ICYMI, I have spent the summer writing a Regency friends-to-lovers romance novel, called A Duke for Lady Ellen, which follows the adventures of poet Lady Ellen Brightly in her pursuit of an eligible husband in London. The story is set in 1816, after the wars on the Continent, so Society is celebrating the London Season in full force.  Lady Ellen, who initially isn’t too keen on getting married because of her tendency toward clumsiness which alienates potential suitors, meets up with the Duke of Danbury at a ball and interest blooms.  I don’t want to spoil the plot, but another suitor, the middle-aged Earl of Hambidge, comes on the scene and Ellen finds herself equally attracted to him. Hijinks ensue.

I’ve read a lot of Regency novels.  What I like about them is that they are total fantasies—women of privileged (alas, white) backgrounds whose sole life purpose is to secure a husband.  Money for them is rarely a concern, and they have loving parents and good breeding, and are basically set up to succeed. And if they are not of a privileged background, they usually have such a nobility of spirit, they can’t help but capture the eye of some obscenely wealthy titled rake (Cinderella stories of a sort).  So you can see the appeal as a reader—these novels completely take you out of your hum drum quotidian milieu.

Lots of harsh realities are glossed over in these novels, if they are mentioned at all.  If you’re a Marxist, you realize that these ladies searching for husbands are commodities themselves AND they get their privilege on the backs of tenant farmers whose rents support the titled gentry and on the backs of a servant class who make in one year probably less than the cost of a few of the heroine’s ball gowns. Less savory elements of London society (small “s”) exist, but for the most part, these women do not interact with people who are struggling to survive through crime or prostitution or begging. If poverty is mentioned at all, it tends to be in terms of the charity work that these Society women do to alleviate the problem.

Granted, the gentlemen that the women marry tend to be hedonistic rakes who only reform their wicked ways because they fall in love with the heroine. And sometimes, the men come from poor backgrounds and have “bootstrapped” their lives by becoming titans of industry. So they are rich and therefore “deserving “of the heroines’ love. But more often than not, the men are rich and titled from the get-go, and they are immediately captivated by the Lady at the heart of these stories.

Rarely—at least in all the novels I’ve read—is race even addressed. This might be my fault because I have not researched POC writing Regency novels like I should, so that’s on me, but when it is discussed, the issue of “race” is always framed in terms of a white person who will risk being ostracized from Society in order to be with their love.  I just read Cara Maxwell’s Jilted in January (part of The Rake Review series, #1), in which the hero, Edward Johns, is Chinese on his mother’s side, but he’s rich as Croesus, and that buys him (some) respectability, even if he’s considered the most “unmarriageable” man in England.  He does not want to marry Persephone Cuthbert—not because he doesn’t love and desire her—but because he’s afraid she will tumble down Society’s ladder for marrying him.  For her part, she seems fine with the fall—she maybe trips down one rung max, and when they marry, winds up living in perfect happiness the Limehouse district at the docks, also known for being a China Town. So race isn’t a barrier to happiness (as it shouldn’t be), even if it feels unrealistic for the age.

In Emma V. Leech’s To Break the Rules (part of the Girls Who Dare series, #4), the main character Senorita Lucia de Ferria is called “exotic” but her exoticism inflames the men of the ton. No blonde-haired, blue-eyed English rose, she nevertheless is passing as European, but it turns out she is actually Aashini, an Indian, trying to hide the reality of her background. The book gives her a very poor, traditional-seeming grandmother who may or may not be psychic, a woman who embraces Viscount Cavendish for her granddaughter. He loves Aashini and when she “comes out” as Indian at a big Society ‘do, he couldn’t be prouder. She also has nine other young women friends in the series who don’t seem to care about her race at all—which is loving and inclusive of them. But again, unrealistic.

Another book that (tangentially) deals with race is Elisa Braden’s Anything but a Gentleman (from the Rescued from Ruin series, #7).  This time the character of color, Shaw, is not the main character, but he is the assistant and manager of the hero’s club and is wealthy because of his position.  He is also a very dark South Asian and he’s very in love with the sister of the heroine.  The sister, Phoebe, is pregnant by Lord Glassington, who only comes to heal at the very end when he is tricked into re-proposing marriage to Phoebe.  But by then Shaw, who has nursed Phoebe back to health after an illness, declares himself to Phoebe, promises to love her child as his own, and tells Glassington to get lost and pay up the gambling debts he’s incurred.  Braden takes care to have Shaw explain how Phoebe’s marrying him will hurt her future prospects in Society and is very clear that he’s aware of the difference in their status.  But, as always, true love overcomes everything, even differences in race.  But of the three books I’ve mentioned, Braden seems the most aware of the transgressive nature of the interracial relationship within Regency S/society—yet, the transgression remains between minor characters.  The main characters are white and white hegemony is upheld.

Considering the bias that the white British had towards Indians, it seems like pure fantasy to imagine even minor characters of different cultural backgrounds getting together.  But this is romance, and love always triumphs, even if it’s unrealistic…Of course, I realize harping on a romance novel’s unreality is like saying water is wet—there’s nothing realistic about romance novels, so introducing diversity in these ways should be celebrated even if the color lines in Regency England were much more impermeable than they are now.  But then I’m speaking from a white point of view, and I don’t have a scholarly background in 19^th century literature, so take my opinions with a pound of salt.

But back to discussing A Duke for Lady Ellen!

Writing a Regency romance was not hard, per se, probably because I’ve absorbed many of the tropes, expressions, and plotting elements just from the sheer number of Regencies I’ve read. I know my book does break some of those plotting elements—for instance, the big sex scene comes almost at the end of the book (Chapter 25), although there is a little pawing at each between main characters earlier on (Chapter 10).  And even in the point of view:  mine is third person limited, so we never get inside of the hero’s head because it’s told from Ellen’s POV.  At best, she supposes certain things about other characters and their motives, but she doesn’t know.  And using third person limited POV is probably a rookie mistake, and one I wouldn’t repeat. All of the Regencies I’ve read are third person omniscient, which allows readers to see other things than what the heroine directly experiences.

Writing a Regency should have been harder for me because of the research such work requires.  I did do some research, mostly about conveyances, money, the mail, and the peerage. But to write something well, especially in an era for which I don’t have a background, research should be front and center.  And for me on this novel, it was not.

Let me give you the biggest, most egregious example where research could have helped. I didn’t know it, but choosing 1816 in which to set A Duke for Lady Ellen was a Bad Idea—quite a problematic time for England (and the rest of the world). I only found out half-way through the writing that 1816 was considered “The Year Without a Summer” (and then, only because of an offhand comment that Chris made alerting me to the fact). Apparently, a volcanic eruption in Indonesia sent particulates in the air and decreased the world’s temperature by a degree or two, making crops fail and causing famines across England and world-wide.

So I had to retrofit my story with nods to the weather and crop conditions to bring a little more realism to the book. Not that anyone in my book seems to suffer for the most part about The Year Without a Summer… just another one of those glossed-over harsh realities I mentioned, I guess. (If I had done research earlier, then I could have incorporated the details more organically and “realistically” instead of ham-fisting them a bit.) But really, I should have done at least a cursory look into 1816, other than arbitrarily choosing a year just because the Napoleonic wars were over and I didn’t want to deal with military history. Next time, amirite?

Still, all things considered, I’m happy with the novel.  I’m sure, writing it as quickly as I did (in the span of several weeks), there are mistakes.  And I changed my mind about who the hero really was kind of half-way through because I fell in love with him, and dropped characters in and out of the story as needed for plot, but over all, I like it.  I’m proud of it. And I know that some people have read it:  at least two of my friends have, and Mom and Chris plan to read it too. I would love a wider audience than just folks I know, of course.  But I’ll take who I can get.

Read a little (or a lot!) and let me know what you think of it!  It’s free!