Caroline’s fabulous blog–DIKS set in every state–got me thinking about romances I love that take place foreign locales. I’m ruling out England from the list because there are what seems like six million Regency romances set in Britain. The US is off the list too because the vast majority of contemporary romances we cover here are set in America. Oh–and we’re listing ROMANCES here, not other genres.
So here’s a partial list of my favorite books set in other places.
France: The Forbidden Rose by Joanna Bourne. Not only is this one of the best historical romances ever written, it gives the reader a strong sense of rural France as well as Paris during the Reign of Terror.
Iceland: Beautiful Wreck by Larissa Brown. Though the very beginning of this extraordinary love story is set in a grim world in the future, the vast majority of it is set in 10th century Viking Iceland. Brown makes the world of those Vikings–very different than the marauders we see on TV–come alive so vividly, you can almost see the mist that lifts from the lakes.
Bangkok, Thailand: Off the Edge by Carolyn Crane. I love all the Associates books in this series but this one is my fave. As Peter and Laney rush through the streets of Bangkok, you can smell the sizzle of a street vendors fried pork and hear the cars honking on the narrow streets.
Changan, China: Capturing the Silken Thief by Jeannie Lin. All of Lin’s books are wonderfully set–her China is complex and tangible. This novella, set only in the city of Changan during the Tang Dynasty, is a masterpiece. In particular, she lims the vast space between the luxurious palaces and the dark, cramped spaces of the poor.
I could do this all day but it’s your turn!
What are yours? Why?
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Wow, what an interesting research project/thought experiment this became. The initial question asked for stories set in countries other than the US and Britain, which not surprisingly blew away the vast majority of stories I’ve read.
What I didn’t expect – because I’ve never thought about it – but saddens me is how few romances I’ve read that are set in non-English speaking countries, with non-English speaking characters. Even books set in other countries, like Mr. Impossible (Chase, set in Egypt) or The Prince of Midnight (Kinsale, set in France) are about English-speaking characters. Courtney Milan’s The Duke Who Didn’t may be the only romance I’ve read with non-English speaking characters – and even there the MC is hiding the fact that he is a duke.
So, many thanks for all the suggestions below and Carolyn’s tags. Jeannie Lin has been in my TBR for a while but is now at the top of my list to explore. It would appear that she has the largest body of work set in non-English locales, with non-English speakers.
Lin’s work is really good.
Sherry Thomas’ fantasy romances are clearly written with characters who are speaking non-English.
I love Meredith Duran’s debut book, Duke of Shadows. Her depiction of India and people of India is quite authentic, IMHO, down to the way they phrase their sentences and how they favor certain British words (especially in the historical context of her book) due to their British influence. Kudos to her for doing a well done research on the subject matter.
Someone already mentioned Elle Pearson (aka Lucy Parker). I wish she would write more books set in her native NZ.
Duke of Shadows is one of my all time favorite romances. Man, do I miss Duran. The absence of her and Sherry Thomas as a romance writer are probably the two I feel the most keenly.
I really enjoyed Finding Joy by Adriana Herrera, which is set in Ethiopia. It seems to have a very strong sense of place as the author has lived and worked there in the past.
I loved Shadow of the Moon by M.M Kaye when it was re-released in the 1970s but I don’t know how this story of the British in India during the Rebellion of 1857 would seem now. I suspect that I might wince at how some of the politics and attitudes to race are written – it might be interesting to see!
Rachel Grant has already come up, but my favorite of her non-US books hasn’t – Covert Evidence, set largely in Turkey. Poison Evidence (Palau) isn’t bad, but out of the Flashpoint series I only liked Firestorm enough to recommend it. Some of her books suffer from having eeeeeevil characters whose plots are much more elaborate than their characterization.
It’s not a romance novel but since it does have a central love story with an HEA, my pick for Singapore is Crazy Rich Asians. It’s over the top, but so much fun.
I don’t know that I’d want to read anything set in Russia/the Soviet Union right now, but have to mention The Bronze Horseman. And it goes without saying that Dorothy Dunnett’s books have an excellent sense of time and place.
Dinah Dean’s Russian Eagles books, read decades ago, now on kindle. Also Valentina, by Evelyn Anthony, set in Poland and Russia. Emma Drummond’s books set variously in South Africa, Russia, Afghanistan, India and China. Or Valerie Fitzgerald’s Zemindar, set in India. All are HR, admittedly from the past, but superior to most current HR IMO, have stood the test of time in a long life of reading and live in my keeper collection.
Besides Mr. Impossible by Loretta Chase my “all time favorites” are The Silk Trilogy and The Bride Trilogy by Mary Jo Putney both taking place in various parts of Asia.
It’s such a pity that so many authors no longer write books that take place in foreign parts of the world. I fear it’s a result of the reigning PC. No author would like to evoke a shit storm because she has something “got wrong”.
I heard that Elizabeth Essex pulled a book we gave a DIK to for just that reason. She got the rights back to her Reckless Brides series but opted not to release this one because of its setting.
And I understand that. I found this article interesting. Though the authors are talking about writing about royalty, I think the perspective they have is powerful.
Interesting article. I like the idea that authors are looking at the realistic “dark side” of being born into or marrying into royalty. I don’t follow “royal” news and if I read about royalty, I’m more likely to want to read about countries I’m not as familiar with, like China or Japan. But mostly I prefer reading about completely fictional situations, like dealing with power and intrigue (and royalty) in sci-fi and fantasy novels.
I also understand the desire by authors to want to either get the details right or not go there to begin with when you are dealing with other cultures. It’s a difficult situation with a pretty sizable gray area that can lead to problems. Not everyone is going to agree on what is problematic and what isn’t, even among people of the country or ethnicity being written about. I don’t want that to dissuade authors from setting their books in countries other than their own, but I do want them to have due diligence about the details.
If I use “most reread” as a substitute for “favorite”, much of both These Old Shades and Devil’s Cub by Heyer happens in France.
Also, here are direct links to the countries and regions I’ve set up tags for so far. Sometimes the countries are consolidated (ex. Scandinavia, Africa outside of Egypt) because we don’t have enough to make individual tags. If I’m missing a book, or if there’s a country you think we have enough coverage to do a tag for, please let me know.
Scotland (I gave up on this one – it’s like having a tag for London), Canada, China, Australia, India, Caribbean, France, New Zealand, Mexico, Italy, Eastern Europe, Pakistan, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines, Egypt, Russia, Scandinavia, Ireland, Germany, Middle East, the Netherlands, Africa (non-Egypt)
I have had lots of success with the wonderful books coming out of the RomanceClass writers’ group from the Philippines. Just recently I DIK’d the contemporary romance A Match Made in Lipa by Carla de Guzman and the erotic bisexual menage Truth or Dare by Brianna Ocampo.
I wanted to pick books where the location was extremely important to the story. I haven’t read many books based on the continent of Africa, but I really enjoyed Rachel Grant’s romantic suspense series, Flashpoint. All three books are set in different parts of Africa’ South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Horn of Africa (Djibouti). The romances are a big part of all the books.
I love many of the books by Jay Hogan set in New Zealand, especially her Painted Bay novels. And I recommend N.R. Walkers books set in Australia. I especially enjoyed the Red Dirt Heart series set on a cattle station in the Outback, and more recently Dave, which is set in an even more remote location, a western Australian mining community.
I just finished The Kite by N.R. Walker which takes the protagonists through Gibraltar, Algiers, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and more, often describing the sights and even at times the food.
I have a review written and ready to go of The Kite – not sure if it’s on the schedule yet, but I really enjoyed it.
And I’d have listed the Flashpoint series and another Rachel Grant book, Poison Evidence, which is set in Micronesia – books by Jay Hogan as well; also, NR Walker’s Tallowwood, Galaxies and Oceans and the Milton James duo.
I also liked Nalini Singh’s A Madness of Sunshine – the romance is secondary, but I enjoyed the mystery and characters.
K.C Bateman’s The Devil to Pay is a run romp through Renaissance Italy.
I loved all the ones you mentioned by Walker. Both Walker and Hogan have so many titles, I thought I’d mainly just recommend the author work as a whole! :-)
Carrie, I think you’d like the Tigers and Devils series by Sean Kennedy (2009) if you haven’t read it/them already. It’s set in Melbourne, Australia and is a contemporary m/m sports (Australian football) story about a closeted footballer and the very “out” but fumbling director of the local, once-a-year film festival.
As you Desire by Connie Brockman takes place in Egypt and is an old favorite of mine. It gives me a window to a part of the world so different from ours. I enjoyed the exotic setting with the bazaars and archeological digs. I also loved Harry and his romantic “you are my country” speech.
I’d choose MAGGIE’S RUN, a beautifully-written and deeply-emotional book by Kelly Hunter. It’s the first in several multi-author series set in the Australian Outback town of Wirralong (so far, there’s been Outback Brides, Outback Brides of Wirralong, and Outback Babies; Hunter has written a book in each of the three series). When Maggie inherits her late aunt’s run-down sheep station in Wirralong, her plan is to turn it into a location for destination weddings (by the way, don’t Google “Outback weddings” unless you have all afternoon to scroll through the resulting gorgeous images). To do this, Maggie will need the help of neighboring rancher Max, a man with whom she has a long, complicated history extending back many years. Hunter is such a great writer, she evokes the beauty (and unforgiving terrain) of the Outback, along with the showing the growing connection between Maggie & Max, interspersed with flashbacks to Maggie’s teenage years that were marked by a traumatic loss. Hunter is one of my favorite writers and MAGGIE’S RUN is possibly my favorite of her books. Highly recommended.
Thanks. One of the best TV watching experiences we’ve had in the past few years is watching A Place to Call Home which gave me such a strong sense of Australia. I’ll check Maggie’s Run out!
My favorite set-in-Australia book is A Town Like Alice, by Nevil Shute. That said, I am pretty much a sucker for any romance set in Australia or New Zealand.
I’m such a fan of Sarah Mayberry’s–her books have so shaped my sense of modern Australia.
Probably the most unabashedly Australian romance writer I’ve encountered is Eve Dangerfield. I know she’s not to everyone’s tastes because most of her books focus on kinks & role-play (sometimes quite intense) of one form or another; and her descriptions of the physical/natural world are rather limited—but in the universe she has created (usually in Melbourne, Adelaide, or Brisbane, bypassing Sydney for the most part), the “character” of young, tatted, kink-friendly, inclusive Australians who love their “footy,” throw the c-word around like we say “darn,” and party a lot comes through. She uses lots of “Australianisms” in her books and, thankfully, as far as I can tell they haven’t been edited out or replaced with more familiar American terms & idioms.
Have you read Artistic License by Elle Pierson (who is also Lucy Parker?) It’s a NZ-set book which I think gets overlooked. We gave it a DIK!
https://allaboutromance.com/book-review/artistic-license-by-elle-pierson/