There’s a schism in the world of historical romance novels. It’s bigger than the British Regency sub-genre and it even predates Bridgerton, the hit Netflix series based on Julia Quinn’s octet of bodice-rippers. But the wildly popular TV version – which shifts non-committally between a series with race-blind casting and a series attempting to fantastically reimagine the race politics of the 19th century – has definitely forced the issue. How historically accurate does historical romance need to be to still be considered, well, historical?
It’s a consequential question, for fans and publishers. Historical romance is the most popular sublisting in romance fiction, regarded as the genre’s “gateway drug”, as one editor put it to me. From there, a reader might branch out into contemporary romance or American western or even paranormal. But historical romance is where the fascination typically takes hold and most historical romance is, in fact, Regency fiction like Bridgerton.
