference too often get slammed with the kneejerk label “racist!” or “homophobic!” Yes, there are people out there who will not accept minorities in leading roles even if the authors can point directly to historical precedent. That’s another group of readers entirely who are unfortunately getting conflated with those of us who welcome diversity as long as its presence fits the parameters of the author’s chosen time and place rather than running roughshod over key historical facts.
Where I see a lot of the outrage now is when an HR white character fails to be sniveling and apologetic about his historically accurate privilege that he probably never would have given any thought to in real life. But if he does recognize a good deal of his wealth comes from slavery, and is contrite by 21st century standards, he tends to come across as an anachronistic bullhorn rather than a person of his time and place. Of course, there were outliers, as Riley says in her article, but they still would have been surrounded by their respective cultures.
Obviously, tolerance for straying too far from historical accuracy varies among authors and readers. It is subjective. But I don’t appreciate when nuanced attitudes toward accuracy in HR are thrown into the same box as avowed racism/sexism/whateverism that vehemently leaves no room for anybody except an extremely narrow, historically inaccurate picture of the past. Those are two totally different perceptions that certain noisy segments on social media like to treat as one and the same.
Yes, that’s exactly it.
Ok,that makes a lot of sense. Thank you Nan! I thought I had the issues straight, but was having problems tweezing out the details–senior brain maybe. :-)
Oh yes! The past was not a monolith, any more than the present is, but there are limits. And frankly, it’s the limits that I find interesting.
Yes to all of this.
As for the limitations, I find those interesting too! In queer HR in particular, my big thrill is wondering how the characters are going to make their relationship work despite the odds- in a period appropriate fashion, of course. Sure, a romance is probably going to have a gloss over it that a historical fiction wouldn’t, but I do have problems with portrayals of gay and lesbian characters swanning about openly in say, Regency England, when doing so in real life would have lead to their imprisonment or deaths. That’s when HR veers into historical fantasy. Of course, I want queer HR characters to have their happy ending, but the way they achieve it has to make sense for the time period and place they inhabit. The same is true of any character for me.
There is a very strong interest right now in the stories of marginalized people in the past which is GREAT!
I don’t disagree with her – and I’m pleased that a wider variety of stories are being written. As to whether the pendulum has swung … I honestly don’t know enough to say with any accuracy. What I’m saying though is people like me, who likes historical accuracy and is familiar enough with British history to know that there have been black people and queer people living here for centuries are being tarred with the same brush as the those readers Riley is talking about, ones who find it impossible to believe that there were black people in England before the 1950s, or that queer people could possibly have had anything other than a tragic end. So the ‘historical accuracy brigade’ as I’ve seen them dubbed, are being branded as racist bigots. I care about historical accuracy, but I’ve never denied the presence of minorities in historical England – an England where those minorities don’t exist? Now THAT’S historically INaccurate!
Does that make sense? (Probably not!)
Breathe!
Yes,you and Nan make a lot of sense. I’m not as fluent in history as I would like to be, so I don’t always pick up on the inaccuracies or perceived inaccuracies, as the case may be. I do love author notes because so many times truth is far more interesting than fiction,and I love learning the backgrounds author’s use for their stories.
Perhaps I am part of a third group. I do know enough to know racism and sexism was part of the fabric of Regency England, but I don’t want to read about racist heroes or heroines. In other words, I’m fine with the backdrop, and grey areas, but I’d prefer not to have to wrangle with the idea that a nobleman hero is okay with how his family gained and continues to gain wealth through slavery. I know that existed, but I do read for a certain amount of escapism. What I can deal with in secondary characters I have more problems with in my main characters. So while I absolutely will never vilify authors for writing accurate historical fiction with morally grey MCs, I do appreciate balanced reviews that reveal that so I don’t bother with them.
That’s totally fine! I get that, and I think a lot of people feel the same way. It’s nice that there are more narratives than ever in HR that will hopefully continue to grow. Read what you want, and write what you want. :-)
The big reason why I get perturbed about the anachronistically enlightened HR hero- other than how he generally just doesn’t work for me- is because a lot of times, he feels created specifically to appease the keyboard-happy, perpetually-offended crowd. That may not always be the case, but I’m sure it’s a factor.
I definitely agree with you about appreciating balanced reviews to avoid certain material that just isn’t going to appeal to me. AAR does an excellent job of pointing out key tropes, strengths, weaknesses, potentially iffy content, and anything else that helps readers make decisions.
But there are certain other reviewers, review sites, and Twitter fight-pickers who will absolutely trash authors and their books over a single line, sometimes in a book originally published over 10 years ago. While they’re certainly allowed to make a fuss, publishers have become too quick to withdraw, edit, excise, or cancel contracts over these tempests in teapots. That’s where I draw the line with my tolerance for differences of opinion, when someone is actually threatening someone’s livelihood and then gloating about it.
Obviously, you are not part of that group. We have different HR tastes and hard limits, and that’s cool. But the current climate in HR is, unfortunately, keeping authors in a state of fear which ultimately limits the narratives possible to explore. And to me, that’s tragic.
I guess I don’t see too much problem with people in Regency England being shown to have some enlightened views about slavery. It was,after all, when William Wilberforce was making a big deal of abolishing the slave trade and then slavery in the British Empire. He also founded the SPCA. Maybe it wasn’t the norm,but it would have been in the news and since the abolition of the slave trade passed before 1810, and the abolition of slavery in the Empire around 1820 or so, it does fit in with the time frame. Surely there were some in the aristrocracy and elsewhere who at least conflicted about how their fortunes were made.
I was willing to give the new British series about Anne Boleyn a shot despite all the manufactured “controversy” around them casting a black actress to play Anne Boleyn. I enjoy movies, books and shows about her as a figure and like to compare performances and was interested to see how Jodie Turner Smith approached the role. Will she play her as a martyr or seductress? Villain or victim? A combination of both?
Now that I’ve read about how the show is basically “queer baiting” people I’m just totally turned off. If there was even a hint in any historical record that Anne was bisexual or showed any interest in women I’d say that should certainly be explored, but the show just makes up Anne basically taking a kiss from Jane Seymour (her hated rival) which is not only completely false but nonsensical, under the guise of being attention grabbing and “modern”. I guess they are just tossing in a reason for two attractive actresses to kiss. This feels reductive to me, not progressive and more like a stunt to get guys to watch than to explore anything about Anne Boleyn’s real experiences.
Bingo! The second and third season of Victoria disappointed me in this way too in that they made a real-life straight character gay… just because. I ask, because why? Was it to get the MM crowd to watch, to preen in front of a gay audience as in “Look at how accepting we are!,” shock value, forced drama? In a rich historical period like Victorian England, there was plenty the writers could have portrayed without changing real life peoples’ sexual orientations, causes of death, relationships, and so forth. Naturally, there needs to be room for artistic license, especially for gaps in historical knowledge or simple logistics. But when we know for sure that a particular lady’s maid never married and lived to be 90, why give her a tragic romance where she ends up dead from cholera around the age of 30? There comes a point where a historical biopic becomes pure historical fiction. And when you’re talking about real life people whose histories are actually well documented and are interesting in their own right, why all the made-up melodrama? If you want to go pure fiction, why not make up your own stories rather than using real-life people as your personal fanfiction paper dolls? Ugh…
And there are so many great real stories to explore that it’s just kind of obnoxious to ignore them in favor of (IMHO) made up junk.
Look at the TV series“Gentleman Jack” about Anne Lister. It was successful both commercially and well reviewed. They actually based it off her real diaries that she had to write in code because she was detailing her lesbian relationships from the early 19th century on.
She was highly educated, a businesswoman, world traveler and lived her life exactly as she chose, even having a private “marriage” with another woman (though not legally recgonized). She basically even lived openly as a couple with her. She is a living example of same sex couples being able to have the “fairy tale” even when the laws brutally against them.
It’s only thanks to the reticence of a descendant of hers who cracked her diaries’ code, was scandalized but decided to hide and not destroy her lifetime worth of writing that they survived to this day. (He hid them behind a wall).
These are the kinds of *real* stories that make compelling TV. We don’t need to just cheaply throw random false things into real history.
How many Kings and Queens throughout history were at least bisexual? Explore those stories in a respectful way. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of good stories waiting to be told.
AMEN!!!
I think if shows make it clear from the beginning that a classic novel or a real event is just a launching pad for a whole new story, I’m fine with that. A lot of steampunk feels like this to me.
But when you present it as a retelling rather than an inspiration, it’s easy to see why those who were expecting something that hews to the tale they’re familiar with end up being disappointed.
Yes, and as I say above- there’s so many great, true stories to tell.
And I love fiction and Steampunk. As you say why not make something completely new or innovative? It’s this poorly done pandering that annoys me.
If we have the Sherry Thomas Lady Sherlock series, may we add the C.S. Harris St.Cyr series? These have been absolutely tremendous. And thanks to whoever suggested them about 6 months ago. I’ve been glued to the pages.
I think they’re more Historical Mystery with, in the case of the Thomas, a romantic sub-plot…
I feel like the general quantity of high quality HR has come down because reliable authors like Sherry Thomas have pivoted away from the genre, and a lot of the newer authors just aren’t at the same level. I miss ST’s pure romances (I have 0 interest in YA or mysteries), as well as books from Meredith Duran, Laura Lee Ghurke. The cadence of releases from the more reliable authors has slowed too (Sarah Maclean, Tessa Dare, Loretta Chase, Carolyn Jewel etc).
As others have mentioned, the most reliable HR quality is coming out of Harlequin Historical these days, and I think a lot of it is probably due to the curation/editing?
I think, in general, the slower cadence is a good thing. Much of my beef about quality in books writ large is around thahings that read as though they were written in a big hurry.
When I read these discussions, I wish I had more to contribute. Most of my HR reading tends to be digging through the backlist of favorite authors. However, I did snag Dabney’s list and will add her suggestions to my TBR. Thanks!
The Chases are superb and, with a few tiny missteps, so are the Dunmores.
for the past two years, HR has remained disappointing for me, but it’s allowed me to delve into backlogs-judith ivory, laura kinsale, madeline hunter etc. the willingness to tackle unconventional plots and characters, taboo subjects and morally gray areas is what made those novels worth reading. a lot of HR published right now just seems boring in contrast
YES, couldn’t agree more!
I’ve enjoyed a bunch of HR since October of 2019.
I’ve given four or more stars at Goodreads to:
all three of Evie Dunmore’s books
A Lady’s Formula for Love by Elizabeth Everett
My Last Duchess by Eloisa James
the first two book in Loretta Chase’s Difficult Dukes series
A Dangerous Kind of Lady and A Beastly Kind of Earl by Mia Vincy
The Footman by S. M. LaViolette
Heiress for Hire by Madeline Hunter
both books in Julia Bennet’s The Hardcastle Inheritance series
all three books in Maya Rodale’s Gilded Age Girls Club series
Stages of the Heart by Jo Goodman
all but one of Sherry Thomas’ Lady Sherlock series
For me, historical romance is just as good as any other subgenre in the field.
Some of those are on my list – I haven’t read the third Dunmore yet, but the other two got B+s, and the Vincys and the Chases all got DIKs.
I didn’t like the Everett – I reviewed the audio and while the narrator didn’t help, the story was way too busy with not enough focus on the romance.
I liked but didn’t love the first one of the Rodale series – the last one was again more plot than romance IMO.
I parted ways with Eloisa James several years ago.
I read more Harlequin Historicals than you, and that’s where much of the good HR is coming from right now. The authors I mentioned in my original comment plus authors such as Virginia Heath, Janice Preston, Louise Allen and others are all turning out thoroughly decent work fairly consistently.
I think part of the problem I have is that so many of the newer writers in the genre are just not good nor not “ready” – they’re given publishing deals early in their careers and don’t get the editorial support they need in order to improve, becuase they end up getting C/low B grades time after time and never manage anything higher.
And of course, there is dross in every genre, there is average in every genre and the real gems are few and far between. But I still think there’s less really good HR around now than there used to be.
We can agree to disagree!
We can. And actually, if you add the number of titles on your list and the number on mine, I think they’re about the same in terms of quantity. IBut I admit that I’m less optimistic about the genre in general than you are.
I haven’t read much HR for several years. So far in 2021, the only HRs I’ve read have been m/m: Misha Horne’s very good LOOKING FOR TROUBLE, set in 1880s Nevada and socially/culturally accurate about the heroes having no frame of reference for their feelings for each other; and Mia West’s excellent 11-book INTO THE FIRE series about two men (a soldier and a blacksmith) traveling across current-day Germany and France following the fall of the Roman Empire. Even S.M. LaViolette/Minerva Spencer (for whom I had high hopes after reading THE FOOTMAN last year) hasn’t impressed me much this year.
If I’ve done the same search, 11 of those DIKs came from me, and 7 of them were for m/m historicals – KJ Charles, Sally Malcolm, Cat Sebastian, Joanna Chambers and Aster Glenn Gray. (The others were Loretta Chase, Mia Vincy and Lara Temple, plus an older book by Nancy Butler that I read for a TBR Challenge prompt.)
All I can say is that I’m reading a LOT less m/f HR now than I was a few years ago, when I used to read it almost exclusively. Sure, some of that has to do with changing tastes, but that’s not the only reason; if the quality of HR hadn’t started to go so quickly downhill, I wouldn’t have needed to look around for something else to read! The profileration of ahistorical characters and issues, and the vogue for incorporating ridiculously convoluted plots at the expense of character and romantic development has a part to play, too.
That said, I won’t deny there have been some good historicals around over the last few years. Over the same period, I gave high grades (B+) to books by Evie Dunmore, Martha Waters, Marguerite Kaye, Jenni Fletcher and Stella Riley. But when you consider the large number of historical romances published in 2020-21, that’s still a fairly small number of really good ones.