Don't Know Much About Historicals...

So Julia Quinn killed the Regency. Click here for this opinion and the reasons why some readers don't like regencies anymore -not this reader but more on that later. I have heard this opinion making the rounds lately. Lots of people complaining that historicals aren't historical enough, that Regencies have gotten too generic/too fluffy/too lacking in uniqueness, etc., And I suppose, if I were a critic and analyzer of the genre and needed something to write about, I might be tempted to say these things too, just to have something to say. After all, I do have not one, but TWO advanced degrees. One a MA in English, one an MLS and if I know nothing in this world, I do know how to critically analyze literature. But I choose not to.

Why? I have too much fun reading romance. And I am a bit mystified as to why certain bloggers and reviewers have the idea historical romances need to be every bit as accurate as a history text book. They give high marks to books that contain alot of what they feel are very necessary historical detail and look frowningly upon books they deem too "wall-papery". Who are these people who want to learn history from a romance book? Why in the world would you want that? I am genuinely mystified and trying to not be snarky at all. I tried to read a very highly rated historical romance from a well known author the other day and had to put it down. I found the details too distracting. I wanted more attention paid to the relationships between the hero/heroine and less about the food and setting. Because this is what I read romance for. Also, while the author had done considerable research on the time period, she had not bothered to research human nature and the female character was more than a little over the top and ridiculous.

So here's how I read romance. For enjoyment. And I will be honest, I am a lazy reader. I want to be swept away. I want to not have to think. If you are writing about a war -I don't really want the war to be too real. Because real war kinda sucks, ya know? I don't ever want to feel as if the historical conflict will overwhelm the potential for happily ever after. And I sure as hell don't want to be constantly reading details about the war and the rifles and how far they marched and the battle tactics and the shininess or dullness of the brass buttons. Boring.

Maybe this is the reason I don't like Ante-Bellum romances anymore though they've kind of gone the way of the dinosaur and good riddance, as far as I am concerned. I know too much about the real historical details of slavery in the Deep South to ever be able to put on my rose-colored glasses and pretend to not see. When I was oh, about thirteen or so, I read a book wherein the heroine's best friend was a female African slave and the hero (I shit you not) was a ship owner and one of his ships was in the slave trade. I think the hero (such a Prince) even sold the female African slave or put her aboard the slaver and stood stoically by while the heroine cried. And, if I am remembering correctly, he did this after he had promised her he would never get into the slave trade. His action I think, was to prove his Alpha credentials or some such nonsense. As young and stupid as I was, I DID NOT BUY IT. Not because it was unrealistic because it was very realistic for the time period, but because it proved the hero was a complete jerk with no real regard for human life and not worthy of the heroine's love or a HEA. In other words, I did not want the hero to be a real cash strapped man, living in Pre-Civil War South. I wanted him to look the part and talk the part but behave like a twentieth century post Civil Rights era white man with all the correct sensibilities.

This is why reading real history is such a bummer. You just wouldn't want to live at anytime but 2010, once you know even a little about less enlightened times. You wanna know the number one cause of death for women before the twentieth century? Childbirth. The number two cause of death was fire. Seems that all those wonderful long skirts women had to wear back then were just perfect for catching any stray spark emanating from an open fire in the kitchen. Nothing sexy or romantic about this at all.

So why in the world do the critics and the analyzers lament the lack of accurate detail in their Regencies and Historicals? Too much real detail and quite honestly romance land becomes a place I wouldn't want to visit, let alone live in for three or four hours. Gah -the less detail sometimes, the better!

I read romance because I want ROMANCE. I want a sexy Alpha male (with big muscles and a big, you know) and a heroine who needs him and is strong, yet vulnerable in her own right. I want them to psychologically real and to talk to each in a way I can imagine real people talking. I want the conflicts to be real, yet solvable. And I want the setting and the history only if it contributes to the romance. If it doesn't, I couldn't care less. AND I want the hot sexxoring.

I can forgive just about anything in a romance, but the lack of romance. Which is why Julia Quinn has not ruined the Regency. As long as she gets the romance part of it right (and I think she does), she's fine by me.

So what about you? Do you like your historicals with as much detail as possible? Does lack of accuarate detail bother you? How much knowledge is too much?

My Dream -For Free!

I came to this link courtesy of Jane over at Dear Author. Read it and weep. I read it and just shook my head. Talk about dinosaurs and sadly, it's these fools who are in control of distributing books to the reading public. Let's leave aside all the debates about e-books, pricing (which for the record ought to be much cheaper because a reader only borrows the the right to read the e-book, the reader doesn't actually own anything)and distribution. Let's not talk about all the new ways of doing business that are available to the forward thinking retailer, or the buyer, or even, the author. Let's pretend a little start-up by the name of Amazon doesn't exist and that buying used books on E-Bay is akin to going to Mars. Let's pretend none of this really matters (we'll certainly be in good company -I'm talking to you Scott Turow!)and focus on an area these guys feel comfortable with: the bookstore.

My bookstore growing up was Walden's at Hawley Lane shopping mall. It was small. When I asked about a particular book, half the time the clerk didn't know what I was talking about. Half the time the clerk was on the phone talking to his friends. The only classics you could get were the junior abridged versions. If the book was three months passed its prime, you would have a hard time finding it. The place was unkempt and often disorganized.

But still, I loved it.

Why,you may ask. BECAUSE THAT WAS ALL I HAD. There was nothing else! And knowing no better, I expected no better! So I was content.

Then I moved to Manhattan. Living on the Upper West Side, I discovered Shakespeare Books. And I discovered what I had been missing all along. Knowledgeable clerks! An interesting selection of books! Clean, friendly and oh so intellectual! And no romance section. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. But by that time I had been taught to fear my romance reading addiction as a dangerous habit. It was okay to smoke pot among the artsy crew at college, but admitting to a liking in reading romance would have called for immediate intervention by the Existentialist Task Force, and a stint in Real Literature Rehab.

So I snuck off to the public library branch on Amsterdam Avenue to get my romance reading fix. I'd bring the books home in an unmarked paper bag and hide them under my bed.

Time went on and I moved around some and Barnes and Noble became my bookseller of choice. Seemed so wonderful, browsing among the shelves and the comfortable reading chairs -sheer genius. And the book selection was rather staggering to my mind. It seemed like they had everything and if they didn't, then I sure as hell didn't know about it. And lo, I was content. At this stage of my intellectual development, I was neither ashamed nor proud of my romance reading habit. It just was something unavoidable, like the weather and eating. I didn't feel the need to join in the snarking at romance, (so common among the literati!) but I didn't trouble myself to defend it either.

Then something wonderful happened -in moaning about my writing career (mainly the lack thereof) I came to the rather startling conclusion that I loved romance. Nay, not loved -worshipped the genre! Yes! I was a romance writer and a romance reader and proud of it too! I embraced this aspect of my identity with all the fervor of a devout cult member. Then I discovered the world of the Internet and the blogs. And most importantly -romance readers and writer blogs. This changed everything.

I would read, with breathless anticipation, about a book I knew I would just adore. And then the baby would cry or something would happen and my minuscule little brain would only retain partial information. Next time I was in Barnes and Nobles, I'd try desperately to recall the title or the author and try to talk to the clerk about the book and I'd get -nothin'. Often times the clerks were not familiar enough with romance authors or their books to help me. Certainly, I never saw a romance book on the "Staff Picks" shelf. I'd try to browse the shelves, but often the book wasn't there. Or they had every book by the author EXCEPT THAT ONE.

And as my romance reading tastes expanded with further knowledge and education, I got continually more frustrated with the big chain approach to romance retailing. Where was the m/m romance section? Where was the erotic romance section? Or how about multi-cultural romance? Those books existed, I knew they did. But I couldn't find them and the option of ordering it from the the clerk at the customer service counter did not appeal to me. The point of going into a bookstore was to be able to physically go in there, pick out a book and read it immediately. If I couldn't do that, there was no point.

Now my story has a happy ending with the coming of the e-book and on-line book sellers. I am pleased to report that OmniLit and others are meeting my romance reading addiction most adequately, thank you very much.

But that's not the point of this little essay. The point is bookstores. If you dinosaurs that work in the publishing company are so wed to the traditional way of doing business THEN DO IT FREAKIN' RIGHT ALREADY. You see, I've been taught to expect better and I want better.

Here is my dream bookstore. You have my permission to use any and all of my ideas. I don't ask for anything in return.

My Dream Bookstore

1. Knowledgeable Clerks. Romance readers deserve clerks with a modicum of understanding about romance books. Romance outsells all other genres combined. We pay the salaries of these people, albeit indirectly. It's not too much to ask clerks receive some training in genre literature. Librarians have a model called "Reader's Advisory" -look into it.

2. Romance is on the first floor, front and center and not hiding in the back, cowering like the red-headed stepchild. Be proud of this genre! Make romance readers feel welcome and they'll come back. They buy most of the books anyway.

3. Expand your romance offering to include multi-cultural, erotic and gay romance. I want to buy in those sub-genres and my only real option is buying on-line. Why are you making it so hard for me to love your store?

4. Embrace the digital aspects of the business to boost bookstores. If a nitwit like me can't remember the name of book she read about on a blog -why can't you offer me the option of looking the blog up on-line, in the store?

I think romance readers want to use bookstores. Half of all readers are off-line anyway. That's a lot of people. But as the Internet changes the way people think about books, they will get increasingly frustrated with your bookstores.

Do you really want to drive them away?