Happily Ever After or Happy Until Real Life Happens?

If you will oblige me, I have a few questions for all you lovely people:

How realistic should a historical romance novel be?

How historically accurate?

How much emphasis should be on the history and how much on the romance?

I will start by laying my bias out for everyone to see. I am proud to have been a historian first and a creative writer second. I went to school for history, I have taught history and therefore, I have written more historical papers than I can count. So, when I began to write novels, I knew that they would have to be historically accurate and properly researched or else I would not enjoy writing them. For me, the history is as important as the characters living it. When I read other historical romances that skim over the history in favour of a wonderful story, I feel somewhat jilted. Is it fair to call a book a historical romance just because it takes place in a different era? Shouldn’t there have to be some effort to actually capture the reality of that era? I understand the appeal of fairy tales but I also think they differ greatly from a meaty World War Two romance that dives into the actual hardships and struggles of that time period.

With my first novel “Better Than This” I did not shy away from the less pleasant aspects of our history. Now apparently, some publishers view this as having “dark undertones” that may not be as sweet and airy as the genre of historical romance is expected to be. This is where my questions began…How realistic is too realistic? Illness, death, rape, violence, poverty, intolerance, although unpleasant, are facts of our history. Our history as Canadians…wait WHAT!? Our overly polite, apology driven community of Canucks have a past that is less than pristine…Hell yes, we do! Everyone does, and because of this, I think it is high time that realistic historical romance becomes more mainstream.

Unfortunately, it seems to remain the underdog of the genre. I wonder if most people don’t want realism in their historical romance because they use books as a means of escape from the, often unpleasantness, of the real world.

What do you think?

#realistichistory #historicalromance #emmastackauthor #emmastackblog