Which Best Story Books For Adults Blend Romance With Historical Settings?

Sherry Thomas' Lady Sherlock 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.

Another indirect source of book literature are book blogging communities. Many book bloggers receive advance review copies (ARCs) of upcoming releases. The bloggers then review the books within a set time frame and after that, they often host a giveaway for the physical or e-book copy. So, by following your favorite historical romance book bloggers on Twitter or on Instagram, you can get entered for the giveaways of newly released books by authors whose books the blogger seems to like. Not as easy as going to a library and checking out a book on the spot, but very fun to win a newly released book by a favorite author and to discover a new blogger with similar tastes.

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.

Project Gutenberg has an 'interactive fiction' section with a number of classic choose-your-own-adventure style gamebooks from Project Gutenberg. While not exactly interactive fiction in the modern sense, some of the books, such as the ‘Lone Wolf’ series and ‘Heart of Ice’ are classics of the genre and have complex stories with a surprising amount of player control. Reading them online through an interpreter that handles the page turning and inventory management for you makes them easy to read. For adults interested in the roots of interactive storytelling, the ‘interactive fiction’ section of Project Gutenberg is a rich and free resource. Often the prose is dense and the challenges to the player are merciless and need to be solved through careful planning and mapping of the game world.

Within the romance novels field I currently specialize in translated novels originally published in other languages (Korean webnovels, Japanese light novels, Chinese danmei novels). Getting hold of a free legal copy of such a novel is not as easy as it is with English language novels. Most webnovels are serialized, and even completed ones are rarely translated and made available for free, especially when they are official translations. (Exceptions are made when there is an anime adaptation for example.) Once more, your best bet for accessing free translated romance would be your local library, as some systems have started adding titles from platforms such as OverDrive’s Global Chinese collection, or even partner with comic and app services that offer translated webnovels. Demand for translated novels is up in recent years, but as of now there is still not as much access as there is to English-language romance novels. Free samples of novels from official aggregator sites for translated novels are typically how you can look at free samples of a specific sub-genre before you buy it.

Drinking sips of coffee while reading through the thread. You guys have given me so many more books to add to my TBR. My wallet is hurting right now. I think I'll just start with the one that has the prettiest cover for now. Judge me.

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.

'Chandler Legacies', Abdi Nazemian's novel about five students at a boarding school in the 1990s, focuses on Beth who is stuck in limbo not knowing how to express her hidden love for her roommate Sarah. But this unrequited love is fraught with much silence and fear of detection from the faculty and the rest of the student body. However, with secret after-school writing sessions led by Beth, she finds solace and support from her fellow struggling students, resulting in the novel portraying finding one’s voice not only creatively but also personally. The main love story is but one of many interlocking friendships, of other secret hopes and traumatic memories of all of the five main characters, but above all an exploration of silence, fear, secrets and hidden expressions of love, aching to be free in times when such love could not be openly uttered or acknowledged – it’s all such to carefully be hidden and thus, sometimes, to be deliberately and very carefully codified and expressed in subtle yet clear gestures of endearment.

Does the shift to digital publishing change the way that historical western romances are written? I’ve noticed that many of these are written in a serialized fashion for platforms such as Kindle Vella or Radish, with short, tight chapters written to be read on a phone in short bursts of time. The pacing of such a story is often fast, and there are many more cliffhangers than in a typical novel. I’ve been following along with one author’s historical western romances, and her stories are set up in much the same way as a weekly TV drama would be. Each chapter ends with a question or a revelation of some kind. It’s an incredibly engaging read, almost interactive, and many readers comment on the end of each episode. Not a traditional novel by any stretch of the imagination, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be a really satisfying way to read historical western romances. The full story is almost always released as an ebook, but reading it as it’s written is an entirely unique experience.