Score

Books #48-65 are books I've added to the list.

Glad to see this list growing. The more, the better! :)

I added a couple as well. :D It’s such a romance-reading culture shock to see all the different eras & non-titled heroes on this list. 💜 Nowadays everything is some lame Regency duke + the same self-insert heroine, blah blah blah.

Sarah Mac wrote: "I added a couple as well. :D It’s such a romance-reading culture shock to see all the different eras & non-titled heroes on this list. 💜 Nowadays everything is some lame Regency duke + the same sel..."

Wait... you read Lovefire? Why didn't I see that before? I freaking loved that one. Medieval historicals are my weakness and that one was filled with enough insanity and history to keep me dancing with joy. That was a black hole book for me. And the beautiful cover!

Sarah Mac wrote: "I added a couple as well. :D It’s such a romance-reading culture shock to see all the different eras & non-titled heroes on this list. 💜 Nowadays everything is some lame Regency duke + the same sel..."

I don't think I can read another modern Regency unless I got paid to do it. What the critics love, I snooze at. I know Zebras were mostly shit, but at least they *tried,* you know? These anachronistic historicals with modern manners, angst, and instalust...I just can't with them. Why don't readers demand more variety? Or at least a little authenticity in history? I don't mean hairy pits, bad teeth, and pregnancies every year, just some characters who are products of their eras and don't act like 21st century mouthpieces.

Girl, preach it! You could copy & paste that rant into virtually every review I write for neo-historical romance. There are a (very) few exceptions, but 99.9% of the new releases are just absolute rubbish. It’s weird you should say it that way, b/c in an unrelated thread Blue Falcon & I just talked about how even a bad vintage Zebra is at least trying & deserves credit for that much. :D

And yes, I read LOVEFIRE late last year. It was very good—4.5 stars, & yeah, definitely an attention-black-hole type read. I ended up replacing my tattered swap copy with a keeper copy. 👍🏻

Sarah Mac wrote: "Girl, preach it! You could copy & paste that rant into virtually every review I write for neo-historical romance. There are a (very) few exceptions, but 99.9% of the new releases are just absolute ..."

Good ole BF, reading Zebra after Zebra, like a romance prospector shaking pans of dirt, sifting for those rare nuggets of gold. Though they may be hard to find, some do exist, and that's why we keep searching.

I'm a broken record, I know, it's such a damn shame historical nu-romances are so bleh and repetitive. Although we might be a cult-niche, there is an untapped market for genuine historical romances set in unique (can’t say exotic anymore) locales & eras, w/ bits of OTT fun, & plots that actually lead somewhere.

Old-style pulp has been making a comeback for a while: detective mysteries, sci-fi, & westerns, down to the tone, the violence, even the lurid covers. These readers just want fun reads and they are getting that.

Genre fiction’s main purpose is to entertain. If HR writers want to add social themes, great, just try to keep it in historical perspective. If they’re going to write a total historical fantasy, that’s fine, too. I appreciate HR authors who invent fictional settings, that way they can create whatever society & people they want.

I’m a bit envious of my GR friends who read mainly contemporary romances and have plenty of options to choose from. So many 4 & 5 star reads. With nu-historicals it’s the same-old-same-old in plots, tropes, characters, book titles, yada, yada, yada.

Worse, are a few popular authors who are considered "innovative," but it's like the Emperors' New Clothes for me. Sure they can "write well." They're also contemptuous of the eras in which their stories are set or they transform the past into something it wasn't. And that would be fine... if they didn't take themselves so damned seriously. On the one hand, more “authentic voices” are called for, instead, history is made "inauthentic" by inserting modern issues, attitudes, or mores. I could go on forever about this. Forgive the rant, but this grinds my gears and then some!

Sarah Mac wrote: "And yes, I read LOVEFIRE late last year. It was very good—4.5 stars, & yeah, definitely an attention-black-hole type read. I ended up replacing my tattered swap copy with a keeper copy. 👍🏻"

I wish Deana James' backlist was released in e-book format. She never wrote the same story twice and her heroines were a special kind of strong; they had fortitude and endurance. Not every book was a keeper, but Lovefire was. It transported me to another world.