OK, my answer to today’s ask is: “Why can’t there be more Ms. Chases?”
I am a serious fan as are many AAR reviewers and readers. We’ve reviewed her 25 times and given her 17 DIKS. Not to mention the fact that Lord of Scoundrels was chosen as the top choice in AAR’s Top 100 Romance Polls four times and, in the last poll, came in second.
Lately, I’ve been rereading some of my old favorites. I’ve laughed my way through Lord Perfect, probably my favorite of hers; marveled at her powerful and yet light-handed portrayal of class politics in Dukes Prefer Blondes, and marveled at her prose in Ten Things I Hate About the Duke.
How about you? Are you w a i t i n g (it’s been forever) for her next one desperately? If you love her, what is your favorite? And if you want to take this space to rail against Lord of Scoundrels, it’s a free country. Inquiring minds…..
The first official romance I ever read was Mr. Impossible, and that sent me diving into the genre, wondering how I could have missed this treasure trove all these years. Mr. Impossible still remains my favorite book by Ms Chase, but that may be colored by its being the first read. I also love Lord Perfect, Captives of the Night, The Last Hellion, Dukes Prefer Blondes… In short, I’ve never not enjoyed one of her books.
Ms Chase is, as far as I’m concerned simply the best writer of Historical Romance, period.
My favorite has always been The Last Hellion – gets to me every time I re-read it!
For some reason, it didn’t wow me when I read it years ago. I think I need to give it another go.
I’ve read several Chase novels, and for me they’ve all ranged from good to great. My absolute favorites thus far have been Lord Perfect and Knaves’ Wager. I do really like Lord of Scoundrels as well, despite how bonkers/melodramatic it is. 🙂 I absolutely cannot wait for the next Difficult Dukes book to come out!
Mr. Impossible is my hands-down favorite Loretta Chase. Who wouldn’t want to be involved with Rupert Carsington, that to-die-for irrepressible rascal with a heart of gold who falls for our heroine? Love everything about this book. Lord Perfect is a close second, and The Last Hellion is a very close third. I like just about all of Loretta Chase books but am not sure that Lord of Scoundrels is even in my top five. Why can’t there be more Loretta Chases–intelligent, witty, informative, clever writers who don’t speak down to their readers?
I need to re-read The Last Hellion.
The prologue is a killer. Have a box of tissues on hand.
That’s one of the few times I actually cried over a book.
Why can’t there be more Loretta Chases–intelligent, witty, informative, clever writers who don’t speak down to their readers?
This x 1000%. KJ Charles is about the only other author of HR who ticks all those boxes.
Did you read Forever Your Rogue? She checked all those boxes for me. She told me it took her two years to write the book and it shows.
I haven’t – I was planning to pick it up in audio, but I can’t stand the female narrator, so that’s out. I’ll have to try to squeeze it in in print at some point.
That and The Worst Woman In London are both very good.
Loretta Chase is one of my top ten–perhaps top five romance authors. In fact, I just reread “The Last Hellion” for maybe the fourth time. I love the dynamic between the protagonists and the carriage race competition is priceless. I have read most of her other books as well. She is such a great writer. I need more books from her. Can we get together a petition?
She decided she needed to rewrite her upcoming–no pub date as yet–next book in her Difficult Dukes series. I NEED IT NOW!!!
She posted Sept 14 that her new book is progressing in a ‘sane manner’ and if all goes well, it will be finished by the end of this year. She has no idea yet when the publisher will schedule the release.
Yes, yes, yes to everything everyone else has said in praise of Chase. As far as my favorite goes, it is always the book I’ve just finished reading. Lord Perfect, The Last Hellion, Dukes Prefer Blonds, Mr. Impossible. . . So many hours of such great reading.
Absolutely solid, fantastic writer.
Uneven. The first half of LoS is, of course, nearly perfect (the second half is generic HR and 4 stars) and Lord Lovedon’s Duel and The Jilting of Lord Rothwick also make my reread list but I have DNFed the other 9 books of hers I’ve tried.
As my mom always says, it takes all kinds of people to make a world!
I agree. I have read pretty much her entire oeuvre—it is a mixed bag. To paraphrase Mae West, when she is good, she’s very good. When she’s bad, she’s not better :). Overall though, she’s a cut above the rest.
I love Loretta Chase.
She is on my reread list when I just need comfort and warmth.
(Like very old JAK – though more reliable, some JAKs are wallbangers.)
I do not have a LC book I dislike, though some are weaker to me.
What my current reread showed me is how – over her years of writing – her newer books struggle more with the limitations women face she more. How she pulls out the infantilization of women in a thoughtful way – not just crazy adventurous ladies, but also ladies who chafe at the restrictions, and who demand respect in a period adequate way.
I have a completely unfounded theory that she struggles with there last series so much because she cannot reconcile a period HEA with her own evolving views of unbearable restrictions on women in that period. I read her last one (10 Ways…) as already struggling a lot in that way. She tries and tries and succeeds to some extent, but in the end, her father can decide about Cassandra’s fate and has to agree. So, the HEA is fully period adequate, but leaves a bitter aftertaste in my mouth.
What a marvelous insight. I think you are right and it is to her credit that she isn’t resolving that tension with a fictional magic wand as many other HR authors are.
I think that I like her books a lot. And she is a sure thing when you want something historical, light and with a certain charm, full of sparkle and wit. There was a time when historical romance had wonderful new things, the early days of Sherry Thomas or Courtney Milan. But now, what is published in historical romance disappoints me. I don’t know what the readers see in those books. These great authors like Milan follow paths that I do not follow, and Kleypas seems to be on a hiatus. And what happened to Meredith Duran or Cecilia Grant? So nowadays I’m looking to the backlists of authors like Chase or Putney or Balogh. Perhaps it’s just a matter of age. I don’t know, but now, I tend to read, in historical, things from years ago. Loretta Chase’s books are some of my favorites in the light historical romance books.
I don’t know what is happening with me and historical romance novels. This is something different from other genres, I love many romantic suspense novels that are published these years. And in the male/male romance I find a freshness that has dissappeared in many of the M/F romance.
It’s not just you, Bona. I could have written exactly the same words about the current state of HR.
I’m so happy to know that I am not alone in this.
Nope, it’s not just you. A lot of the people I follow or are friends with on Goodreads have given up on current HR as well, for similar reasons. Much of it is about 21st century characters in period dress.
I think about the utter drubbing we got after our last poll and I wonder if many superb historical romances authors have simply opted out of being taken to task for not being progressive enough.
I do think there’s an element of that. I know from talking to some authors – and from conversations you and I have had over the last few years, that writing heroines who were as socially restricted as women of the upper classes were in the 19th cenutry has become… ‘undesirable’, shall we say. Yet, when you look at Chase, Thomas, Duran, Milan, Linden and authors like Carla Kelly and Mary Balogh, they have all managed to do that while creating great stories in which their heroines are still individuals while operating mostly within those confines. I don’t know if it’s simply that many of today’s HR authors are just not sufficiently grounded in the social history of the time – I always say that if you’re going to break the rules, you have to be very familiar with them first – or simply aren’t skilful enough to be able to create those kinds of characters and stories. Or those who are still trad.published are encouraged not to “because women in the 21st century don’t want to read about heroines who can’t step outside the house without a chaperone”. (My eldest daughter is 24 and an historian specialising in gender history -she’s a 21st century woman who doesn’t want to read contemporary characters in period dress.) And the trouble is that the newer generation of writers are being influenced by the current ones (I won’t name names, but we know who they are) so the art of real HR is – largely – being lost.
According to my GR shelves, I’ve read 3 times as many “contemporary” books as “historical” ones. (Both of those shelves contain mystery/suspense books as well as romances.) That statistic makes me hesitant to step in here, but it seems to me that it’s not only heroines who are getting a modern day makeover, to a lesser degree the heroes are too. It seems newer historicals have a fair number of very progressive men.
Very true. One of the really big debates going on right now in places like the National Trust is about how far they should be explaining the rea history of its sites to visitors, i.e, that much like the billionaires of today, most of the aristocracy didn’t make their money in ways that were squeaky-clean. (Sadly the NT has been drawn into the culture wars and is accused of “wokery”.) I can understand its a difficult issue to address in romance of any stripe – people don’t generally get that rich by breing nice. I do know of at least one gentleman who set up a village and businesses with a view to providing decent conditions for people, (I’ll try to find details**) but it was not common and I believe he faced a lot of opposition. Which is a long way round to say that you’re right!
**ETA – Sir Titus Salt. His village of Saltaire was one of the inspirations for Marguerite Kaye in His Runaway Marchioness Returns.
What we are referring to historical romance here is fiction set in 19th century England, especially the Regency period. The problem with romances set in period is that American authors dominate that genre and they have little sense of the place or the lives of the people of that period. They don’t lack in imagination, only in accuracy and authenticity. They project on to 19th century England what they know of 19th century America. I have often wondered if they have even read in any depth 19th century British literature. And most irritating of all, they don’t even get the language right ( I just finished a mystery romance set in late Victorian period and one of the characters expresses concern about ‘the steep learning curve in the new job’). How much more absurd can it get?
19th century in America was very repressive for women too!
You beat me to it – if anything, late 19thC upper class American society was just as, if not more restrictive than British! (I’m basing that solely on having read a lot of Edith Wharton, btw!)
Careless language fail really annoys me! I often see authors on SM bemoaning the fact that a word or expression they want to use wasn’t around during the period they’re writing in; if they can do the research, so can others.
But 19th century America did not have royalty or the aristocracy. However oppressive it was for women then, America was different from England of the same period. The closest America came to having an aristocracy was during the gilded age (late 19th century) but then, it was small numerically and only powerful in the northeast. American women had more freedom of movement, pursued professions (Louisa May Alcott who also published in her own name) divorced and had affairs (Edith Wharton), moved abroad to be an artist (Mary Cassatt). Mia Vincy, an american author, in her novel A Scandalous Kind of Duke, had the daughter of a gentleman, move to Vienna at the age of eighteen to become an artist who also did nude painting. Aristocratic or gently bred English women of 19th century women did not move to Europe to become artists, set up shop back in England and then marry the duke. It works wonderfully in Vincy’s nimble hands but is not real. Inspiration for these story lines come from real American examples but then superimposed on 19th century aristocratic England.
If we accept the non-negotiable pre-condition of HEA for all romances, the term ‘historical romance’ is an oxymoron, especially for heterosexual romances, given the extreme gender inequality and denial of personal and property rights to women. In fact, Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility presents a very realistic picture of the fate that awaited women who transgressed the gender norms of that period; she did not spare her men either. Then she undermined the central argument of that novel by following up with the fantasy of Pride and Prejudice. All western historical romances are fantasy of one kind or the other, determined to give their readers an improbable HEA and, in order to do so, they have to put contemporary men and women speaking contemporary American English in period English clothes.
Interesting. Thank you!
I also wonder whether young persons who grew up with internet and smartphones can still write a period feel historical because:
-> with a smartphone and therefore all the world’s knowledge within their instant grasp
-> plus practically no waiting for anything ever since you can plan so much right down to the last minute if everybody has a phone
they might not even conceive of the small daily difficulties and delays we all had just 20 years ago. Waiting for people who were late or did not show … all the time you had that problem!
And the ignorance!
-> you could not just look up everything, so having names and dates and poem quotes in your head was valuable.
-> you could lose sight of a person and never find them again because you had no address, or did not know their married name etc.
Sometimes, I think that these factors just kicked us out of the frame of reference needed for historicals. And that older authors, such as Mary Balogh, still understand viscerally about the times needed to cook, to clean, to mend, to travel and so they can still deliver more period feel than younger authors.
But that may be just foolish and maybe my grandmother would complain about the obvious inauthenticity of an Edith Layton, Balogh or Chase book ….
My highest grade for a Loretta Chase book has gone to Ten Things I Hate About the Duke, which was an A even in print. I’ve given A’s to other of her books, but that was usually rounded up to include the incredible narrations by Kate Reading. The only other Chase book I’ve given a A outright to is Miss Wonderful.
I’ve definitely enjoyed many other books, but they usually get B+, rounded up for the A grade narrations. Lord of Scoundrels was entertaining, but not my favorite. I’ve never read or listened to Lord Perfect, but I may have to remedy that.
Carrie, you HAVE to read Lord Perfect. It’s funny and sweet and smart—so good. It’s one of my all time favorite romances, period. (I don’t know who the narrator is for audio.)
Kate Reading!
Have to give a shout out to Not Quite A Lady since it hasn’t been mentioned yet. I absolutely love that book. Beautiful prose and a fascinating, interesting, original heroine.
I feel the same about Laura Kinsale, Sherry Thomas, and a handful of other romance novelists. I’m very depressed whenever I read a new historical, because they’ve sort of inched away from the things that make stories great.
I am sorry I am late to this discussion. I’ve read 3 books by LC, based on AAR reviews. Frankly, I don’t get the love for Lord of Scoundrels. I found the last third over the top absurd and not in a good way. I also read her last 2 books, A Duke in Shining Armor and Ten Things I Hate About the Duke. Those were entertaining but not memorable. Analyzing it, I think I’m just about done with Regency era HR. I’ve read so many, and there gets to be a sameness to it all. I’m sick of the rakes and the virgins. The Dukes and the Earls falling for penniless girls.
As others have noted, the frequent anachronisms in HR make me cringe. Why read any work of historical fiction if all you get is contemporary folks in costume? Yet if you read something which is truly and authentically historical, then there are harsh realities you need to include, many of which are not romantic at all.
My complaints extend to m/m HR as well. I just finished KJ Charles’ The Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel. I read about them having sex in the earl’s bed, the moaning and cries of passion, and I wonder about the servants and other residents of the house. Don’t they notice the spunk when they strip the bed? Don’t they hear anything? Isn’t it obvious when the guys are making googly eyes at each other?
The best HR writer for me these days is Cat Sebastian, who is writing 20th century stories in a really interesting way. Her latest book, We Could Be So Good, was lovely, and I will definitely be rereading that one.
About the servants: that’s actually the only realistic depiction of how it was with the English aristocracy. The domestic staff were treated as invisible menials just there to do the dirty work of cleaning up after their masters and mistresses. There was a hierarchy within the domestic staff: the butlers, housekeepers and valets were treated a little better than the maids and footmen.
I have to believe that at times enterprising servants could use their invisibility to their advantage, gathering information and then passing it on in order to curry favor or get back at someone who had not treated them well. This rarely happens in HR, but I bet it happened in real life. I think HR would be more interesting if it incorporated the actions, views and lives of servants.
It definitely happens in real life. In societies where using domestic help is common, servants do know a lot about their employers.
Becky, I don’t know if you have had the chance to watch Downton Abbey(or Upstairs, Downstairs circa 1971), but I think both shows catch the synergy of what happens between staff and the people they serve beautifully. You are right that the servants would know and could (and sometimes did) blackmail employers over it. While outsiders to the house would often treat them as invisible, they were not invisible to the family they served. The mistress of the manner would have kept a careful eye on the ladies’ maids, the head housekeeper, the head cook – she worked closely with them. She didn’t treat them as equals – which happens far too often in an Avon romance – but nor were they nameless, shapeless ghosts to anyone in the household. Even Hill is named in P and P.
Maggie, I was a devoted watcher of Downton Abbey, and have visited some stately homes where we toured the servants quarters, kitchen, etc, and that really helped me think about the servants’ lives a bit more. Hauling big meals up and down stairs, dealing with cleaning all the huge, overdecorated rooms, etc etc. I also recently listen to the wonderful book by Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day. He does a fantastic job of depicting a butler who has devoted his life to service who realizes that his employer, despite his title and riches, was not worthy of his devotion. I need to watch the movie, and I should also watch Upstairs, Downstairs because I know it is a classic.
Remains of the Day is just an amazing movie. Absolutely stunning visuals, and the performances by Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins were fabulous. I strongly recommend it. Kazu Ishiguro did an interview when the movie came out that talked about the relationship between the staff and the family of the house that was informative and intriguing. It’s been years since I’ve seen it but I remember being so impressed by all he said.
I also think those servants fortunate enough to have found an employer who treated them decently would want to keep working for the where possible and would probably be prepared to keep secrets in order to do so. In that particular book, its made clear that the servants would rather work for Rufus than his scheming uncle, and that the remote location offers few alternative employment options – other than becoming free traders!
I am a huge KJ Charles fan, so it pains me to be disappointed in her writing, but this one required too much suspension of disbelief for me to enjoy it. Realistically, Rufus did not know what was in the minds of his servants, yet he was willing to trust his very freedom to their goodwill. Hiring Luke and allowing him to live in the house was truly illogical, and tumbling into bed with him when he catches Luke wandering the place at night? Just plain dumb, IMHO. I really hope her next book is a return to form, because she’s really been terrific for many books in a row.
Yes, in many cases it was a life of complete drudgery, with the only alternative being destitution. It was in their interest to keep quiet and deal with the crusty sheets!
My grandmother was ‘in service’ in her youth and would never talk about it.
In Amanda Quick’s Ravished, the hero has a bad reputation among the Ton due to a misunderstanding. He is surprised to learn that he has a good reputation among the tradesmen because he pays all his bills promptly and in full. It enables him to hire – and trust – a Bow Street Runner to help him solve a crime. I believe completely that a good employer could earn the loyalty of his staff – but not by treating them like invisible nobodies as was mentioned in this thread earlier.
You make many excellent points in your post. 🙂 I’ve found myself also feeling that too many authors are leaning into familiarity when writing romance, so I often think, “This again?” when I pick up a novel. I personally don’t believe it is the HEA that is causing this, but the idea there are only a handful of ways to reach an HEA which causes us to have books which are perfectly fine but in no way memorable or distinguishable.
The frequent anachronism in HR (especially in the Regency era) have caused me to essentially drop this subgenre from my reading. I agree that the books lose their purpose if they are just contemporary folks in costume. When I read a historical, I want to read about how someone who lived a very different life than me found her happy ending. I want to read about her successes when the odds were against her and how she circumnavigated the rules designed to keep her down. I want to read how she claimed her power in a household where the law said she had none (a lot of women were treated as equals by their husbands, even if the law didn’t say they were). I don’t need someone to be like me, to hold the same opinions, or to live my same modern life to be interested in them. But I do need to read something authentic, something that shows me how she reached an HEA in a world that really doesn’t always give us one.
I’ve said this before, but what you describe is what I’ve always regarded as the real challenge of writing historical romance – crafting a believable relationship at a time when women faced so many social restrictions.
Well said, Maggie! I think a truly creative writer willing to immerse themselves into a time period fully could find riches from which to craft a variety of compelling and authentic stories, some of which might even feature servants in a realistic way.
The over reliance on tropes makes books predictable and boring. Contemporary romance and all the other subgenres suffer from too many manufactured stories. It’s like a formula: (Grumpy+Older + Successful) X (Sunshine + Younger + Struggling) + Family Drama/Trauma + Workplace Stuff= HEA. The best books do not use formulas, from the Spymasters Lady to Flowers from the Storm to Heated Rivalry, etc. They start with unique characters and follow their lead, building the story around them.
I think Dabney is right when she mentions below that many authors are concerned these days about backlash. That leaves the genre with writers who fear to do something new lest they ruin their careers and readers who are growing increasingly bored with reading the same old stuff.It’s a sad situation.
Add to that fear the abysmally low money most authors make–one can see why many wonder why bother to publish?
More than questioning the role of servants, I now more often question the role of religion in historicals. A lot of writers could mine that source of plot nuances, but they don’t. Whether that is based on the writers’ preferences or the writers’ assumptions about reader preferences, I don’t know. Any number of Georgian and Regency novels proceed without the characters ever setting foot in a church. But it is another example of contemporary attitudes influencing historical writing.
I completely agree.
Many of the dilemmas faced by the heroine about virtue, or the hero about war, just to name some of the most outstanding plot points in historicals, in terms of morals (hero facing war, heroine needing to decide about love vs. duty) were seen in terms of religion at the time.
It is part of why many books now feel like people in period costume: the inner working of people without religion is different than with. Agency on my values vs. received values from a source of truth, and obedience to those values.
Older historicals still get that (Roberta Gellis was excellent at it, for me / Laura Kinsale/ Edith Layton / Carla Kelly… ) and LC, too.
I do not have to agree with the way religion and society worked then, and I can be happy about many freedoms we have today, just to pick some important in romance plots: working outside the house, owning money and property, divorce and strings of relationships, etc. etc. but it is not a historical without these restrictions.
Which, by the way, still play in many societies today, so if you wanted to really „feel“ them, talk to persons in the Gulf region (Arabic Gulf) or in some parts of Latin America, or in India, who will tell you clearly what virtue is to them, and what duty, mandated by their religion, and how sinners should be treated. It all still exists. So a writer of romance could still learn about it, live, so to speak.
I think Mary Balogh was/is one of the few authors to feature attitudes towards religion and churchgoing that feel realistic for the time – I remember reading some of her older titles from the 80s and 90s and thinking that. If she’s toned it down now (and I think she has), I suspect it’s because the current climate doesn’t like displays of religion in mainstream romances. Religion and morality as seen through that viewpoint certainly was a big part of life ‘back then’ and even though I’m not at all religious, I could appreciate the fact that MB included it for exactly that reason.
It’s another way HR has been so watered down – and as I’ve said elsewhere, what has been lost is not going to come back because the new crop of authors are learning from the current crop and the audience is being trained to accept their 21st century people in period costume as the norm.
I think a lot of medievals get religion right.
Yes – although there aren’t many of them around these days, which I’m sure is, again, due to writers not being able or willing to adopt the right mindset. My eldest is, as you know, an historian, and her specialism is in medieval and early modern history (roughly 900-1750). The number of students opting to do medieval history was quite small and friends even told her they hadn’t chosen it because they couldn’t get their heads around the attitudes prevalent at the time. And that’s coming from people actually studying history.
I’m saddened to read this. People have gotten so judgemental regarding the past, seeming not to realize that we are only where we are today because our ancestors fought for a better world. They might not have been perfect, but like us, most of them were probably trying to be better. Rather than seeking to educate ourselves on how and why they improved, we seem stuck on criticizing where they failed.
Yes! And blaming authors for telling how it was, instead of a fantasy.
My only quibble with this is, are we being trained to accept 21st-century people in period costume, or are people demanding that and the authors being forced to comply? For my own part, I think it is the latter. In the U.S., what history can and can’t be taught is a war in our courts and fodder for the culture wars outside of them. People reinforce the political bubble they live in constantly, allowing it to inform what they watch, hear, and read. I imagine that has spread to their fiction reading as well. Not to add the romance cultural warriors who call out authors for ridiculous infractions (I think Balogh was a target for this at one point, and she hadn’t even come close to treating the character in question how a duke of that time period would have done.) I don’t blame authors for what has happened to historical romance but the fans. Just my .02 of course and I don’t mean to offend anyone. I just think the authors are taking the heat for a problem not of their making.
I agree in the main. We are so nuts about what authors are and aren’t allowed to say.
I agree with a lot of that Maggie.
And IIRC, Balogh got into trouble for creating a duke who was a martial arts expert but never naming his mentor. At least she didn’t cave to the mob like Kleypas did.
I think you are right re Balogh. It was something small and honestly didn’t capture the hauteur so typical of a Regency Duke.
The thing is, the complaints were because his instructor – who was Chinese, I think? – was never given a name, not that it was too unlikely that a man of his status would have learned martial arts.
You are, if I remember right, correct as to the details. I just think it unlikely a duke would have gone out of his way to name an instructor when discussing learning a skill anymore than he would have introduced the maid serving your tea. It wouldn’t have seemed necessary to him.
I wonder if the duke would have been told his teacher’s name in the first place. I’m of an East Asian background (although not Chinese) and spent many years in my parents’ country of origin. I know that a teacher/master wouldn’t necessarily give his name to a lowly adolescent student (doesn’t matter that the student is a dukeling), and the student would never call his teacher by name. That would be unpardonably insolent and rude. So the duke not knowing (or at least not mentioning) his teacher’s name seems not unreasonable to me. I mean the whole plot point of him having learned martial arts was a bit farfetched, but the absence of a name makes sense if you take into account the character’s cultural background (Chinese) and circumstances (I believe he was without a community that might have told the duke his name) although I don’t know that Balogh thought it through to that extent.
That’s really interesting, thank you! It’s possible you’re right and the author didn’t actually know that – but it also shows the ignorance of those who were howling in outrage at the slight to a non-white character.
Thank you so much for posting this. It gives a lot of clarrification to a system I think most Americans don’t understand. I’ve noticed that in the Chinese dramas I love to watch, the disciples of a teacher refer to him as Shifu (master/teacher) and those who are simply taught by the master but not taken on as a dsicliple refer to him as sir or some other honorary title in keeping with his rank. As you say, Balogh probably didn’t think it through to the extent you did – but as Caz rightly points out, neither did those who were howling in outrage.
I liked how Balogh often handled the issue. The characters went to church and often had innocuous conversations about morality with a vague mention of God. However, I remember someone saying on these boards several years ago that she found Balogh’s themes of forgiveness too Christian for her taste. So clearly, what worked for me wasn’t her cuppa.
But, as you have quite rightly pointed out here, those themes were VERY relevant to people of the time. I’m not religious (I call myself an atheist) but the inclusion of at least some element of religious observance in a Regency HR is accurate.
I would love to see religion play a role in HR more often. One of my all-time favorites is Laura Kinsale’s Flowers From the Storm. Imagine how ordinary that book would be without the religious element? Maddie’s struggle with herself and beliefs and traditions of her Quaker faith were central to the story and made it so much richer. Because of her faith, she felt compelled to go work at her uncle’s asylum, and there she felt called to help the afflicted Duke of Jervaulx, even though she thought he was a bad person.
It was really a lovely book and the Quaker element was the best part. I usually forget many of the HR romances I read the very next day but I remember this book to this day. It explored the many facets of the Quaker faith which at that time was seen as a cult with depth and understanding. The “thee thou girl”, I still remember.
I have that thought regularly too.
Thank you for this post Dabney because you made me go back to those Loretta Chase on the keeper shelf and see what I needed to read! I am loving Not quite a lady. I am in a lucky situation that I have quite a few of her backlist still to read!!! She is the BEST historical romance fiction writer in my opinion.
I read that one so long ago, I’ve forgotten all about it! I’ll have to give it another go.
Tried reading Lord of scoundrels I did not like it I’ve yet to try other books by Chase.
What didn’t you like? Did it not hold up for you–like was it dated? Or something else?
I’m not sure, not dated I’ve read many older books than this that would probably be considered dated to a lot of readers. I know it’s the favourite of Chases books I found it a bit silly the plot. Are her other book’s more grounded?