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mermaidsirennikita · 2 years

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I think that the perception that historical romance may somewhat come from a lot people literally thinking of historical romance as just old "romance" books. And not like 80s bodice rippers I'm talking stuff like Austen. Around when Bridgerton was coming I saw a lot people saying that the only historical romance they have read was Austen and a few of them would elaborate they haven't read any "modern" historical romance and by that they meant Bridgerton type books. I think it also didn't help that they were selling Bridgerton as Pride and Prejudice meets Gossip Girl...which...lol.

God the Pride and Prejudice x Gossip Girl marketing is probably going to affect the genre for .... a while. Like, tbh? I don't love a *ton* of the more recent stuff I've been reading in HR. I have my niche authors, I have the people I know will get it done, but a lot of more recent books are... trying very hard to sell the beta hero, who just doesn't work very well in HR, FOR ME, or they're trying to be what Bridgerton was. Light (in a subgenre that has so much going on that I think it is hard to be truly light) and chatty and low stakes and... I prefer drama. That's why I gravitate more towards Kleypas/MacLean/Byrne/Hoyt, etc.

That's a good point though. I'm not even sure if Austen should be categorized as romance. She pre-dated genre romance as we know it today. Certainly, she was an inspiration..... so were authors like Charlotte and Emily Bronte, and I definitely would not say that they wrote anything near genre romance. Austen and the Brontes are in the backbone of modern romance, but they weren't romance novelists, certainly not as we know them today.

Modern historical romance (and tbh, a lot of tropes in modern romance in general) can be traced more to The Flame and The Flower by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. This was published in 1972; a far cry from Austen's day, obviously. (By the way--if you wanna get mad, like I am about how a lot of people don't realize how important Woodiwiss was in general as a writer, know that she got paid the equivalent of under $10,000 2021 for it, and 4% of the royalties.). Women's lib was happening, social classes had changed dramatically. Woodiwiss was writing a story, more modeled after movies, to give women an escape. Austen was writing a commentary on society during her day. And of course, one of Woodiwiss's major contributions was her depiction of sex on the page. Darcy and Lizzie.... don't even kiss. While there's a lot of closed door romance out there today, I would wager that they've been more influenced by Woodiwiss than Austen.

#romance novel blogging

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