When I was a child we had a set of children’s encyclopedias. The volume that I looked forward the most to reading was titled The Romance of History. You can imagine my disappointment when I finally got to read it and found that it was just stories from the olden days. But my disappointment was shortlived as I’ve been hooked on history ever since. Many years later, my first foray as a novelist was in historical romance. However, I found that my carefully researched and written novel was lumped in with the ‘historical romance’ churned out these days by the category romance publishers.
I have given this title to this ezine in memory of my first readings in history, but also for its several connotations. What do we mean by ‘romance’? For most of us our first thought is ‘a tale of pure and idealised love’. The writers of the encyclopedia were using it to mean ‘a tale of events and characters remote from ordinary life, a tale of heroic or marvellous achievements’. However, these days it comes closer to the meaning ‘to indulge in fanciful or extravagant stories.’ What is today called ‘historical romance’ is little more than erotica in long skirts and is neither historical nor romantic.
This ezine is my response to this trend. Its main purpose is to try to return history to historical romance, but it also aims to celebrate authentic historical fiction in all genres.