What Are The Best Mystery Romance Books Set In Victorian Times?

One of the most satisfying historical romances to read is one that defies most expectations of the genre. Courtney Milan’s The Duke Who Didn’t is a Regency romance about a Chinese-British duke who falls for a woman from a Hakka village in rural England. The woman makes sauce for a living. The book is joyful and funny and treats with depth the realities of being a person of color in 19th century England without letting that become too depressing for the romance at hand. The historical research about Hakka communities in England is great and very fresh. The novel follows the long-held crush of a man on a woman. He secretly identifies with her, and they share a common cultural heritage. It is a very warm, clever, and deeply romantic novel, which explores in a thoughtful manner the history of a people of color in a bygone era. In short, a perfect escape read that is also very perceptive.

Why choose a romance crime novel? For starters, ‘In the Woods’ by Tana French is a fantastic choice of romance crime novel. The desire between detectives Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox is as compelling as the murder of a young child that they are trying to solve. Then there’s ‘The Wife Between Us’ by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, another twisty and addictive love story. Add historical twist to the mix by grabbing ‘The Alienist’ by Caleb Carr, a chilling 19th century mystery set in New York that has subtle undertones of romance. Without exception the books of crime listed here show that even when you’re in the grip of the central plot of the book, love can creep in and keep you enthralled until the very end.

I have noticed many cozy mysteries follow this structure. There are many books with amateur female sleuths who run a bakery, are booksellers, or are librarians, and they fall in love with the local detective or sheriff. I call this sub-trope amateur female sleuths who are romantically involved with law enforcement. The Hannah Swensen series by Joanne Fluke featuring Mike Kingston is a great example of a good and also frustrating amateur female sleuth series.

The celebrated mystery writer Agatha Christie, is the best-selling author of all time. The two mystery novels that are possibly her best are ‘The ABC Murders’ and ‘Evil Under the Sun’. I personally really enjoy her work because it’s so cleverly written and she keeps sending the reader back to re-read the story in order to uncover little clues that have been hidden by the writer. Her influence extends to television, film and even other writers, and her books are a perfect combination of intellectual and entertaining read. Therefore Christie is the undisputed Queen of Mystery writing.

The Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray is another amazing YA novel that is good for adults too. It’s a historical fantasy mystery that takes place in 1895 and Gemma Doyle is a rebellious young girl fighting her visions, a mysterious magical order, and the strict rules of her boarding school. There’s a mystery surrounding Gemma’s mother’s death, a mysterious diary, and a hidden magical realm that Gemma must find. Gemma is an intuitive and powerful young girl who must fight against the repressive Victorian society around her, including the mundane and magical restrictions placed upon her. Bray looks at the topic of female desire and the bonds of friendship and the struggle to find power in these novels. I thoroughly enjoyed The Gemma Doyle Trilogy and found the setting of Spence Academy in the late 1800s to be claustrophobic and perfect for a Gothic style of mystery. As a main character, Gemma isn’t always likable, but you can’t help but root for her because she is so passionate and determined. I think what makes Gemma the strongest character in the trilogy is her friendships with her girls and how together they are able to push up against the boundaries set upon them in order to discover themselves and their place in the world.

I really liked the audiobook for Dearest Milton James by NR Walker, and Madison Square Murders by C.S. Poe. The narrator for the big bad wolf series by Charalie Adhara ends up being amazing by the end of the series, but the first book is not great. He really improved after that tho if you’re willing to try it.

Instead of going for an original plot/romance hybrid, dig around for historical unsolved crimes or really unusual court cases and write a mystery around them. Then determine what two people would have to work together in order to solve the real mystery. For example, a by-the-book archivist and a rebellious historian searching for evidence of a century-old theft, or a modern-day linguist and a modern-day security expert trying to crack a new cipher that was hidden in Victorian love letters. The mystery itself and the reason the two characters are working together lends itself to creating unique and fresh plot points, as well as making the romance between the two characters grow out of their differences and their obsessive goal to solve the mystery.

I am also referring to Julia Quinn’s pre-Netflix Bridgerton books. While these have been made gorgeously visual for the series, the books are primarily dialogue-driven. So, for example, the pall-mall scene in The Viscount Who Loved Me is a fantastic scene of competitive flirtatiousness and witty repartee, far more accessible than Georgette Heyer’s terrifically-witty repartee but equally consistently charming and character-revealing. Another author with very clever dialogue is Mary Balogh. Often her dialogue is even more subtle than Quinn’s and is used to reveal deep emotions. Balogh’s dialogue is quiet and witty and often used to observe others or to slowly reveal to the reader the hero/heroine’s growth as they slowly break down their walls to each other. A wonderful example of this is ‘Slightly Married’ from her Bedwyn series.

Oh, the novels of Renaissance romance are just so beautifully, magically crafted to contain so much passion and politics and poetry. One of my absolute favorites of all time has to be The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster, which, yes, is rather outside the mainstream of typical romance novels in being very dark indeed. Yet it is such an utterly fascinating and so very intense novel, and this particularly in terms of its exploration of the power of love. Written as it was by a playwright (of another epoch), the novel offers a powerful sense of drama, and remains as forceful and as moving as ever. As for arcadian romance, Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit by John Lyly is another absolute treasure, above all for the dialogues which are so full of wit and of sparkle. For a more grounded exploration of the tortured conflicting feelings of love, however, it would be hard to think of anything better than Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney. The rather cardboard characters in this sprawling, rather idealized novel of a half-dozen or so love stories all involving rather knight-like shepherds are so beautifully and imperiously mapped out against the backdrop of a completely fictional idyllic rural context, with all their conversations consisting of the sharpest and wisest repartee, and their glances at each other swimming with hidden meanings. Another different approach to the romance novel of the Renaissance era is found in ‘Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit’ by John Lyly. Most readers would consider it to be outside the genre of romance yet there are many great dialogues regarding the complexities of love and friendship. For something totally different, maybe one of the most celebrated poems of the Renaissance era would be ‘The Faerie Queene’ by Edmund Spenser. Written as an allegorical romance featuring knights, damsels, enさ chantresses and fantastical quests, it is a magnificent read with lots of romance woven throughout the very moral tales of the imaginary land of Faerie. Yes, it is written in a very rich and dense language but after a while you can fall into its rhythm and be transported by a mighty wave of beautiful poetry. I love Renaissance romances, including their imperfections. The great love stories of the past are not as neat as modern tales with happy endings. Rather, they are fraught with the agony and politics of love and contain many unpredictable human interactions. Every time I return to a book I have read before, I discover something new about the human experience and the time period in which the author lived.

Check out the ‘Miss Mallard Mystery’ series by Robert Quackenbush (an older series, but still so cute and full of so much charm). Miss Mallard is a duck detective that travels around the world to solve mysteries in different locations. In each book you get a little taste of the geography and culture of the country/ place she is investigating. The mysteries are really clever and I always find out who done it before the end is revealed. The illustrations are so classic and cozy. I have a bunch of these at my house that I got at a used bookstore. My kid loves to read about the little adventures of Miss Mallard and her friends. These are great for introducing kids to the world traveler detective archetype.