Remember in the movie Say Anything when Lloyd Dobbler, broken-hearted that Diane Court had ended their relationship, stood outside her window while she was napping blasting Peter Gabriel’s In Your Eyes? Rather than thinking of this as creepy, stalkerish behavior, my teenage heart swooned. Imagine, a boy who will do anything to win your love. When I look back on the scene now, I still see the teenage romance of it, but also think if I’d been Diane’s parent, I’d have run him off. But my point is Lloyd standing there with the boom box is what began my lifelong love affair with the Big Romantic Gesture.

Many of my favorite romances have them: gestures so grandiose, so big that they make the reader certain that the love between the hero and heroine will last forever. After all, if they’re willing to give up everything, dare anything for love, it must be the love of a lifetime. When I started thinking about the Big Romantic Gestures that stand out most to me in my years of reading romance, there were three that came to mind.

First, in Judith McNaught’s A Kingdom of Dreams, Jennifer Merrick, a plucky young heroine is abducted from a convent and forced to marry her family’s lifelong enemy, Royce Westmoreland, Duke of Claymore. Claymore is the champion of the king, his finest weapon, and a man who lives his life on the battlefield. He certainly knows nothing of love or tenderness. And yet Jenny challenges him constantly, and bewitches him with her intelligence and her willingness to do anything to uphold her family’s honor. Soon the two find themselves falling in love until Royce kills Jenny’s brother who he thought was drawing a knife to kill him, despite giving Jenny his word that he’d not harm her family. The king convenes a tournament, and commands Royce to participate.  Royce is determined to honor his promise to not draw another drop of Merrick blood which allows Jenny’s family, also participating in the tournament, to do their best to kill him. That is until…

Through the haze of sweat and blood and pain that blurred his vision and fogged his mind, Royce thought for a moment he saw the figure of a woman running – running toward him, her uncovered hair tossing about her, glinting in the sun with red and gold. Jennifer! In disbelief, he squinted, staring, while the earsplitting thunder of the crowd rose higher and higher.

Royce groaned inwardly, trying to push himself to his feet with his unbroken right arm. Jennifer had come back – now, to witness his defeat. Or his death. Even so, he didn’t want her to see him die groveling, and with the last ounce of strength he possessed, he managed to stagger to his feet. Reaching up, he wiped the back of his hand across his eyes, his vision cleared, and he realized he was not imagining it. Jennifer was moving toward him, and an eerie silence was descending over the crowd.

Jenny stifled a scream when she was close enough to see his arm dangling brokenly at his side. She stopped in front of him, and her father’s bellow from the sidelines made her head jerk toward the lance lying at Royce’s feet. “Use it!” he thundered. “Use the lance, Jennifer.”

Royce understood then why she had come; she had come to finish the task her relatives had begun; to do to him what he had done to her brother. Unmoving, he watched her, noting that tears were pouring down her beautiful face as she slowly bent down. But instead of reaching for his lance or her dagger, she took his hand between both of hers and pressed her lips to it. Through his daze of pain and confusion, Royce finally understood that she was kneeling to him, and a groan tore from his chest: “Darling” he said brokenly, tightening his hand, trying to make her stand, “don’t do this…”

But his wife wouldn’t listen. In front of seven thousand onlookers, Jennifer Merrick Westmoreland, countess of Rockbourn, knelt before her husband in a public act of humble obeisance, her face pressed to his hand, her shoulders wrenched with violent sobs.

A Kingdom of Dreams, Judith McNaught (pp 420-421)

The second example comes from The Warlords of the Plains series by Elizabeth Vaughan. In Warprize, Xylara is the daughter of the warrior king, Xyron. When her father dies, her insane half-brother inherits the throne. The kingdom’s fiercest enemies, the Firelanders, have come to overthrow the kingdom. Xylara, a trained healer, begins healing the Firelander prisoners, and gets to know them. She learns their language and some of their customs and her respect for their way of life grows. Lara never expects that Keir of the Cat, the leader of the Firelanders, would sneak into the encampment to check on his warriors, nor did she expect that he would demand her in exchange for peace. Her brother agrees, telling Lara that she will be a slave, a Warprize, in order to ensure peace for her people. Lara, being a loyal servant of the crown goes, assuming that she’ll be treated as a slave and concubine to Keir. But in the Firelander encampment, Lara finds peace and love with the fierce leader of her country’s enemy. In the end, Keir decides he must leave Lara in Xy as the newly ascended leader of the kingdom, while he and his people return to Xy.

The sky was a vibrant orange when I finally heard the thunder of hooves behind me. I didn’t turn, just continued to walk at a steady pace. For a brief moment, I feared that Simus or Other had sent troops after me. But instead, as Simus had predicted, the first of the rear scouts moved past me at a gallop, their horses veering around me. One looked back, and let out a yelp of surprise. He pulled on the reins so hard his horse reared, legs splayed in its effort to stop. The other scout, hearing the noise, pulled his sword, and turned off the road, arcing back to me.

I ignored them and kept walking.

The first scout came up on horseback. “Warprize?” he asked, looking horrified. I looked up to see Tant, the warrior that had been whipped for falling asleep on watch.

The other scout came up, scanning for danger. He glanced at his partner. “That’s the Warprize?” […]

It seemed like hours before there was a commotion ahead of us. A cloud of dust betrayed the horsemen coming hard and fast up the road. My self-appointed guard faded back as Keir came thundering into view, galloping his horse, his scarlet cloak flaring behind him. There were a few more men behind him. I stopped and stood where I was, waiting.

Keir reared his horse to a stop in front of me. The animal towered over me, and I could hear its harsh breathing. I kept my eyes down, on the road.

“What in the name of all the elements do you think you are doing?” Keir thundered.

“Following my Warlord.” I kept my voice steady.

Warprize, Elizabeth Vaughan [pp. 311-312]

In both cases the heroine gives up everything she’s known for love of her hero – the Big Romantic Gesture. The gestures, so enormous that the reader is assured of the enduring love between the couple.

So how about the heroes? I struggled thinking of a hero who made the Big Romantic Gesture.  Then I took to Twitter and was reminded of the actions of Raphael, Archangel of New York in Nalini Singh’s Angel’s Blood. When Uram, an archangel and a member of the Cadre of Ten archangels who rule the world, goes rogue, falling into bloodlust,  the archangels must turn to Hunter Born Elena Devereaux to hunt down the threat to humans, vampires and angels alike. Having lived millennia, he’s lost almost all of his humanity, but when he meets Elena he is captivated. Elena is both terrified and undeniably attracted to Raphael, and due to the extreme danger of her hunt, she is very close proximity to him almost constantly.  But as they get closer, Raphael realizes that he is losing just a bit of his immortality through his attraction to Elena. This loss could jeopardize his rule, but Raphael can’t help himself. He’s never had anyone treat him with anything other than deference, and Elena is anything but deferential.  As Elena and Raphael track the rogue archangel, they fall deeper and deeper in love.

During the final confrontation with Uram, Elena sustains life-threatening wounds.

One of Uram’s last, desperate bolts had hit the building. Raphael knew Elena had to have been on the very edge of the eight-story structure when she’d shot up at Uram. That edge was now gone, but he could feel Elena’s life, feel her dying flame. Elena, answer me.

Quiet, peaceful, a hush of sounds. Then, Stay a little human, won’t you Raphael?

A request that was almost not a sound at all. But it was enough. He followed the mental thread to discover her broken body on the narrow ledge provided by a precariously hanging neon sign. Her back was shattered, her legs twisted in a way that was nothing natural. But she smiled when she saw him. And her hand still held the gun that had saved more lives than anyone would ever know.

He dared not touch her, afraid he’d cause her to slip over the ledge. “You are not to die.”

A slow blink. “Bossy.” It was a sound bubbled through with blood. The voice isn’t working so good. […]

His canines elongated, and a strange, beautiful, golden taste filled his mouth as he felt a tear slide down his face. He was an archangel. He had not cried in over a thousand years.  […]

His heart stopped beating when her voice faded, and he leaned forward, his mouth overwhelmed by the taste of beauty, of life. “I won’t let you die. I had your blood tested. You’re compatible.”

Her lashes struggled to open, failed. But her mental voice, though weak, was adamant. I don’t want to be a vampire. Bloodsucking’s not my thing.

“You must live.” And then he kissed her, feeding that golden taste, that intoxicating blend into her mouth. You must live.

That was when the sign gave away, tearing loose from the building and plunging to the ground in a shattering crash. Elena didn’t fall alone, gathered as she was in Raphael’s arms, his mouth fused with hers. They fell together, his wings close to destroyed, his soul melded to that of a mortal.

If this is death, Guild Hunter, he thought to his mortal as angelfire scored through his boned and touched his heart, then I will see you on the other side.

Angel’s Blood, Nalini Singh [Kindle  location: 4442-4470]

Raphael’s sacrifice, giving up his life as one of the most powerful beings in the world, his rule in the Cadre of Ten, his very immortality, is the very essence of the Big Romantic Gesture. He gives up everything for love.

The Big Romantic Gesture is not a necessary element of a successful romance, in fact, it’s somewhat rare. But when an author successfully writes it, it causes what I call the “big sigh” of a reading experience. For it to be effective the author must build the foundation – both conflict and romance.  The stakes must be raised in order for the gesture to carry the weight of the “ultimate sacrifice”. If the author fails to establish the foundation, they risk the gesture being tell, not show.  When it is successful, it confirms for the reader that the couple’s Happily Ever After is a foregone conclusion.

Related posts:

1. Romantic Times Responds
2. Why Romantic Times Reviews Are Not Credible
3. Romantic Times Update: Still Waiting

Janet: Reading through the comments on the Dear Author Golden Era poll, they seem to reflect the split in the voting between the 1990s and the 2000s. Those who chose the 1990s seem more like Historical Romance readers, while a number of those favoring the current decade have pointed to the online community and the way that has opened up awareness of many more books.

Jaili:   Hm, when I think of the 1990s, I think of category romance novels – from authors such as Sandra Canfield, Anne Stuart, Judith Arnold, Marilyn Pappano, Linda Howard, Jennifer Cruise, Sharon Sala, and many more – and romantic suspense as well as speculative romance (vampire romances, futuristic romances, ghost romances and many more). Historical romances of the 1990s were different from the 2000s, too.

Janet: I’ve read Stuart, Howard, Crusie, and probably others, but most of my reading, I think, has been in historicals of the 90s. But now that I think about it, Howard is very much of the 90s, at least the books I’ve read of hers. Some Stuart books, too, like Ritual Sins.   I think part of it is that there’s just a ton of books to read. I’ve only been reading Romance for about six years, and I’ve managed to get through hundreds of books in that time, and many, many of them are oldies but goodies, but my reading is of books selected for me. Consequently, I have a very positive regard for those decades as judged through some truly outstanding books, from the Laura London Regencies to LaVyrle Spencer’s inaugural Harlequin Temptation, Spring Fancy, to almost all the books of Laura Kinsale and Judith Ivory, as well as the Jennifer Crusie categories.   An embarrassment of genre riches, you might say.

Conversely, my reading of books published in the past six years has been much more “of the moment.” Instead of carefully copying down a list given to me by the friend who got me reading Romance (who is herself a long-time genre reader), I got recommendations from friends and acquaintances, from reader blogs and message boards and even from browsing shelves and online bookstores/publisher sites.

Jaili: Lucky you! At the beginning of my reading career, it was pot luck. At the time there was no internet and there weren’t many romance novels available for sale in my area. I could only get my paws on whatever were available including those from Topaz, Leisure, Tapestry, Mills & Boon (Silhouette included), Onyx, and old Avon. There were no guide or anything like it.

I think I relied on book covers alone. I picked up books by Penelope Neri, Karen Robards, Jude Deveraux, Mary Spencer, Johanna Lindsey and many others this way. (Those original covers were awesome. Today’s covers haven’t a patch on those.) My purchase decisions were heavily tied to what were available and book covers and eventually, authors’ names.

Janet: How do you think the Internet has affected the genre. Not necessarily in terms of making it easier for readers to pick books, but do you think the online community has affected the books being written and published?

Jaili: I think so, yes.   It’s funny because some authors – such as Susan Johnson and Bertrice Small – took historical research rather seriously, but there were quite a few authors who clearly flipped the bird at such an idea. Some readers wrote to the Letters of the Romantic Times magazine to complain about those historical errors, but authors still wrote with a form of editorial freedom. And now? Pfft. Some authors will have to have the guts to keep flipping the bird at the idea of taking historical research seriously.

Actually, there’s another thought rattling around in my clearly empty skull that I’m trying to articulate. I think there is a sense of innocence – or optimism? – in those old historical romances. It feels as if old historical romances were written for authors’ own pleasure, rather than for money and audience.

Janet: Writing for the sake of the book? Or maybe a book for the sake of the writing? Yes, I have an intuitive sense of exactly what you’re talking about, but I can’t really articulate it, either. There does, though, seem to be an awfully strong emphasis on the commercial aspects of genre fiction these days.

Jaili: I can’t tell if it was because those books were more detailed than today’s books that make it feel as if authors were writing for pleasure, or that authors today seem more business-like than authors of the yesteryear were. Perhaps the shortened length of today’s romances may have something to do with it? Detailed books mean leisurely pace, which equals to a sense of luxury or comfort, perhaps.

To be honest, I can’t articulate what I am trying to say well. Perhaps readers of this article will understand what I mean and explain somehow.

Anyroad, I think authors have more pressures than authors in those days because not only they have to work against shorter deadlines and shorter word counts, they have readers breathing down their necks as well as having to resist the temptation of going online.

Janet: I wonder how much pressure authors put on themselves and how much is put on them from editors, publishers, agents, and readers, though. And did publishers offer more freedom in earlier decades and did the lack of reader feedback in electronic forums, for example, encourage more or less diversity in the genre? It feels to me like there’s a lot of subgenre diversity, but maybe not so much diversity within those subgenres. Which is too bad if you’re a reader who doesn’t like a lot of different subgenres of Romance.

Jaili: So true. On the other hand, the internet makes it much easier for readers to express their thanks and gratitude to authors who wrote books they enjoyed. The internet also opens up the once-enigmatic world of romance publishing to readers, thanks to authors and editors’ willingness to share their knowledge. Meanwhile, readers give the feedback, supply the support when it’s needed, and a bit of cheerleading to keep some authors’ stamina up.   It works both ways along with the pluses and minuses.

And the best of all, the online romance community. After ten years, I still think it’s bloody awesome to meet readers and authors from all walks of life. I sometimes wondered what it would be like if the internet was widely available back then. I think if it existed then, it would affect the genre in many ways. How so? I don’t know. It’s fun to speculate, wouldn’t you think?

Janet: Definitely! Personally, I think the Internet is slowing blowing the idea that readers are of a certain type, that they are of a certain age and like certain things. And as much as there still seems to be a collective set of values within the genre, I really think that’s going to change more as the reader community shows itself to be more diverse and more diversely engaged with the genre. And I think that’s really exciting.

As for reading books pubbed in the past six years, since I have been online, I’ve had many more reading ups and downs, although I have some powerful favorites from this decade, from Shana Abe’s The Smoke Thief to Loretta Chase’s first two Carsington books to Meljean Brook’s demon series, Sherry Thomas and Meredith Duran’s historicals, Jo Bourne’s The Spymaster’s Lady, Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark series, and books present and future from many authors who I think are really coming into their own (Victoria Dahl & Julie Ann Long, for example). I recently started a Jill Shalvis glom, finding the way she draws relationships to be extremely well-nuanced. Roxanne St. Claire’s new Romantic Suspense was a real winner for me. And the upcoming Jo Goodman release is one of my favorites in her multi-decade body of work. I don’t think Lisa Kleypas’s writing has ever been stronger than in her recent contemporary Travis family saga. And then there are many authors (some of whom have upcoming releases) whose books I haven’t even read yet: Carolyn Jewel, Tessa Dare, Courtney Milan, Ann Aguirre, Carrie Lofty, most of Nalini Singh’s Psi series, and many I’m forgetting at the moment (sorry!).

This doesn’t mean that I think the books published today are the same as those published previously. And maybe if I only liked meaty epic historicals I’d be pining for the 90s. But as I said in my shorter books post last week, I’m not convinced that shorter books are of lesser quality, at least not because of the lower word counts. But I wonder if that’s because I’m reading all these books within such a short period of time. Had I started as a teen or even in my 20s, would that change my opinion? Would it be different if I read all the clunkers from every decade, too? I don’t know. Maybe. It seems that the real long-time readers often have strong decade-specific preferences.

Jaili: That’s the thing; the 1990s didn’t have just meaty epic historicals. To me, this type belongs to the 1980s and the 1970s. Historical romances of the 1990s were actually shorter than those from the 1980s and 1970s.

What the 1990s had were similar to today’s historical romances, but different settings – such as Viking, various American settings (Gold Rush, the South, Alaska, Americana, Western and so on), different time periods (Tudors, Medieval, etc.) of different countries (UK, Russia, South America, Australia, etc.) – and different reader expectations.

Readers today, I think, expect characters to have similar sensibilities and values to theirs, whereas readers of the 1990s expected something between the 1980s and the 2000s. Romances of each decade generally reflect the readership’s mentality and attitudes, I think.

Janet: This is an interesting point, and I fear it’s true. In fact, if there’s one thing I wish there was more of in the genre it’s a diversity of cultural, racial, ethnic, and religious values. Religion, especially, outside of Inspy books, would be great, IMO, and I’m not all that religious, lol. But I so loved Gaffney’s To Love and To Cherish and Kinsale’s Flowers From the Storm and Samuel’s Bed of Spices that I would love to see more Romances that tackled spirituality and faith issues, especially as they relate to erotic relationships.

And, of course, as someone who has a keen interest in post-colonial issues, I’d love to see more reconsiderations of those older colonial/imperial Romances, or at least of the cultural clashes. Meredith Duran’s first book, Duke of Shadows, took on the India setting, but that part of the book felt choppy to me and it felt like there should have been more of that part of it. Loretta Chase uses Egypt as a setting, but I’d love a deeper look there, too. One of the things I loved most about Judith Ivory’s Untie My Heart was the way Stuart had experienced all of these different cultural values and had sort of cobbled together a multi-national, multicultural personality. Even though we didn’t really see beyond England in the novel, the book didn’t feel to me like a colonialist/imperialist gesture. Oh, I’d love more of that kind of thing. Also, more diversity of class/economic position. Still a big taboo, in my opinion, as is race, which, as we know, is terribly marginalized and sentimentalized in the genre, even today.

Jaili: There are so many good books from that period are forgotten today. I can reel off a long list for you to check out. I’m willing to bet that readers who voted for the 1990s have had the same experiences I had: fewer expectations and a willingness to read anything available. I remember buying two romances and when I got home, I was shocked to find one was a time travel romance and the other was a bloody Irish medieval (my least favourite time period). I knew there wouldn’t be any more available until the following month, so I forced myself to read both. Luckily, I enjoyed both.

Nowadays with the internet and its resources, I can be choosy and focus on those I think will appeal to me, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. Yes, there are many readers’ favourite lists available, which is fantastic for us who have little money and time to spare, but it also makes us less adventurous that would have us losing out on lesser known books published, including those from this decade. It may explain why some readers quickly tire of certain favourite types or premises. Who knows?

Janet:   First of all, I’d love a list!!

Jaili: Heh! OK, will do. I hope readers of this article will share their lists, too.

Janet: Absolutely!

The whole 1990s issue is interesting, because I went through and checked the dates on some of my favorite books. Susan Johnson’s Pure Sin was 1994, Forbidden in 1991. Kinsale’s The Shadow and the Star was 1991. Candice Proctor’s Whispers of Heaven, 2001. I tend to associate those books as meatier historicals, but maybe the epic historicals would be stuff like the Sky O’Malley books or The Windflower (1984) or Monson’s Rangoon (1985)?

Jaili: When I think of epic historicals, I think of Forever Amber, Skye O’Malley and Woodiwiss’s famous (and infuriating) Birmingham couple. Come to think of it, I think if these were published today, they would be classified as Women’s Fiction or Historical Fiction.

The Windflower is a different breed, though, because it broke away from the epic historical romance sub-genre, which is why it was highly acclaimed. I think The Windflower was a turning point of the historical romance sub-genre. I’m trying to remember if it was Karen Robards’s Walk After Midnight that turned the romantic suspense sub-genre round on its head. My memory isn’t that reliable, I’m afraid. I do remember it was Marilyn Pappano’s Passion and Suspicion that hooked me on romantic suspense. Oh, let’s not forget Theresa Weir’s contemporary romances. I’d better shut up before I list some more.

Janet: So here’s my question, Jaili, for someone like you who has been reading Romance for much longer than myself: do you think we sentimentalize books in the genre or different periods, or do you think that some decades are just better for Romance novels?

Jaili: Yes and no. I believe some of us – myself included – sentimentalise certain eras of the genre, but books? I don’t think so. For some, these are remembered with affection because they were part of our journey as romance readers.   It doesn’t mean all could stand the test of time. Some may, but not all. This still applies to today. Take Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, for example.

When it was released a couple years ago, it wowed quite a few romance readers, but I recently caught some of those readers saying that after rereading Twilight a couple of years later, it didn’t stand up well. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if they still regard Twilight with affection because it gave them that unforgettable moment of time.

Janet: That’s so true, and it might be why I don’t re-read a lot. I don’t want to spoil the happy memory. I’m afraid, for example, if I ever try to re-read Dara Joy’s Rejar, it’ll be all over for that book!

Jaili: Heh! I’m too scared to re-read some of old "ohmygodthisisthebestIreadinyears!’ books, such as some of Sandra Canfield’s fantastic category romances and Megan Chance’s Gilded Age historical romance, The Portrait, which features the hero as a "manic depressive".

On the other hand, some are comfort reads, such as Rene J. Garrod’s Western romantic comedy, Her Heart’s Desire (I suspect the glasses-wearing scholar hero may have something to do with my love for it), and Pamela Morsi’s Americana romances, such as Courting Miss Hattie and Runabout.

In fairness, I think some forget that each decade has its share of trends. The 1990s were crammed with Medieval & Viking romances, time travel romances, psychic heroines in romantic suspense, Western romances, Native American romances and a couple of other trends. Some of us were thoroughly sick of those, just like how some of us are sick of Regency and British-setting romances today.

But since you have quite a few old historical romances, have you read any category, contemporary and paranormal/speculative romances from that era as well?

Janet: Yes, at least to some of those. I’ve read all of the Tom and Sharon Curtis books, both as Laura London and Robin James. I’ve read some Charlotte Lamb books, all of the Crusie categories except for Glitter (is that the right title?), some old LaVyrle Spencer, oh! and a bunch of Mary Balogh categories (which I prefer to her single titles, actually). And Kathleen Gilles Seidel, Anne Stuart’s Ritual Sins, some of Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s contemps (Dream a Little Dream is my favorite, I think), Linda Howard’s After the Night, Now You See Her, Dream Man, Shades of Twilght, as well as the whole Kell Sabin series (from Midnight Rainbow to White Lies), and much more that I can’t even remember right now.

Jaili: Kathleen Gilles Seidel! Her books are fantastic. Well worth reading. Same for Sarah Bird’s The Boyfriend School, Marilyn Pappano and other authors I mentioned at the start. I think it’d be good for romance readers to have a look around in used bookshops because there are many forgotten gems waiting to be found.

Related posts:

1. Golden Era of Romance
2. 2009 RITA/Golden Heart Contest Controversy: Ebook Authors Need Not Apply
3. Top Ten Reasons I’m Thankful for Romance

1. All Scottish men are named Jamie. But that’s only if they’re not called Alistair.
2. All Scottish men wear kilts, even when they were outlawed and even when they didn’t exist. All clans have an identifying tartan.
3. All Scottish men carry claymores.
4. Everyone is a Highlander because the Highlands start right at the border between England and Scotland.
5. Half the country has red hair and half has black. Not brown, mind you but raven, midnight black. There are no fair haired lassies in Scotland.
6. Speaking of Lassies, all women are lassies. Wee lassies especially. Never mind that actually refers to young girls.
7. All Scottish men prefer English brides.
8. Every other man is a Laird.
9. They all say “didnae, cannae, willnae, wouldnae” with the emphasis on the “ae.”
10. Scottish men are always drunk on single malt whisky.
11. Haggis is served at every meal.
12. Everyone lives near a loch.
13. They all own sheep. Sometimes drunk on single malt whisky, full on haggis, wet from the loch, they mistake the sheep for wee lassies and take off their tartan to lay on the ground and . . . well, that scene wasn’t from a romance book.
14. At least once a day, Scottish men say “Och, wee Lassie, doonae ken my kilt?”

Of course, our list is tongue in cheek. We know that romance historicals often take license with history and the question is to what extent can authors do this and still be acceptable to readers. Let’s be real. The majority of the romance reading public do not hold history degrees. The majority of romance reading public will not know when a desk with a drawer was first made; how terribly wrong it is for a gentleman to remove his jacket in public during the Victorian period; that potatoes didn’t come to Europe until 1570.

For me, I am not going to let a historical inaccuracy get in the way of my enjoyment of a good story so long as the inaccuracy is not noticeable or does not detract from the overall world created by the author. I loved The Raven Prince and felt that I could overlook the unlikely possibility of a young gentlewoman serving as the secretary for a titled man in the Georgian period.

For others, the craft is the story and a fork appearing before forks existed will kill the mood of the entire book. If you can’t trust an author to get the fork right, what other specious goods is she trying to pass off? Some authors are personally affronted that others don’t put as much effort into ensuring that the book is historically accurate. The problem is that accuracy can sometimes be, well, subjective.

Readers don’t always know what is historically accurate. I’ve read individuals complain that an author is too modern. This is an accusation that was leveled often toward Connie Brockway whose historicals are keepers for me. I recall people picking on Julie Ann Long for her use of “alien” in Beauty and the Spy. Ms. Long, I believe, came along and defended the etymology of the word “alien”. Alien was first used as a synonym for foreigner in 1330. It wasn’t until the mid 1900s that alien was first attributed to meaning “of another planet.” The Raven Prince also suffered the accusation of too modern of a voice for some. The hero is described as demolishing his plate. Demolish is attributed to the 1500s French word, demoliss.

I am guilty of this. Recently I read a book set in the late 1800s in England that referred to New York York harbor on Independence Day (1885); werewolf (Old English); velvet lined handcuffs (pre 1900s). The book was historically accurate but because I have had a decade of reading almost soley Regency related romances, when I first started reading, I had to remind myself of the time period. The more immersed I became in the story, the less this became a concern.

I love those old time Susan Johnson books that included footnotes. I remember reading Forbidden featuring a female Native American attorney in Montana set in the late 1800s. I was skeptical that there was such a creature, but the footnotes sold me that this could have happened.

Fn. 1. Lyda Burton Conley, of Kansas City, was the first Native American woman lawyer in the United States. Admitted to the Kansas bar in 1910, she’d begun studying law in 1904 in order to represent herself and the Wyandotte tribe in a lawsuit against the United States government.

and

Fn. 2. In 1878, the House passed Bill No. 1077, which gave women attorneys access to the federal courts. After another year of buttonholing senators in the corridors of the Capitol, the “Lockwood” bill passed the Senate in 1879 after three years of extensive lobbying, and President Rutherford B. Hayes signed it into law.

In Arnette Lamb’s, The Betrothal, the historical detail added such richness to the story that I felt I was actually there. The heroine, Marjorie Entwhistle, was the postmistress of Bath when Blake Chesterfield came to claim her hand. Chesterfield has a terrible secret to which Marjorie’s father became privy. Chesterfield must convince Marjorie to marry him or Marjorie’s father will make the secret public, damning Chesterfield and his entire line. Lamb laid out in great detail the workings of the Post and how Marjorie came to be in control of it; how important that this was as it made money for her which she desperately needed to provide independence for herself. Hogarth’s work as a cartoonist and satirist played an integral role, firmly settling the book in the mid 1700s.

To further muddy the waters, history is recorded by the conquerors of a period and many details can be interpreted more than one way. In Joan Wolf’s Fool’s Masquerade, the hero is trying to explain to the heroine how wronged King Richard the Third was by history. King Richard did not, Diccon tells Valentine, dispose of the three princes in the tower.

The earl’s dark eyes were hard on my face. “. . . Richard the Third, Valentine, is the most bitterly wronged king in all of English history.”

I held his gaze. “I only know about him from Shakespeare.”

His mouth twisted. “You and everyone else. Crookback Richard, villain, usurper, murderer. And none of it is true.”

“What was Shakespeare’s source?” I asked. One thing I had learned from my father was to evaluate the bias of historical sources before coming to any conclusions.

Lord Leyburn looked at me speculatively. “The History of Richard III by Sir Thomas More.”

“Sir Thomas More?” I shook my head. “I don’t think one can call into question the integrity of a man like More, my lord.”

“Thomas More was brought up in the household of Cardinal Morton, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Morton was the right hand man of Henry the Seventh, the Tudor usurper who defeated Richard at Bosworth Field. Morton was also, and had been for years, Richard’s deadly enemy. There is no doubt that Morton is the one who supplied the information about Richard to his pupil, Thomas More. And the history was never published in More’s lifetime. It was found with his papers after his death. It was not finished. I’ve always thought that More, who was an extremely intelligent man, never finished it because he had begun to doubt the honesty and the value of the material supplied to him by Morton.”

This was all extremely interesting. “Are there no other sources?” I asked thoughtfully.

“Nothing chronological. There are, of course, Parliamentary records and decrees, personal letters from the time, the Patent Rolls, things like that.”

I want authors to get it right. I think that they should do the research and know the time period in which they write as well as a scholar of that period. Shouldn’t we readers be the allowed to learn as well as be entertained? The thing is, though, that even if we readers want writers to strive for more historical accuracy, we don’t want slavish devotion to accuracy (whatever that may be) to take the place of a good story.

Just because I have a law degree and can barely stomach reading contemporaries featuring lawyers because so many of authors portray legal proceedings incorrectly, I don’t think that Jayne is foolish or ignorant for enjoying a book like that. Similarly, a reader who doesn’t recognize the tricorn (Georgian) from the bicorn (Regency) from the derby (Victorian) isn’t a cretin either. I believe we readers we are looking for is to be swept away into the past, even if its a fantasy past, for just a few hours.

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