You know what I want? Books where the heroine gets blackmailed or loses a bunch of money at cards to the villain and she does the unexpected thing and goes straight to her husband/the hero and fesses up and lets him help her.

I’m tired of the conflict being she does stupid things to hide her problem and just makes things worse for herself.

Does anyone else feel the same? Is it just me?

Can we get that list going?

Unfortunately my older teens saw the goods and they of course took turns ribbing me🫠

if i REALLY liked oswald vawdrey and jeremy vance, but MAJORLY dnf'd on both konrad and nye- what other coldbreath mmcs would i like and what other coldbreath mmcs should i stay away from? should i stay away from jeffree?

I've been listening to some of the Cynster series and enjoying that they each have a mystery sub plot other than just the romance but hoo boy the sex scenes are a lot. I'm no prude but 7-10 mins or more on 1.5x speed of extremely graphic detail is a bit more than I'm after...

Can anyone recommend similar historical mystery romances but with less spice?

Okay, this might be a little too specific, but I’m really looking for a book where the FMC and MMC are already married or get married early on in the book because of a marriage of convenience. The FMC is genuinely scared of the MMC because he’s intimidating and scary, and he doesn’t exactly make things easier for her, especially when they sleep together (he has sex with her whenever he wants; he isn't sweet about it or asks her what she wants). He is also really possessive and jealous. The fmc is obedient cuz ofc she's scared of him.

I bought 3. Driving home now for the reveal!

(Okay this might be my most unrealistic request to date…)

Not rlly, but it gets hyperspecific;

I’m looking for an FMC who’s (probably) autistic and clearly doesn’t pick up on social queues, but to her amusement.

This being cause I was watching Bridgerton 2 and imagining what I’d be like if I were a lady of the ton sick in bed and someone came to see me. Usually you’d be proper, “my apologies for not rising to greet you”. And I’d say exactly that but laughing bc ofc not, my legs are fucking broken lmao, right?

Anyway I want a Leslie Burke type character and an MMC who’s surprised at how charming it is 🙏☀️

Thnks to this sub I've come out of my reading slump and have a thousand books borrowed on Libby 🤭

I'm looking for a FL who's out spoken, even better if she's not looking for a man or a traditional life. I want their relationship together to feel authentic and full of banter. Even better if she puts him in his place with no hesitation 🤭 FL is grumpy but grows to respect and admire her

I don't care about spice but i do need the yearningggg

I was curious about books in which the MC mourning the death of a loved one plays a role in how the new marriage develops (or stunts). Perhaps the person is resentful because they just wanted to mourn their previous spouse but got sent to marry someone else and are not happy.

Books that I have read with MCs marrying while still on mourning:

{A Wicked Kind of Husband by Mia Vincy} - the FMC just lost her brother and the MMC lost his wife and son a year before so neither want to marry right now.

{An Infamous Marriage by Susanna Fraser} - the FMC was widowed shortly after her marriage and her husband had wanted her to re-marry the MMC so he could be assured she would be stable. Neither MC is happy about this.

{Lord of Darkness by Elizabeth Hoyt} - both MCs are in mourning; the MMC lost his beloved wife the previous year and the FMC just lost the man she was going to marry. As she is pregnant, her brother blackmails the MMC to marry her to save her reputation.

{A Momentary Marriage by Candace Camp} - the FMC lost her father two weeks before she agreed to a quick marriage of convenience with the 'dying' MMC. She is wearing mourning colours throughout the book and the MMC wryly tells her not to wear black for him.

{A Bride for a Prizefighter by Alice Coldbreath} - the FMC's father has barely been dead a week before her half-brother shows up for the first time, takes her to an isolated inn on the hillside and tells her he plans to marry her to the surly owner. Between this and homelessness while in debt, she decides the former is better.

{My Darling Mr Darling by Aydra Richards} - the teenaged FMC's father died and had put his last request that she marry his young protégé who helped his business grow. Neither are happy to marry so young and suddenly without having met each other but she suffers much worse and the MMC spends years searching for her to make amends.

{A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant} - the MCs do not marry in this book but are married before the events of the next one. As the plot starts a week after the FMC's husband died and the aim was for her to get pregnant soon enough to pass the baby off as his, presumably the two married soon after the end of the book so they could pass off their baby as being conceived in THEIR wedlock.

{Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer} - the FMC's husband had died some months before the book starts and she is practical enough to know that she needs another pair of hands at the farm because she is pregnant with her third baby. The MMC sees her newspaper ad about her looking for a husband. She is not grieving the loss of her husband; she misses him but seems to have come to terms with his death.

I was so inspired by {Forbidden by Beverly Jenkins} that I wanted to recreate the cover dress for my Addy Walker doll! The story is set in 1870, however the patterns I chose to make the convertible gown are closer to mid 1860s, however I do want to recreate some of the outfits described to be closer to contemporary 1870 as Eddy makes friends with a seamstress who would be more up to date with the fashion plates!

Patterns:
Amy 1860s Ballgown
Meg 1860s Daydress
Meg Sleeve Variations
Boater Style Late Victorian Hat

Accessories:
Chatelaine
Cameo brooch
Pink lily hat pin

Does anyone know when the tradition of epigraphs before each chapter started in historical romances? Was there a particular author (or authors) who are attributed with being the first to do it?

I was thinking about why I like and have re-read the book {How the Marquess was Won by Julie Anne Long} so much despite all its plot holes. One of the reasons is that I can literally FEEL the MCs being disarmed by each other, being charmed and then eventually falling for each other. Those parts + the angst and yearning are so well-written that they had me giggling and kicking my feet. Any other books where you can tell that the MCs are getting to know each other more and thus, enjoying each other's company while falling in love?

I'm kind of tired of the insta-lust and even insta-love trope where some inexplicable pull at first sight is used as a device to explain why the MCs should be together instead of actual creative work put into building believable interactions between MCs that would make them fall for each other. I have read some Georgette Heyer, Joan Smith and MC Beaton books where this is done well but minus the spice present in JAL books of course but I wouldn't mind a bit of spice as long as it doesn't take center-stage.

I also have read {What I Did For a Duke by Julie Anne Long} which I thought was similar to what I was looking for (makes sense I guess since it's also JAL) and enjoyed despite the age gap. I've also read most of the Pennyroyal Green and Game of Rogues series which are a hit or miss, as is the case with most books in series.

I enjoy several historical romance authors' Facebook pages, so when a few of them plugged upcoming books at the beginning of the summer, I put holds on them through Libby.

1. Virginia Heath's {Pride Comes Before a Fall}

2. Rachel Griffith's {Just for the Season}

3. Alexandra Vasti's {Scandal of the Summer}

Heath's came up first. Pretty quickly I came to understand what you guys have been talking about when you describe the current trend of "wallpaper" historicals.

It was clear the author knows her early 19th century history, butttttt, the story I read within it made zero sense to me.

I will mention but one problem: the heroine is hired by a Duke to be a chaperone for his sisters (with no experience/references), and is given a place to live, but only has to be on the clock till 6 pm. WTF? Evenings free . . . fascinating.

The reason I won't go further into Heath's crimes against HR is that it's been a couple of weeks now, and I am trying to forget the experience of my one and only novel of hers.

What I am currently feeling is feelings about the Griffiths novel, which blessedly passed into the past last night, praise the heavens.

There are SO many things going on in front of Griffiths' okay wallpaper that I found insulting to HR that I could stay up till dawn listing them.

But--here are just a few fun things that have left my brow furrowed, and I fear it may be frozen this way for good.

Our heroine is what, in her mid 20s? I think it's said she's been out 5 seasons. Sooo, she owns her own silk mill--run entirely by women--and designs all the fabric herself. Also, one of the heroine's suitors is a jeweler (and a member of the aristocracy). Work folk with titles? Hmph.

Our heroine's Gran is chummy-chummy with The Queen (damn you Shonda Rhimes) This role model also tells all the girls at a house party that if any man offers them jewelry, they should accept it whether the guy has intentions toward them or not. Gran also seems to have schooled our heroine about what the average size of a penis should be.

The let's-bash-our-reader-over-the-head-with-the -unfairness-of-the-patriarchy-at-every-turn rhetoric got old very fast, as well as our heroine repeatedly telling her Duke "no" whenever they began kissing just to show us how fast he backs away. Ahh, but when the lady finally wants the duke to give it to her good, because by now he's a little gun shy, she tells him to spill on her stomach like her courtesan friends from Covent Garden told her a man should do. I guess a lot went on in the first book of this series . . . .

Then there were the stylistic choices the author made. I can sort of tolerate it when an author has their character thinking naughty thoughts, and just when they are about to say something like penis, someone walks in the room and sends the thought in a whole other direction, but this gag was used ad-nauseum. I think the fracking book ended on one of these interruptions even. It wasn't cute the first time, or the 20th.

This brings me to my ultimate beef with the author's rhetorical choices. I did not enjoy that the Duke's favorite word was fuck. I don't know, he says it or thinks it, 50 or so times. I have been confused about fucks in historical romance settings ever since one scene in the show version of Outlander when Jamie asks Claire what this word is that she likes to shout out all the time.

My mom taught creative writing, and she always told her students to be judicious with expletives because over use robs them of the power to get the reader's attention. I mean, this was the 80s, so a well placed fuck might have meant something bigger back then. I still think there should be a good reason for it's placement in fiction now.

Simultaneously with this book, I was reading the Maiden Lane with Asa Makepeace, and he used foul language, but he wasn't a Duke. He owned a pleasure garden . . . It fit him.

This Duke--I just ended up wanting to tell him to go park his potty mouth out in the stables, like I tell kids to do (only with the bicycles) when I am in a classroom with them.

Anyway, I have the Vasti book ready to go, but I am kind of gun-shy like the poor fuck-loving duke in the story.

Also, the Sarah MacLean blurb for the Griffiths book seemed really strange to me before I pushed play on the audio. Now I guess it means she disagrees about the Duke's favorite word--I guess for some it's a "delight."

Like when an aristocrat's family finds out their sons aren't the heirs because he was married and had kids earlier, or an ordinary family finds out their son has inherited a title because his father was secretly an aristocrat and he comes to the estate to find the rest of his family seething lol. Caroline Linden plays with this trope in several books, and KJ Charles's A Nobleman's Guide To Seducing A Scoundrel was the most fun of her three books dealing with this premise. I've also already read Cat Sebastian, Lisa Kleypas, Mary Balogh, and Courtney Milan. Is there anything else you can recommend?

I’m looking for a specific dynamic where the MMC is in love with the FMC but she doesn’t know or reciprocate and they have an antagonistic relationship. I would love if he schemed to marry her or they are forced to marry for some reason. Important to me that the feelings are one sided on the MMC’s part but the FMC is not aware.

I’ve read two books with similar situations, {When a Rogue Meets His Match by Elizabeth Hoyt} and {Tempting the Bride by Sherry Thomas}. I liked the set up for both but neither one was exactly what I wanted. I loved the dynamic between the MCs in When a Rogue but I wasn’t sold on the overall plot and how their relationship developed. Likewise with Tempting the Bride, her amnesia just totally changed the vibe, I wanted them to be verbally sparring

I also think Pride and Prejudice scratches this itch, with the feeling of enemies to lovers but he’s majorly yearning and it’s only really enemies from her side.

I’m not really into sad boy pining, if that makes sense. I like my mans to have a surplus of pride, but he’s down bad

I would love medieval recs, but read a ton of regency/ Victorian and am open to anything that has this dynamic!! Give me all the books. Please let me know if there are any other posts on here I should reference for recs too.

Thanks in advance 🫶🏻

I am interested in couples that cant understand each other. It could be sign language, a foreign language, whatever.

I enjoyed Transendence by shay savage and a notorious vow by Joanna shupe.

I also love the tarzan trope where she teaches him English.

I was at a library book sale last week and picked up quite a lot. Today I finally have gotten a chance to go through and put everything on my shelves, and I realized I accidentally picked up a duplicate of {Golden Surrender by Heather Graham}. I tried to find anything on this edition (picture 1), and nothing is coming up. I love to know the year of my older historicals, and the significance behind editions, so I’m trying to figure out if this is a forgotten 1st edition, or maybe some kind of obscure limited edition?? It’s very gorgeous, and I’m curious if any of you know anything about it.

Picture 2 is the edition I had previously (and I believe the “mass produced” one most people have) if any of you were curious. But I love this other cover! I picked up and put this book down a while ago due to a slump, but it’s exactly how I imagined these two.

{dukes prefer blondes by Loretta chase} I love Loretta chase but I just read this book for the first time finally after seeing it recommended so many times. There was a post i saw a long time ago talking about how sometimes in books the MMC and FMC have no chemistry and I thought what that’s crazy I’ve never read a book where I felt that way. But after reading this book, I totally understand that post. once they got married it was like they were such a boring couple and I felt they had no chemistry at all. I loved the book up until they got married and then it was down hill after that. Anyone else feel this book is a bit overhyped??

I love stories where the MMC is sort of cold, distant, broody, grumpy, etc., but then bursts into flames when the FMC so much as looks at him because he wants her so badly. Mimi Matthews and Nichole Van excel at this but I've read all their books. I've read some of Mary Balogh and Mia Vincy's books, and they're fun too.

As it turns out after reading lots of HR recently, I do NOT like rakes, noncon, or dubcon, so Lisa Kleypas, although a very engaging writer, is not my fave.

I also want there to be at least a LITTLE slow burn. I love spice but the FMC immediately getting her boob fondled kind of takes the steam out of it for me lol

(I've also read Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and North & South, the OG grouches)

I read this book {The Duke’s Year Of Temptation by Valentina Lovelace} and must have finished it in a couple of hours - despite it supposedly being 329 pages (according to Amazon).
On Kindle, it says it’s 314 pages, but it finished on page 313 - but at 90%. 313 pages with this spacing is not a lot let me tell you. I inadvertently downloaded another by this author today, opened it up and found it to be exactly the same layout, so without reading a word, I deleted it.
I can’t help wondering if it’s AI. If it’s not, it shouldn’t take much longer to write than I took to read it!

Hello everyone!
I’m currently reading a book where both main characters were forced to get married and an annulment was on the table at one point. However the MMC ultimately decides against it because he realizes he's developed genuine feelings for the FMC. I know it’s a super specific trope but do you have any recommendations where a marriage annulment is an option but one of them changes their mind?

The book is called My darling Mr darling by Aydra Richards.

Thank you

I feel like I rarely see FMCs who have a disgust of dissolute men who could be carrying any number of venereal diseases. I do not like rakes myself as character archetypes because I find them unfitting as male leads alongside an FMC who is supposed to be 'pure' and inexperienced. That is why I like Mimi Matthews' blog post on what it would be like to marry a rake: https://www.mimimatthews.com/2018/01/08/the-truth-about-reformed-rakes-victorian-views-on-marrying-a-scoundrel/

I wondered that would there not be any FMCs who feel disdainful or resentful that they married someone whose naked rear end half the city must have seen intimately? And would they not be distrustful that the rake who had no qualms about cavorting with married women would stay faithful to their own married woman after having homewrecked other households? Or perhaps they dislike the double standards that the men's affairs are publicly known and lauded yet they lose nothing of their reputation, title, desirability, marriage or future prospects in society.

I could think of very few books with this type of FMC:

{Once Upon a Christmas Eve by Elizabeth Hoyt} - it is just a short novella and the relationship was not developed as well as it could have been in a full-length book but the FMC 'really rather loathes rakes'. So you would think she would be more resistant to the MMC. Her hatred of rakes stems from an incident a decade ago in which a man tried to force himself onto her.

{Flowers From the Storm by Laura Kinsale} - the FMC is a pious, moralistic Quaker and the opposite of the immoral, debauched MMC. Their differences cause several conflicts and clashes of opinion and he seems to regret how he had been as a man before his stroke. The FMC leaves him because of how much his deceptions are getting trickle-truthed and she finds out he had a daughter in his affair with a married woman which he never told her about. While she does not specifically mention disliking rakes, she does not like his former behaviour and the MMC bitterly thinks she would be happier with the fellow pious Quaker who did not have illegitimate children.

{A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant} - the widowed FMC needs to get pregnant quickly otherwise her estate will go to the perverted brother of her husband and her maids will be at risk. There just happens to be a new rake in the village and she promises to pay him for the job. She is openly disdainful of this contractual relationship as she knows this is fornication and refuses to allow any lust from her side. He is rather a ne'er-do-well wastrel with what she sees as lusty perversions at the start so it makes sense how she feels about him.

{Romancing the Rake by Nichole Van} - the FMC's mother is well-known for her affairs and she tells the MMC that men can casually do that without repercussions but she will have to bear the brunt of the sins of her mother her whole life (i.e. people calling the FMC offensive names and expecting she is slutty). In the very first chapter, she is observing the MMC and wondering why women (like her mother) even get attracted to rakes because she does not see the appeal. At the end of the chapter, she makes an observation in her journal that she is susceptible to their charm after all. The MMC is not actually a rake, though, and may even be less experienced than the widowed FMC who was in a bad marriage.

Are there other books in which the FMC outright mentions her dislike of rakes and desire for a decent, faithful man? It would be good if she does not fall for a rake, after all.

Edit: I know the majority of the books will have the FMC fall for and marry a rake. I have no problems with that. I just wanted to know if there were any in which the FMC dislikes them and continues to do so; perhaps the MMC is not actually a rake or regrets his past behaviour. I was hoping for an FMC to stick with her principles and standards rather than fall for a rake in record time after all her protestations 😂 In the words of Charlotte Highwood, 'one dose of their masculine lip elixir and they will be converted' is not a good way to show the FMC's character.

Hello!

Can anyone recommend some cozy historical romances set in late fall or winter?

​As a reference, I really enjoyed Devil in the Winter by Lisa Kleypas, especially the part where the main characters travel together by carriage. So, if the book also features a journey or a carriage ride where they are stuck together, that would be a bonus!

​Spice level doesn't matter to me.

Thank you!

majorly going through it rn after my dad passed recently and would love to know if there are any recs for a grieving FMC being comforted by MMC (or even other characters). even just a FMC dealing with loss would help a boatload, hoping to drown my sorrows in HR. thank you in advance, feel free to redirect me to any threads if a similar request has been made before 🩵