Note: The Lanterns are currently having our last summer hurrahs, hopefully with a good book or two. While we’re away, here is a favorite blog of mine from this year: BIG LOVE: Historical Fiction Romantic Subplots Rule! by Ana Brazil. Maybe you’ll find a good book for the dog days of summer yourself! ‘Til next month…

If you’ve been following my PLW blogging over the years, you’ll know that I love to read historical mysteries, with historical romances coming in second. And although it makes sense that I love reading historical mysteries with romantic subplots, my BIG LOVE goes to reading a historical mystery series with an enduring romantic subplot.

Every well-written novel has one or more subplots, and adding a romantic subplot adds so much more than romance or sexual tension to a story. The possibility of romance forces characters to examine their lives, which often leads to self-discovery and resolution. Sometimes it even helps to solve a murder.

Romance also gives the reader something additional to root for—because, after our characters have solved the crime, don’t we want them to be rewarded with a Happily Ever After? Standalone historical fiction can provide a mighty hefty Happily Ever After, of course, but a series—whether it’s five or nine or twenty-four books—provides the ultimate reader getaway.

As we roll into Valentine’s Day this week, I wanted to share some of my favorite historical mystery series with enduring romantic subplots.

CAUTION: Romantic plot spoilers ahead!

Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane ~ Beginning in 1923, author Dorothy L. Sayers penned ten Lord Peter detective books. Six decades later, author Jill Paton Walsh completed an unfinished Sayers manuscript, and soon followed it up with an additional three Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane books. Although hard-core Wimsey readers might disagree with me, I love both series: Sayers’ ten books for focusing mostly on clever-although-emotionally-wounded-until-he-finds-Harriet Peter, and Walsh’s books for showing us how the married Peter and Harriet and their children survive and maintain their perspective through World War II. Peter and Harriet are mature and set-in-their-life’s-course when they meet, and it’s a great joy to see their relationship mature over the years. If 1920’s-WWII Britain is your time period and you appreciate a slow-burning romance (Harriet doesn’t even appear until book five!), try this series.

Hester Latterly and William Monk ~ In twenty-four books written over twenty-eight years, Anne Perry catapulted her detective William Monk into some of Victorian London’s most chilling and devious murders. Although former battlefield nurse Hester Latterly initially appears as the thorn in Monk’s side, she soon becomes his helpmate and wife. Their relationship was so subtle in the first novels that I didn’t realize there was a romance brewing between the two; but once I caught on to their interest in each other, I was thrilled to witness their developing camaraderie and devotion to each other.

Veronica Speedwell and Stoker ~ These late Victorian detectives—she a butterfly hunter and he a natural historian—gleefully adventure through England and onto the continent to solve murders and other mysteries. They seem well-matched from the beginning, but they also try to deny any attraction for most of the series. Their romance burns so slowly that the romantic element isn’t even mentioned in author Deanna Raybourn’s book descriptions! Still, I enjoy the boisterous dynamics between Veronica and Stoker, although both characters—and their mysteries—are painted with a broad brush.

Finally, here’s one non-historical couple I adore: Author Julia Spencer-Fleming’s Claire Ferguson and Russ Van Alstyne. She’s a mid-thirties, former combat pilot, and now an Episcopalian minister; he’s an older, married, former soldier, and now the police chief. They don’t meet cute, and it takes them a while to realize—primarily through their past commitments and current shared values—that they are each other’s person. Together over nine novels, Claire and Russ solve crimes in a small town in Upstate New York. The last book in the series came out in 2020, and I continue to hope for more!

These are just a few of the many historical mysteries with enduring romantic subplots I’ve read (and reread, tbh) over the years. If you’ve got a long-enduring romantic historical series that you love, let us all know in the comments.