With the death of Madeline Hunter, historical romance loses one of its sharpest minds and quietest radicals. Her books were among the first that made me feel like the genre could be as layered and exacting as any literary fiction. She didn’t pander. She didn’t oversimplify. Her novels were intelligent, emotionally complex, and structurally bold—stories that stayed with you not because they were comforting, but because they felt true.
I started with The Seducer, and at first, I didn’t get it. The hero was unreadable, the heroine felt too young, and the whole thing struck me as oddly cool. But as I kept reading, I fell for the prose, the restraint, the intricate unraveling of longing. That book taught me to listen harder to what characters don’t say. Hunter’s romances didn’t offer fireworks; they built tension slowly, precisely—and then, when you least expected it, broke your heart open.
It’s hard to name favorites. Her medievals—especially By Design—are extraordinary: unsparing, richly textured, and grounded in women’s work and ambition. By Possession remains one of the best class-crossed romances I’ve ever read. She excelled at series. I particularly love The Rarest Blooms. Each book is sexy, sharp, and emotionally generous. I’ve read them all more than once, not just for the heat (though it’s there), but for the way Hunter treated desire as something complex and deeply rooted—never cheap, never easy.
That mystery was part of her power. Hunter wrote passion with elision—sometimes more than I wanted—but when it worked, it was perfect. Her love scenes were never purple, but they shimmered with that charged, unnameable energy between people lucky enough to share great sex. She understood that lust could be transformative, and that real connection often lives in what can’t quite be said. Reading her was like entering a world where nothing was accidental—not a glance, not a sentence, not a kiss.
What set her apart, always, was her interest in power—who holds it, who wants it, and what it costs. Her heroines had agency before the genre demanded it, and her heroes weren’t undone by that. Even in her quieter novels, she kept pushing, letting her characters be smart, flawed, and fully human. She was a two-time RITA Award winner, a consistent bestseller, and a writer whose influence can be traced in the generation that followed. She showed us what romance could be—and now that she’s gone, we’ll keep rereading her, grateful she gave us so much.
Beautifully put. She will be missed. Thoughts are with her family and friends.
By Arrangement is my favourite of her books. I read it just last year after reading the review here and I was kicking myself about not having read it sooner. I love a good medieval and IMO, it more than delivers on that score. The politics didn’t drag down the romance, if anything it heightened the stakes for Christiana and David and I kept turning pages eager to find out what would happen next.
I didn’t know her personally, so I don’t know why this would be the case but her death has felt to me as though I’d lost someone I knew – an acquaintance or something of that nature and thoughts of her have been flitting through my mind intermittently since I heard the news yesterday. She’ll be most sorely missed.
PS – her latest book is scheduled for release in August of this year (according to Goodreads) does anyone have any idea if that’ll still happen?
I think yes. It’s available for an advanced review copy.
Oh that’s good to hear
Amazon now shows the release date for her new book as January 1, 2049. Before I saw it listed as August 26, 2025
Oh no. It was up at Edelweiss but now shows this.
I’d guess that means it wasn’t finished before she died, or the editorial team has to see if it’s far enough along for publication to be feasible.
I so so wish her estate will get her Medievals republished. She has two sons and grandchildren. (She was widowed.)
By Arrangement was my favourite too but all her medievals were outstanding.
I believe By Possession was her first medieval and it remains my favorite of that series.
Her first was By Arrangement. By Possession followed soon after. 🙂
Oh, this is terrible news for romance readers. My condolences to her family.
Hunter has been an autobuy author for me for two decades. My favorite(s) are her first books, the “medievals”, with Lord of a Thousand Nights my highest ranked book in the series. But pretty much everything she wrote is worth a read. As others have noted, Hunter created spunky, interesting heroines who were loved and respected by the men who loved them, long before it became popular to do so in historical romances.
I’m not sure because I’ve not read enough of her books to say ,currently reading one now.
And Rest In Peace to Madeline my condolences to her family and friends
Which one?
Lady of Sin liking it so far the mystery and the historical research that went into it not just the romance. So I guess if you’re not really a romance reader it can also be read like historical fiction maybe?
Huh–I’ve not read Lady of Sin. Let us know what you think when you’re done!
Will do!
By Possession was the first book I read, and remains my favorite of her books. However, all of her medieval romance books are stellar and distinct for the richness of the setting and the dialogue. This, from Stealing Heaven:
Be still my beating heart….. <3
The Rarest Blooms series was my introduction to her work, and I promptly went out to read all of her books that I could get my hands one. I love her heroines. You said that they had agency, but they were also set in a particular time. They weren’t having temper tantrums because they couldn’t go to Oxford or couldn’t smoke cigars. They were intelligent women who did the best they could under the restraints of their society. (And no matter when or where you live, there are always constraints.)
She used the historical background to great effect in her books. I asked her once at a conference how important she thought historical accuracy is. She said, “You do it for yourself. No one else cares.”
That made me sad, because I really value historical accuracy, but I fear she was right. Fewer and fewer authors seem to care.
I’ve only read 4 of hers, and I think my favorite is His Wicked Reputation. Part of the enjoyment might be due to the excellent narration by Mary Jane Wells. My short review:
Although somewhat predictable, this is a strongly written story with nice humor and a mystery subplot. Madeline Hunter seems to have researched her history well so the setting feels very solid. Both leads were interesting and likable and worth rooting for. The secondary cast was strong and there is a nice but not overwhelming set-up for the books about the Duke’s legitimate sons.
My favourite is probably the last of hers I read. I read all her books as they were released (buying the paperbacks by mail order catalogue in those days) up until The Romantic. I’m a sucker for the unrequited love trope, and Julian pines so for Penelope. But then around that time I started to feel burned out on the type of historical romances that were being released (it already seemed like their heyday was back in the 1990s) and I stopped buying them new (at exorbitant prices in Australia) and did a lot of secondhand book shopping of older titles. I just never picked up another Hunter book, although they may have been great. I very rarely venture into historicals these days.
I’ve read everything she wrote. She was an auto-buy for me. I remember when I stumbled across her first 3 medievals at a used book store and was hooked from then on. By Arrangement is my favorite of her medievals, maybe because it was my first. It struck me more and more that she didn’t shy away from the pain and suffering and inequality that her heroines suffered, but instead made the heroes rise to meet them and be worthy of them. But I remember waiting impatiently for Pen and Julian’s story in The Romantic. Their HEA was hard won and I cheered. It was like waiting for Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, Slightly Dangerous, Devilish, and all the other sought after stories from your favorite series. As you read through the series you would keep your eye out hoping your favorite author had plans to tell your favorite supporting character’s story, which in essence made most of her supporting characters just as fascinating as the hero and heroine. And I know this is going to sound strange, and I don’t mean to make it sound condescending, but I always felt so intelligent when I read her books. She didn’t talk down to her readers. She wrote as if she knew you’d get it!
I haven’t read all her works and am now so bummed several of them aren’t available.
I have in my TBR list two of her novels, BY ARRANGEMENT (2000) and STEALING HEAVEN (2002), but I’m sorry to say that I haven’t read any of them yet. I’m reading your comments with great interest in order to see which one I’d rather read.
I’m reading The Romantic by MH good so far. Only on chapter 2.
Oh my god ! she’s was such a good writer her writing and stories are so mature. Why is this so difficult to find in historical romance? So few historical romance authors today like this.
I’m going to take a deep breath and risk saying because readers appear to want easy, fun, and unexamined.
I read a good column in the NYT recently that talked about why movies, overall, suck so much today. The answer: because that’s what audiences show up for. The writer, a successful screenwriter wrote:
My sense is that many many readers today don’t want complex, dense novels that one has to think about. I’ve said for years that anyone who believes romance readers–in the main–want subtlety, smart prose, and ideas and leads that require thinking about to really understand isn’t looking at the Amazon bestseller lists for romance. Now, yes, KU has made this far worse. The other truth is we, as a culture, do not wish to pay for art or literature at a rate that would genuinely sustain those who create such.
Now, obviously this isn’t all readers–but as long as it’s a majority of readers, publishers will gravitate towards books that either are churned out and cheap or the few big sellers that tap into whatever the current zeitgeist is in the genre.
I’ll take that breath alongside you, because I think you’re right.
I feel as if we are the dinosaurs and we’ve been watching that meteor fall to earth for the past five years……
And how sad is it that becasue we want subtlety and complexity and something well-crafted, that we’re dinosaurs?
And I’d argue it’s 20 years rather than 5. The online world has been encroaching for many years and its only now, with the first generation(s) of smartphone and social media users becoming adults that we’re seeing the very real damage that’s been done to language development, attention spans and communication skills.
I don’t know if this will be available outside the UK, but this documentary was filmed at the school I work at :
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/swiped-the-school-that-banned-smartphones
The conclusions reached by child psychologists and child development specialists are quite scary.
Phones are the worst. I’ve started putting mine on permanent do not disturb and it’s somewhat alarming to me how bothered people are when they can’t immediately reach me.
To Dabeney’s point about what the market wants:
I’ve been rereading some of my Madeline Hunter novels since the news of her passing, along with picking up a new-to-me but long established HR writer, Connie Brockway. It has been interesting to see the difference between these two writers.
Brockway’s very “best” work (I started with her titles that appear in an AAR 100 list) just does not have the real world historical detail that Hunter’s does. Yet three of her titles appear 13 times in the existing Top 100 lists (As You Desire – 5, All Through The Night- 3 and My Dearest Enemy – 5). My Dearest Enemy – which I just finished reading – can best be described as a war between the sexes plot (she’s a hard core feminist, and will never marry until the laws are changed to give mothers legal rights relative to their children but really . . . is remaining an impoverished single woman an option at this time?). I enjoyed the book well enough – it was a legitimate legal issue of the time, there is plenty of witty banter – but the novel reads like the very thing people are complaining about: modern sensibility dressed in historical garb.
Hunter’s work, on the other hand, makes references to and utilizes real historical figures or political events that just do not appear in the same way in Brockway’s work. Hunter’s books are longer, the characters speak and behave like people of their time, and the books are richer in details – again with references to places or objects of their time period. And yet only one Hunter title appears in Top 100 list – By Arrangement in 2004.
If I were reviewing these two author’s works, Hunter would get better reviews from me. But Brockway clearly dominates the popularity contest.
I think if we took votes on it today, Hunter would get better reviews. But that’s just my guess.
I think so too. But my guess is that Brockway would still outsell Hunter despite “better” reviews. I’m making a couple of huge leaps/assumptions here – not least of which is based on having read only three of Brockway’s titles – but pointing out that Brockway’s “popularity” in the “Top 100” poll reflects significantly greater numbers of fans. Many more readers for work that is, at first glance, lighter, fluffier, funnier and doesn’t slow down its action with historical details that 1) must take time to incorporate in a “meatier”, richer piece of historical fiction, and 2) asks readers to comprehend/appreciate. Popular anything (music, books, movies, television) is rarely the best quality of that thing. Popular is what is profitable = fast to produce and “good enough”.
I think she was one of the last few authors that wrote like this .Others on her similar level have either quit writing or have sadly passed away like Madeline.And I’m one of those readers that want smart prose and interesting and intelligent plots.
Same. I wonder if the fact that most readers of historicals skew older and are old enough to want those good writing and intelligent plots (and to recognise when they aren’t present) has contributed to so many HR authors being dropped by traditional publishers who are only interested in keeping up with the zeitgeist – which right now is romantasy.
I wonder how many books are written by AI now as well that of course must effect writers as well.
Many and more every day.
Yes, but the effect of AI isn’t just felt in terms of poorer quality or the fact that some authors are using it to write or “help” write their books, it’s affecting the livelihoods of many thanks to underhand practices and scams. Someone uses AI to “write” a book (welll, hundreds of books), then puts it/them into Kindle Unlimited, then the click farms borrow those books and quickly flick through the pages – authors get paid per page read in KU – so more money from the overall KU pot (made up of the subscriptions paid by readers – which is a finite amount) goes to them and less to the genuine authors.
I know a lot of self-publishing authors who are setting up online stores on their websites so they can sell their books direct rather than via Amazon, although I also see many of them saying that despite the fact that many people are trying to get away from getting books from Amazon, the bulk of their income comes from there so they have to keep their books there.
Again, this wouldn’t work unless readers were there for it.
I think a lot about how we could leave Amazon. I’ve yet to see any way to do so that would work, not just in terms of income (paltry these days usually) but in terms of book availability. Indie bookstores and authors aren’t super interested in sharing their narrow profit margins with review sites. It’s a conundrum.
I’ve seen many posts on SM talking about how readers are actively trying not to use Amz, but the problem is that many are simply not buying the books rather than buying them elsewhere for whatever reason, and some authors have taken a big hit.
I’ve seen a lot of authors, over the past few weeks, opening their own online shops to give readers another option. But even that isn’t always easy because of restrictions that make it difficult to sell books outside their home turf.
Yes, there are so many issues here and none of them are in the service of better books and fairly paid authors.
Her characters don’t feel tropey either no broody/sunny or anything like this characters feel grounded fleshed out.
I have always been a big fan of hers.
Ah gosh, this is sad. Stealing Heaven was a true revelation for me at the time and I admired how MH was able to thread so many needles and produce a beautiful tapestry (tired brain mixed metaphors sorry). I’ll have to dig through my boxes; I hope I still have my copy. A true loss to romance readers.
Agreed.