‘Historical Romance Novels’ are set in bygone eras other than ‘Regency’.
Thirteenth Century
Maya Banks
(Note: ‘Neamh Alainn’ is ficitional.)
Never Seduce a Scot by Maya Banks is both entertaining and eye roll inducing – likable characters once you get past the (supposedly) thirteenth century Scottish Highlander gender-appropriate behavior. I liked the story a lot more than I thought I would based on the cover blurb which ends “…the Scottish warrior will move heaven and earth to save the woman who has awakened his heart to the beautiful song of a rare and magical love.” The series does not have to be read in any particular order.
Never Love a Highlander is the last in the series and presents the most interesting though perhaps cliched heroine – the trews-wearing, sword-wielding daughter of the Laird of the MacDonald clan. The story includes battle cries and steamy-but-tender sex – easier to have passionate virgins in an earlier, less-familiar era than in the tightly constrained world of upper-class girls in Regency London. As with Never Seduce a Scot, the novel is not well-served by its cover blurb “Rionna will do her duty but vows to protect her heart and her pride from humiliation.”
Between the World Wars
D. E. Stevenson
Miss Buncle’s Book, originally published in 1936 and reprinted in the US in 2012, offers a light commentary on the foibles and love lives of the human inhabitants an English village. Unintentionally the novel also provides a time capsule of the publishing industry before television, the Internet, Amazon, e-books, self-publishing, blogs, and short attention spans so totally changed the industry. An amusing story in a P. G. Wodehouse fashion with a satisfying ending.