triviareads

[triviareads]

It's funny to me that shondaland is promoting Lord Debling and people are shipping him and Penelope instead of Polin.

almost as if Shondaland is aware of the unattractiveness of Colin......

#that and Shondaland doesn't know how to market a show as a romance #ask

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(For context I attended a virtual book panel on the future of HR)

I also really appreciated how honest Liana, Amalie Howard, and Diana Quincy were about how each of them started off writing purely white couples for years before their publishers finally gave them the support they needed to branch out and start writing characters of color, and in Amalie's case, queer characters. All of them wanted to do this long before they actually got that support. I think it's easy to judge authors of color for not writing the rep we want but when you realize that short of publishing independently (which is, to be fair, getting more accessible and a decent chunk of authors do a mix of trad and indie, but it's still hard), they literally were not able to because Big Publishing is so resistant to change.

Liana de la Rosa calling this wave of "feminist" heroines in historical romance a new marketing tactic is hard facts

#and the microaggressions in these spaces are WILD #see: a white editor asking Diana Quincy why her Arab American husband character couldn't just take a gal as his second wife #“because you people do that right?” #and someone else just... refusing to believe Arab Christians existed #actually it's really interesting and quite sad because Diana also said she would likely never set a romance in Palestine #not just because her Arabic is limited for research purposes #but also because of how controversial it would be #but that's the dream right? to be able to write stories set in your motherland because it affirms that there's history there #and that love always existed there too #i wish more HR readers would be open to non-British-set historicals for that reason #there was also discussion on how the inclusion on POCs in HR is inherently political #and many authors of color feel like they need to have historical receipts ready to justify our existence in white spaces back in the day

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Liana de la Rosa calling this wave of "feminist" heroines in historical romance a new marketing tactic is hard facts

#it's the shoehorned often white cis-het feminism basically #y'all know which author i'm talking about lol #as opposed to authors who have always written women with diverse personalities backgrounds and interests #historical romance

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when you blindly bought another edition of a book you already own off of ebay but it's WORTH IT because of a surprise bonus scene and THIS dialogue:

#also forget about the cameras- these dumbasses desecrate the floor of the yacht library #stare at the puddle and go “....we'll clean it up in the morning” #like the entire yacht crew Knows #salt kiss #sierra simone #romance novels

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currently attempting to catalog every instance of mark trevena allegedly drinking alcohol or tristan making a reference to how much he's drinking but it's probably water

#bonus

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do you see his Grand Scheme now

currently attempting to catalog every instance of mark trevena allegedly drinking alcohol or tristan making a reference to how much he's drinking but it's probably water

#the only thing funnier than isolde being surprised mark was stabbed #is isolde being surprised when tristan is all “dw babe i'll protect you” #“relaxing” hehehe

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IT'S "INCONGRUOUS" FOR A REASON, TRISTAN.

currently attempting to catalog every instance of mark trevena allegedly drinking alcohol or tristan making a reference to how much he's drinking but it's probably water

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note that he's never actually seen drinking:

aaaand we're back to "gin":

currently attempting to catalog every instance of mark trevena allegedly drinking alcohol or tristan making a reference to how much he's drinking but it's probably water

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J J Fields is a great historical romance man

facts he would be- and he's portrayed both ends of the romantic hero spectrum with Henry Tilney and John Andre- he's on the older end of HR heroes now but he'll forever be my (sole) facecast for my fics.

#ask

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Have you read anything by Caroline Lee, I have seen her name quite a lot

No, I haven't, but I recognize her name because she's the one who makes all the kilt puns in her titles.

#romance novels #historical romance #ask

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JJ FEILD as Major John Andre in TURN: WASHINGTON'S SPIES (2014—2017) Episode 2.06 "Houses Divided"

#remember when historical dramas used to be hot #turn: washington's spies

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currently attempting to catalog every instance of mark trevena allegedly drinking alcohol or tristan making a reference to how much he's drinking but it's probably water

#this is all a part of his master plan and i shall not be swayed #sierra simone

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Derek Craven and Rhys Winterborne are almost at the same level of self loathing lol

I think Derek's self-loathing definitely eclipses Rhys's, especially when it comes to him feeling like he's not "good enough" for the heroine. Because at some point in Cold-Hearted Rake, Rhys basically tells Devon that he knows he's not good enough for Helen, but that's never stopped him before and he wants her anyway. And that realization comes pretty early on even if there are lingering doubts on his part in Marrying Winterborne.

Derek on the other hand holds out for a loooooong time because of his background and the fact that he feels Sara is too "genteel" for him. He also says something very similar about Lily Lawson in Then Came You as well; that if they weren't of such different classes, maybe there could have been something there. But regarding Derek/Sara, I remember it getting to the point where someone attempts assault on Sara and she's compromised, and Derek definitely loves her by now but he's still trying to throw an aristocratic husband at her to save her reputation until Sara convinces him otherwise.

#lisa kleypas #historical romance #romance novels #ask

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rereading Salt Kiss and got to The Part(!!)

#still waiting on a full circle moment #it may be futile but i have hope

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I think is time for me to start with my Beautiful Barringtons books byKathleen Ayers, they sound so entertaining

yes definitely go for it! They're all on KU and honestly, they give you a lot of what Bridgerton the books don't quite give you in terms of romance and even the nuances of family dynamics, and what the show is utterly failing to deliver on now lolol.

The eldest brother ANTHONY aka Tony in The Theory of Earls is actually a rake and basically the kind of St. Vincent beautiful that means he gets away with a looooot of shit he otherwise wouldn't; he has no qualms about propositioning debutantes and he also has the kind of daddy issues (which... okay fine his dad truly did something shitty because he too was a rake but he's reformed! there's even a novella to prove it) that result in him refusing to procreate.

Andromeda and their cousin Rosalind both have aspirations apart from marriage; Andromeda secretly works with a modiste to design gowns, and Rosalind secretly works with a baker to set up a storefront to sell her creations. The Design of Dukes, Romy's book, is just a really well-done iteration of a cold starchy duke falling for a woman who doesn't fit his standard of propriety, and A Recipe for a Rogue a great age-gap romance, and Rosalind is also plus-sized and Torrington is super explicit in her obsession with her body in a way you don't really see in a lot of historicals.

Also, the last book, The Taming of a Scandal is a particular favorite because the disaster baby sister Phaedra finally gets her own book and it goes EXACTLY how you think it does, namely the biggest baddest American ex-street-rat now-ruthless businessman falling HARD for her while she's running New York City with her rapier.

#kathleen ayers #historical romance #romance novels #bridgerton #ask

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I'm midway through the Ravenels books and rethinking if I want to read on because I liked Cold Hearted Rake but not the other two. Would you recommend it?

I think it depends on what you liked about Cold-Hearted Rake; if you liked the widow romance aspect, technically Devil's Daughter and Devil in Disguise might be your jam, but I didn't particularly enjoy either of those books. Devil's Daughter felt extremely low-stakes both in terms of external plot and emotionally (which is where Marrying Winterborne differentiates for me; the actual plot feels fairly light but Helen and Rhys undergo some serious development individually and as a couple, and Helen is sooooo emotionally tortured about the parentage thing), and the vibes were very.... farm-y. West talks about being a Bad Man in the way Phoebe's dad St. Vincent (Kingston now, ik) did but has far less to back it up so it feels kinda weak, and while I appreciate Phoebe learning to take charge of her late husband's estate, there's very little else to her I found interesting.

As for Devil in Disguise, the plot could have been way more interesting especially considering there's murder attempts and the reason for it, but it just fell flat for me.

So that leaves two books: Hello Stranger, which I dislike partly on principle (there's fetishization of Indian women and their sexuality being used as a teaching tool for the white man, also what the fuck was the hero, who works for the British government, doing in Bengal in the 1860s or 70s?) and partly because the couple lacked chemistry to me, and they felt very shoehorned. There's also Chasing Cassandra which I personally found cute and charming, but it reads to me like a lighter version of Marrying Winterborne; there's a self-made businessman who needs to work on his Feelings, and a sheltered aristocratic heroine who can help him with that. So I guess it depends on whether you liked Marrying Winterborne or not.

#lisa kleypas #ask #historical romance #romance novels

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The guy from from The Counterfeit Scoundrel by Lorraine Heath you mentioned sounds so melancholic, you could feel his sadness (the one from the secondary characters post)

I've been fixating on that man for a year plus after he tragically announced he was a widower and then started playing the piano tragically but like in a hot way. His name is Paul, and he does actually get an HEA— he starts seeing the heroine's aunt and he's proposed to her by the epilogue; and this isn't the last time an older couple finds love again in Lorraine's Chessmen series which I think is very sweet, and I wiiiiish we could see more of them even though it really wouldn't fit into the structure of her stories (she's not like Lisa Kleypas or Elizabeth Hoyt; while there are multiple povs in some of her books, she doesn't go as far as secondary love stories for the most part, at least from what I can remember).

#lorraine heath #historical romance #romance novels #ask