Interesting read over at the Risky Regencies blog. Written by Isobel Carr, it addresses the attitude put out by popular book blogs that authors can write any historical romance, with any themes they want, and have a publisher go with it, no questions asked. Meaning, everyone will snap up books with characters of any race or orientation, in any location, in any time period.
Of course it’s not that simple! Hence the fact we have a sea of Regency-era English dukes – with even more Regency-era English dukes on the way! It’s also not that easy if they want to self-publish and actually sell books.
As she points out, every time a show becomes popular (think Downton Abbey, or the various US period dramas around at the moment), the book crowd expects there to be a huge craze for something new. There never is. 1910s-20s historical romance never became a thing after Downton, for example.
I definitely wish books like Joanna Shupe’s Gilded Age series would take off!
I do like the calls in the comments section for more historical romances set in Australia. I mean, come on! It’s Britain (remember, we had no American-style Revolution here, and were very much part of the Empire) combined with the Wild West! The two things that sell books!
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