Dangerous Secrets-Is Regency a Real Setting?

Caroline Warfield, shares her new release, Dangerous Secrets and her thoughts on Regency as a setting. 

In the past unmentionable number of years I have read hundreds, perhaps thousands of regency romance novels.  I read the smallish ones, “traditional” ones, longer ones, funny ones. I read them when they began to heat up a little. When Avon et al brought us the longer “regency historical” with its more complex plots and larger dollops of sex I read those too. I know there are folks who try to define the “traditional” version and parse out all the lines between all the subgenres, but I’ve never much cared.  I just like ‘em.

 

One issue that swirls around the genre is historical accuracy. I’ve sat through more than my share of talks and seminars aimed at ensuring historical accuracy. There are blogs, groups, and books a plenty on the subject. I’ve come to wonder whether readers care and begun to suspect they don’t.

What has evolved in these eighty years since Georgette Heyer turned her mighty pen to the regency era, is comfortable universe, well known to readers with certain expected forms of behavior and manners that exist only (or at least primarily) within fiction. We shouldn’t confuse the world of the regency novel with the actual late Georgian Era during which the Prince Regent ruled on his father’s behalf.  In some ways it is no more real than the wonderful world of Oz, and no less rich in expectation.

 

One excellent example of what I mean is the ever-present duke. You can’t have a regency novel without one. Occasionally they actually resemble the powerful politically connected men of the historical era. More often they resemble multinational banking billionaires in their worldview, and London is crawling with an unrealistic number of them. Do readers care? Of course not.

 

Historical novels give us feasible history. In historical romance, the romance rules and the fiction is fantasy.

 

How much authenticity do you demand in a novel? Is actual historical authenticity most important or are the romantic tropes we’ve all come to expect in regency romance? What would the story be without the fantasy?

 

Dangerous Secrets

Rome 1820

When a little brown wren of an Englishwoman bursts into Jamie Heyworth’s private hell and asks for help he mistakes her for the black crow of death.  Why not? He fled to Rome and sits in despair with nothing left to sell and no reason to get up in the morning. Behind him lie disgrace, shame, and secrets he is desperate to keep.

Nora Haley comes to Rome at the bidding of her dying brother who has an unexpected legacy. Never in her sunniest dreams did Nora expect Robert to leave her a treasure, a tiny blue-eyed niece with curly hair and warm hugs. Nora will do anything to keep her, even hire a shabby, drunken major as an interpreter.

Jamie can’t let Nora know the secrets he has hidden from everyone, even his closest friends. Nora can’t trust any man who drinks. She had enough of that in her marriage. Either one, however, will dare anything for the little imp that keeps them together, even enter a sham marriage to protect her. Will love—and the truth—bind them both together?

 

 

 

 

 

Dangerous Secrets Excerpt

“And this count?” she spat. Turning to look at him now, attention was hot in her eyes. The brave little bird, both wise and foolish, was taking stock of her enemy, a sleek and ravenous wolf.

“The count is Savoy. Your niece’s great-uncle is the king’s cousin.” He kept his voice flat and followed her to the gate.

“Damned aristocrats,” she mumbled.

Black humor twisted Jamie’s gut in response to Nora Haley’s anti-aristocratic sentiments. God help me. What would she say if she found out she had hired a bankrupt baron?

“Isabella’s family rules Sardinia and the Piedmont?” she went on without noticing Jamie’s reaction.

“Yes.” He didn’t add that Savoy ruled Genoa also, thanks to the Congress of Vienna, and all the lands in bordering France as a reward for successfully navigating between Napoleon and his enemies. Devious is the word for Savoy. One little widow poses no challenge to them.

She paused at the gate. “We’ll see her tomorrow.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he agreed. But don’t count on the day after. A shudder ran down Jamie’s spine, and he fought the temptation to bolt.

 

Dangerous Secrets Blog Tour Giveaway

For a chance to win the right to name characters in a still to be written novella, as well as an Amazon gift card, comment below and click here.

http://www.carolinewarfield.com/?page_id=471

 

About Caroline

Caroline Warfield has at various times been an army brat, a librarian, a poet, a raiser of children, a nun, a bird watcher, a network services manager, a conference speaker, a tech writer, a genealogist, and, of course, a romantic. She is ever a traveler, adventurer, and writer of historical romance, enamored of owls, books, history, and beautiful gardens (but not the act of gardening).  She sits a desk and imagines, spinning stories she hopes you like, even though they are shockingly lacking in dukes.

 

She is married to a prince among men.

 Connect with Caroline

Web http://www.carolinewarfield.com/

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Twitter @CaroWarfield

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Dangerous Secrets buy Link: http://tinyurl.com/l5cm7ns