Have you stumbled across any social media that features historical romance readers? Have you noticed how they have all this insider slang that gets bandied about, often in acronyms?

Let me help you out.

The number one thing about Romancelandia is that they strive to be an inclusive, welcoming space. But that doesn’t mean everyone has to like the same thing. So here’s your first phrase:

“Don’t Yuck Someone Else’s Yum.”

Basically, just because you don’t like that book or that particular plot, it doesn’t mean it’s bad. Someone else likes it, so don’t be judgmental. This is especially important because historical romance has changed dramatically over the decades. I recently saw on social media someone saying they won’t read romance earlier than 2010 because consent was not explicit.

What Kind of Historical Romance Is There?

Unlike historical fiction, historical romance does not divide itself into time periods, so much as categories. The most popular era of historical romance is Regency romance, which is like Jane Austen times, but they touch much more. The Regency period is an British term referring to when King George III was incapacitated and his son, Prince George, took over and ruled as a regent, from 1811-1820. But in practice, what we call the Georgian and even early Victoria era, is considered “wider Regency” in publishing, which encompasses 1790s-1830s. It’s confusing. I know. So here are some categories of historical romance, and just understand that this is about trying to get the right kind of book into the right reader’s hands:

• Ancient world
• Renaissance
• Medieval
• Tudor
• Vikings
• Scottish
• Time Travel
• Regency
• Victorian
• Western
• Amish
• Gilded Age
• Christian
• American

Many of these aren’t a time period. But they are ways that readers see and understand what to expect when they crack that spine. As always, it’s interesting to note that in 2023 (and earlier), the highest sales are in Regency Romance, followed by Victorian, and then American (which can be either cowboys, amish, or mail-order-brides, or a combo of those).

But who came up with this stuff? Depending on who one consults, historical romance was either birthed by Georgette Heyer in the 1930s, or by Katherine Woodwiss in the 1970s. Both are true, for very different reasons.

The Birth of Historical Romance

Georgette Heyer wrote Regency Romances, books which might now be termed “traditional” Regency Romances. While many people view her books as the most accurate, it does require an asterisk. She, like any writer, had her own biases that showed up in her works. For instance, she was a known anti-semite, and didn’t have the luxury of Google Books. Which means, she was writing from her personal knowledge, and her perspective is very much tainted by the stricter Victorian era (which came after the Regency era). She would even sometimes make things up, and when she gained popularity and became the subject of copycats, she would plant fake phrases in her novels to see if anyone would copy her. But the key points of her traditional Regency Romance were upper class characters, mannered interactions, and no sex.

But if Heyer created the genre, what’s this about Katherine Woodwiss? In the 1970s, Woodwiss wrote what would become known as the “bodice ripper.” This time there was torrid plot events, torrid sex, and yes, the non-consensual intimacies. As many other authors have spoken on this subject to more eloquence than me, this reflected the mores of the time. If a woman consented, she was “bad,” which means the heroines in her 1970s era books could not consent.

Now flash-forward—wait for it—forty years. The time between Heyer and Woodwiss. Again, the historical romance genre has changed. And please, please don’t refer to Fabio to any current historical romance authors. He hasn’t been on a cover since the 1990s. That’s 25 years ago. Let it die.

This is a Different World

The genre now explores the exceptional women of the given time period, not just the wealthy ones. Historical Romance reflects where the author sees her community being socially, sexually, romantically, as a context. Books now have “Alpha heroines.” There it is. Your next term. An “Alpha” is a dominant personality, the term taken from wolf pack terminology. So an “Alpha heroine” is a lady lead who will be the dominant personality. This doesn’t necessarily mean she is a swashbuckler, but it does mean she takes the lead. Another term is “Alphahole.” I think you can guess what that one means. An Alphahole is typically a male lead whose dominance makes him an asshole.

There are more and more queer romances that also explore this. Which brings us to M/M, M/M/F, F/F, F/NB. And all the “slashes” which is a cherry-picked term from fan fiction. All of those are to describe what kind of gender pairings you will find in the romance. While it usually refers to what intimate pairings you will find in the book, it can also refer only to the romantic pairings—i.e., no on-page intimacy. M=Male, F=Female, NB=Non-binary.

The Steamy Bits

“Steamy” is when the book has on-page sex scenes. This can also be called “Spicy” and many romance reviewers have a scale rating they use to let readers know how much steam to expect. In romances, these explicit love scenes are meant to showcase how emotions are heightened (or thwarted) by the physical aspect of a relationship. In a good steamy romance, if you skip the sex scenes, you are skipping emotional growth of one or more of the characters. Now, if there is very little plot and the sex scenes are gratuitous, you are reading erotica, which is different and has its own genre conventions.

Some in the industry call books with no steam, Clean Romances. While this irks those of us who write steamy books, because if those are Clean, that makes us Dirty(?!), but the no-steam books were originally called Sweet Romances, not Clean. Because algorithms are what they are, there were some Steamy books being labeled as Sweet, but not meaning no-steam, meaning that the romance was not fraught. Amazon adopted the word Clean, so now, that’s what no-steam books are called. Another historical romance author in Paper Lantern Writers, Jillianne Hamilton,  prefers the term “wholesome,” but you can also call these “Closed Door Romances.” Which means that when the steamy bits start, the door closes, and the readers are bumped to the next day in the timeline of the book.

Historical Romance Covers

Another important term in this industry is “clinch,” as in a “clinch cover.” These are the sexy covers where the characters are half-dressed, poured over each other, as if they have just been caught in a compromising situation by the reader. If that’s not the cover, but you open the cover, and there *is* an image like that? That is called a “stepback.” These were more common in the pre-2000s era of publishing, but some Big 5 publishers will still do this for their high-earning series. As paper has gotten more expensive in the last few years, and as more indie publishers and self-publishers gain acceptance, this tradition may fall by the wayside. Or, it may be a way that Big 5 publishers try to set themselves apart.

But no matter if there is steam, low-steam, or no-steam, all of these books get an HEA. This stands for “Happily Ever After.” This is a genre convention and must be present to be classified as a romance novel. More contemporary romance novels have HFN, and series often have these too, if there is an overarching narrative arc. HFN stands for “Happy For Now.”

Why Does Romance Have to Have a Happily Ever After?

The reason this genre convention is iron-clad is because women (or femme) often are the cannon-fodder in other novels. I’ve blogged about this before. Women are typically dead by the first 50 pages, to serve as the hero’s reason to go on a rampage. They are sisters held captive, mothers who die of cancer, the mistress who gets fired for screwing the boss, girl-next-doors who disappear from the pages because the plot never really concerned them, the manic pixie dream girls whose subplot is only an outlet for a young man’s sexual awakening.

But in Romance? They win. Those throw-away characters win it all. They live, they get their goal, hey get their love. They get family approval and the dog. Romance is the only genre where readers are guaranteed to have a woman/femme to get what they want. It’s also why queer romances are important, too. For so long, the trauma of historical queer figures has been on display, and not their triumphs. Same with other non-white, non-straight communities. So the HEA/HFN is important, and not to be trifled with.

What is a trope?

Some other terms you might want to know have to do with tropes. Trope is the overarching plot device the author uses to hang their book upon. For instance, “Only One Bed” is a common one, which is where when the not-intimate-right-now characters are forced to share a bed. The reader anticipates shenanigans. “Grumpy vs. Sunshine” is also known as “Black Cat and Golden Retriever,” which is just where one character is a grumpy introvert and the other is a happy-go-lucky extrovert. In historical romance, “Marriage of Convenience” is an easy thing. Dynastic marriages were part of the tradition in Ye Olde Aristocratic Clans, so this is one that is fun to explore with historical romances from all time periods. Other tropes I think you’ll understand as you run across them.

Do you feel as though you can navigate yourself to some good historical romances now? I hope you give them a chance, and know that not every historical romance is equal, and your tastes are just as valid as everyone else’s. Because in Romancelandia, we try not to Yuck Someone Else’s Yum.