In Defense of Historical Romance
I didn’t study much history in school, and you won’t catch me reading a gazillion-page biography of Alexander Hamilton or anything, but I love learning about history through fiction (and by going to see the play, Hamilton). I think that’s one of the reasons I love historical romance: it gives me a glimpse of how people lived in another era.
Not that a romance written today is an accurate window into the lives and thoughts of Victorians, but seeing the past through the eyes of the present is part of the appeal. Some of my favorite romances offer delightfully revisionist versions of history.
I’ve been hearing for the past year or two that historical is dying and Harlequin shutting down its historical romance line seems to confirm that. But I don’t accept that historical romance is dead and I hope people keep writing it. So here’s my pitch for more, not less, historical romance.
A world unlike our own
My best guess as to why the market for historical romance is flagging, besides changing reader tastes, is that romantasy scratches the same itch. For readers who want to be transported to different worlds or times, romantasy is ready to fill that space.
But not all of us are into romantasy. When I want a world with different mores and struggles, I need rakish dukes and feisty proto-feminist ladies.
What the best historical romances do
As a writer, I’m very jealous of historical romance writers. Unlike contemporary writers, they don’t have to worry about whether the idioms they use will make their book feel dated two years from now. A good historical romance is evergreen.
As a reader, historical romances are my comfort food, with familiar obstacles and tropes — and sometimes the delightful subversion of those tropes. My favorite historicals reimagine history, with women who find ways to exercise power and agency in a world that tried to deny it to them.
Some favorite historical romances (a very incomplete list)
My favorite historical romance writer, and one of my favorite writers period, is Courtney Milan. Her Wedgeford Trials series imagines an English town where people of color live and thrive, where a half-Chinese duke does a bad job of keeping his identity secret, and quirky, inventive women rule. I’ve read all Milan’s books and they’re all great, but the ones set in Wedgeford are my favorites.
I read The Perks of Loving a Wallflower by Erica Ridley a while ago because it’s on a lot of queer romance lists. I liked it, but I didn’t realize it was part of a series until I picked up the book that preceded it. I read the whole series, including rereading the sapphic second book, and they’re better as a series. I love that Ridley has included characters with different experiences—different races, disabilities, and gender identity—in this delightful series. I recommend reading the series in order so there are no spoilers but I confess my favorite is Hot Earl Summer because Elizabeth Wynchester is hilariously bloodthirsty.
I’m a fan of Sarah Maclean, especially her bombshell series. Joanna Shupe explores the mores of Old New York, if you’re tired of England. I recently read some of Amanda Quick’s older books and they’re still great.
This just scratches the surface. Beverly Jenkins, India Holton, Vanessa Riley and many more authors have written wonderful historical romances.
What did I miss? I’d love your suggestions.
Queer representation in historical romance
In addition to The Perks of Loving a Wallflower, there’s a growing number of terrific books about queer love through history.
One of my favorite Courtney Milan books is The Pursuit of…, a prequel novella in her Worth Saga series. The main characters are a free Black man, traveling home from fighting in the Revolutionary War, which has just ended, and a White British soldier. Neither man is particularly safe traveling by foot through the newly formed country. Milan manages to inject humor without undercutting the gravity of their situation and the challenges they face.
Alexis Hall is one of my all-time favorite contemporary romcom authors. His historical novel, A Lady for a Duke, tells the story of a transgender woman who returns to the man who was once her best friend. The beauty of romance is that this is an uplifting story about the possibility for redemption and living as your true self when those who love you accept you, no matter what society says.
Most of Cat Sebastian’s historical novels are M/M romances set in the mid 1900s. They are wonderful, but my favorites of hers are her London Highwayman duo, The Queer Principles of Kit Webb and The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes. They are laugh-out-loud funny; I highly recommend them.
There are, happily, lots more queer historical romances. I look forward to discovering them. Recommendations welcome.
Bonus book: Naughty Nouns in Historical Romance
One of the members of my local romance writers group, Liz Adams, has recently released three books of historical words for romance writers. I don’t write historical romance, but I’ve been vastly enjoying Naughty Nouns in Historical Romance (it includes some verbs and includes more recent slang, too). Breasts might be referred to as “heavers” in 1674 and “bags” in 1770. For anyone looking for creative and historically accurate ways to write about sex, this is a great resource.
I’ve been in the writing trenches lately and getting behind on newsletters, but I hope to be more regular going forward, including some subscriber-only content I’m working on.
I started 2026 with grand plans to write a trope-heavy romance short story for subscribers every month and then everything changed, but not completely, for a variety of reasons. Which is a long-winded way of saying that I will offer special content to subscribers that will be completely awesome and you will be the first to know—but it’s going to take a bit longer to arrive than I originally expected.
Speaking of subscriptions, subscribing to my newsletter is one of the best ways to help me build my author platform, not only because you’ll get the latest information on what I’m writing, but also because it will make my first book (which is on submission now and it’s great, really, I’m not biased, you’re going to love it) more appealing to editors.
