A Goodreads user asked Elizabeth Hoyt:

I love your Maiden Lane series! It's one of my favorite romance series out there. I was just wondering, how do you do most of your research for the different historical aspects of your novels? And would you consider it more difficult to write a historical romance as compared to a contemporary one because of the research involved?

Elizabeth Hoyt I'm so glad that you're enjoying my Maiden Lane series, Elena! ;-)

I do two kinds of research: ongoing--which means I like visiting art museums, reading books on the time period, etc. Recently my family visited Vienna, for instance, and I spent two days in the art museum. I was particularly enthralled by the collection of jeweled mechanical toys/curios. I'll probably be featuring some in an upcoming book.

The second kind of research is when I have a particular question. Then I do a lot of Googling mostly, although I do have a collection of research books to refer to.

I don't know if writing historicals is more difficult than, say, contemporary romances--both need research. I do think that the historical writer needs to have an historical "voice"--her writing needs to sound like it could be from the time period she's writing in. That's rather more heard to teach/learn than simple research.

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