Historical Romances are always a popular, comfortable, cosy read. This Autumn snuggle down with these romance novels set in times gone by. Let your imagination run wild – its actually good for you.
6 Historical Romances – short reviews
1. The Viscount Needs a Wife – Jo Beverley
A historical romance novel in the Rogue Series. Jo Beverley writes an amazing historical romance which focuses on the relationship between the lovely Kitty and the stubborn Braydon. When he inherits the title of Viscount Dauntry, Beau Braydon finds himself looking for a woman with an iron fist who can manage his real-estate. Kitty is a widow who is trying to get away from her husband’s possessive family. The two protagonists demonstrate that opposites attract and reading their love story develop is like watching a firework show. But The Viscount Needs a Wife is not a plain love story. It is spiced with the mystery. A threat is made to the royal family in London and someone is trying to prevent Braydon finding the truth.
The setting of this book makes you feel like you are a part of the noble families. And the language, while modern has a tone of class and elegance that artfully places the characters in the 17th century.
2. Falling for the Highlander – Lynsay Sands
Lady Murine Carmichael has had a rough life, living in a house where her half-brother would drown in dept. So when she decides to escape, going alone through the countryside seems the best idea. On the road she is joined by the Dougall Buchanan, a brave Highlander. The chemistry between the two of them is powerful.
This love story is for all those who love heroic men and powerful women. The characters are well developed and the story is beautifully put together. Dougall’s need to protect Murine is emphasized but remarkable is that the heroine wants to save herself. Falling for the Highlander is a sensitive, steamy and full of witty dialogue, that is Lynsay Sands’ trademark, historical romance suitable for all readers who like independent heroines and tormented heroes.
Have you read Outlander, another highlander historical romance, yet? Click here for our short review.
3. The Bronze Horseman – Paullina Simons
Tatiana and Dasha are sisters and best friends who share everything. When WW2 starts, Tatiana meets a brave and handsome solider in the Red Army named Alexander. As her family suffers because of the advancing war, Tatiana finds herself more smitten with the young solider. But life has other plans with their relationship, because her sister is also in love with Alexander.
This book is more than a love story. The historical setting, full of dramatic details, illustrates with accuracy how difficult it was for normal people to live in a crumbling Leningrad. The scenery is a beautiful frame for the love story that might leave you in tears.
4. The White Queen – Philippa Gregory
Philippa Gregory gives the tumultuous Wars of the Roses a feminine voice through her intelligent and ambitious heroine, Elizabeth Woodville, known as The White Queen. She ascends to royalty by marrying a new crowned king and gives birth to two sons. These become the missing princes of the Tower of London, and are a great mystery to historians nowadays.
The author fills the gap in history with savvy and intimate stories of the royal court and gives life to one of England’s biggest mysteries. The historical placement isn’t sacrificed by romance. They are intertwined, artfully giving the reader a taste of pre-Tudors Era and also a page turning love story.
5. The Japanese Lover – Isabel Allende
The Japanese Lover is a love story that transcends time. A young Alma Belasco is sent away to San Francesco from her native Poland when the Nazis invaded. There she meets a Japanese boy, Ichimei Fukada and they rapidly fall in love. But after the Pearl Harbor attack, when all Japanese people are relocated to internment camps, they are forced apart. They reunite over and over again, but faith doesn’t want them to end up together.
The story told by an 80 year old Alma may break your heart. It is not only about the love from far away, about about friendship, loss, fear and in the end, fulfillment as she lived a full life. Allende shows in this book how life is affected by war, even after the last bullet is shot. This is an amazing book that teaches the reader that proximity isn’t the most important thing when you love someone and that you should cherish the moments you are given with loved ones.
6. Princess of Fire – Heather Graham
When the mighty Norman warrior, Alaric saves King Harold’s daughter Fallon, she knows that they are destined to end up together. But they didn’t meet at the battle of Hastings. They have a long history of explosive interactions. Alaric is Fallon’s enemy but the feeling he stirs in her is not of hate. With an alfa-male as a protagonist and a stubborn intelligent woman as the female lead, this novel is steamy and explosive.
Heather Graham stays true to the era and illustrates in detail bloody battle scenes. She knits the social reality of those times with this amazing love story of opposites being attracted to each other, even if their minds and status dictates otherwise.
