What your favorite Bridgerton character says about what you should read next...

So you’ve already binged Netflix’s Bridgerton — maybe more than once — and you’ve already made your way through the books (all eight of them!), or maybe you’re waiting until they’re available from your local library. Either way, all those costumes and longing glances and sensual hand caresses has left you wondering where to go in the great, wide world of Romancelandia, especially if Quinn’s books are off the table.

Never fear, I’ve got you covered. Based on your favorite Bridgerton character, I can tell you exactly what you should read next. Simply scroll down and find the next swoon-worthy book or series to get obsessed with.

Simon, the Duke of Hastings

So you enjoy handsome, powerful men who brood and smolder and have major bad dad trauma? Welcome to romance, my friend — I think you’re going to like it here. I’d recommend getting started with the classic Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase, which features an angst-ridden hero with deep-seated self-worth issues rooted in his tragic childhood.

Or if you were more intrigued by Simon’s determination that the bloodline end with him, check out The Rogue Not Taken by Sarah MacLean or When Beauty Tamed the Beast by Eloisa James, which also feature heroes who’ve also made dramatic vows about never fathering children.

Daphne Bridgerton

Sure, being the nice girl who plays by the rules isn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but sometimes even nice girls get tempted into scandalous behavior, especially once they’re finally out of the watchful gaze of their overprotective family. Meredith Duran’s Wicked Becomes You features just such a heroine, one who, sick of being the forgettable nice girl, turns to her brother’s best friend, a notorious rake, to teach her how to be wicked. Surely Daphne can relate?

Anthony Bridgerton

Ah, the rake. A classic romance archetype, he’s handsome, he’s sensual, he’s dangerous, and if given half a chance, he’ll break your heart. But remember: beneath his claims to have no interest in marriage or romance is a man desperate for the right woman to teach him how to love. We’ll be following Anthony on that journey next season, but until then, consider picking up Cold-Hearted Rake by Lisa Kleypas, which has the added benefit of being the first book in a highly family-centric series, only instead of the Bridgertons, you get the Ravenels, a family with not quite so spotless a reputation… A few other rakes to consider: A Good Debutante’s Guide to Ruin by Sophie Jordan and, for something a little different — an African-American romance set in the Old West — check out Destiny’s Embrace by the inimitable Beverly Jenkins.

Benedict Bridgerton

Be honest: We all wanted Benedict and Lord Granville to hook up, right? Well, I don’t know if that’s in the cards for his future (we can always hope), but if you want a novel where a straightlaced man longing for something he can’t quite explain stumbles upon a hedonistic world that doesn’t give a fig for society’s restrictive mores — and a handsome man to be his guide — look no further than Band Sinister by K.J. Charles.

Eloise Bridgerton

Ah, Eloise, our angry feminist who thinks marriage and motherhood are no better than imprisonment… Her counterpart in the books doesn’t have quite such strong feelings on the subject, but other historical romances have dealt with the delicate balance of having forward-thinking and (proto-)feminist heroines who recognize the many, many problems with marriage, especially at the time … and yet who still end up, well, married, in monogamous heterosexual relationships. I’m not sure any book has pulled it off perfectly, but Devil in Spring by Lisa Kleypas features a similarly averse-to-marriage heroine who fears the loss of her financial independence in the face of a wedding brought on by scandal. Also check out The Suffragette Scandal by Courtney Milan and Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore for more early feminist heroines. And if you’re shaking your head thinking, well, there’s no reason Eloise has to end up in a heterosexual relationship, you are completely correct — and The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite is the perfect book for you.

The Whole Bridgerton Fam

Family-based series are a dime a dozen in romance, but if you adore the big, messy family dynamic of the Bridgertons, I beg that you read The Wildes of Lindow Castle series by Eloisa James, which laughs at Violet Bridgerton’s mere eight children and gives you a blended family of twelve children. This series also has a prequel featuring Lord and Lady Wilde, and unlike the Bridgerton parents, their love story isn’t cut short by tragedy.

Marina Thompson

Poor Marina had a hard time of this this season, and I certainly hope that, despite her fears, she doesn’t end up in a loveless marriage (after all, the marriage of convenience that becomes something more is a tried and true staple of romance), but who knows if we’ll get to watch that, or how it’ll end? If you think Marina deserves a happily ever after, and even that her deception was completely reasonable, check out The Viscount and the Vixen by Lorraine Heath, where an imperfect but well-meaning heroine who tells more than a few lies nevertheless proves to be just the woman the hero needs.

Penelope Featherington

The wallflower is yet another classic romance archetype, the shy, intelligent, perhaps not conventionally attractive young woman who fears she’ll never marry and who usually has hidden depths. While Lisa Kleypas has an entire series dedicated to Wallflowers, I also want to recommend Marry in Scandal by Anne Gracie, about a self-conscious young wallflower with a secret who ends up marrying the handsome man she never dared to believe would take an interest in her.

Prince Friedrich of Prussia

Okay, probably this guy wasn’t your favorite character, because, let’s be honest, he didn’t do much. That said, the fantasy of marrying a handsome prince — usually of a fictional kingdom — is something you can see get played out in romance time and time again. There are some great historicals that fall into this category; Karen Hawkins has a series called Oxenburg Princes in which three brothers, all princes, travel to Scotland to find their brides. However, if you want to go where the royal romances are really happening, check out Alyssa Cole’s contemporary series Reluctant Royals, which begins with A Princess in Theory and features multiple princes, princesses, and even a mere duke.

Will Mondrich

Maybe you’re not so interested in ballrooms and pleasure gardens, and you’d rather see more of Simon’s handsome working-class friend, a pugilist with a sense of honor and even stronger sense of responsibility toward those he loves. Also, you wouldn’t mind some more on-screen punching. In that case, check out Sarah MacLean’s amazing Bareknuckle Bastards trilogy, which eschews many of the typical trappings of historical romance in favor of spotlighting the grit and ingenuity of those living their lives far outside the ton.

Siena Rosso

Opera dancers, mistresses, and courtesans are often the female villains of the romance world, but some writers have written sympathetically about these women — who, like Siena, are often independent women who rely on their talents and their sexuality to survive in a world not built to support them. Courtney Milan’s Unclaimed (part of her Turner series) has as its heroine just such a woman: a heroine who is unapologetically a courtesan, and who deserves to live happily ever just as much as any delicate virgin of the aristocracy.

Lady Danbury

I don’t think it’s controversial at this point to say that Lady Danbury, a fun character in the books, is pure magic in Adjoa Andoh’s capable hands. Who doesn’t love an iconic older woman who’s not afraid to meddle if she knows she’s right (which she always is)? Though there’s no one quite like her, I think you’ll have a lot of fun with Aunt Knowe in the previously-mentioned Wildes of Lindow Castle series, where she’s constantly getting involved in her nieces’ and nephew’s messy affairs. And if you wish you could see an older woman like her fall in love, look no further than Courtney Milan’s Mrs. Martin’s Incomparable Adventure.

Lady Whistledown

Who doesn’t love a woman with a secret?

If you’re wanting to get the inside scoop about a heroine with something to hide, try How to Woo a Reluctant Lady by Sabrina Jeffries, a romance about a woman who secretly writes gothic novels … and the man she’s based her villain on. There’s also A Summer for Scandal by Lydia San Andres, where both the hero and the heroine keep secrets about their writing careers.

Or, if you’re really in the mood for secret identity shenanigans, consider the massive Maiden Lane series by Elizabeth Hoyt, which features many twists, turns, and deceptions, but most relevantly, features not one, not two, not three, but FOUR books featuring a masked vigilante who must keep their identity hidden from both the world at large and the person they love.

I hope you’ve come away with something new to read … and if none of these appeal to you, leave a comment about what you’re looking for in a romance and I’ll try to recommend the perfect book.

'Tis the Damn Season: Christmas Novellas

This week I read two Christmas novella historicals to get me in the spirit of the season: I Will by Lisa Kleypas and A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong by Cecilia Grant. I have trouble with romance novellas, generally speaking — it’s my opinion that romances are all about pacing and novellas are especially difficult to satisfactorily pace — but that doesn’t mean they can’t be enjoyable, and these two were charming (if imperfect) little stories. At the end of this post, I’ll tell you about a few more Christmas novellas I’ve enjoyed. It’s a staple of the genre, after all!

(Both reviews feature minor spoilers, but nothing that should drastically alter your reading experience.)

Published 2016, I Will by Lisa Kleypas is a sliver of a novella, a tasty crumb that goes down very quickly, and though it won’t fill you up, it probably will make you smile. The premise, reminiscent in part of the set-up of Loretta Chase’s classic Lord of Scoundrels, is as follows: Andrew, Lord Drake has been disinherited by his father for being a dissolute rake, so in order to fool his father into believing he’s not such a scoundrel, he turns to respectable spinster Caroline Hargreaves, whose younger brother he has been slowly but surely leading to ruin. The deal is this: If Caroline lets Andrew pretend to court her, then Andrew will keep her brother out of trouble by preventing him from gambling away his family’s money and paying off his not inconsiderable debts. With no choice but to accept, Caroline agrees to attend an upcoming house party being hosted by Andrew’s half-brother, though she is loath to spend any time with the terribly wicked Lord Drake. As you might imagine, once they are thrown together — with Andrew on his best behavior, no longer drinking to excess or carrying on illicit affairs — they find they actually might like each other.

What follows is an unusually-paced love story, though not an unsatisfying one. The events take place over the course of several months (with some of those months passing in the space of a sentence), while a single day at either end earns multiple chapters. That’s not strange for a full-length novel, but in a novella, I am used to a more intense timeline, with all of the lovers’ interactions occurring on the page (as happens in A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong). The result is slightly off-kilter; on the one hand, the relationship feels more solid, more believable for having time to grow, but on the other, it’s difficult not to feel that we are missing large swaths of the courtship, all the little moments that allowed the love to blossom. Often when reading a novella my reaction is that it needed more space to breathe, and while I think in this case “need” is too strong of a word, I do wonder how this would’ve read if we’d been able to get more small scenes with the hero and heroine in between the big moments.

I also have to point out that, in truth, this isn’t much of a Christmas novella. Oh, certainly Christmas features. In the third act, after the lovers have separated by the usual misunderstanding/treachery that romances excel in, Caroline’s brother goes to some trouble to get her an unusual and memorable Christmas gift. There’s much to be said about how the novel resolves itself (I have mixed feelings, to say the least), but there’s nothing that especially feels like Christmas to me about this book — it just as easily could’ve been Caroline’s birthday, with very few details having to change. I liked reading this but it didn’t put me in the holiday spirit.

One of the key themes of I Will is the leap of faith. At one point, after Andrew has been “reformed” for a few months, Caroline wonders if she can trust that he won’t revert back to his old ways. She loves the man he is now, and fears losing him to the man he once was. This theme resonates strongly with A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong, a novella that makes its stance on the leap of faith quite clear. The heroine, Lucy Sharp, is the daughter of a falconer, and midway through the novella she offers up the following bit of wisdom regarding hunting falcons and the danger that they might simply fly away, no matter how well you train them: “You must rely to a degree on hope once you unfasten the tether. Hope, and faith that your efforts will have been enough. And as much peace as you possibly can muster with the possibility that they won’t.” Spoiler alert: she’s not just talking about falcons.

This is a book that advocates openly and ardently for the leap of faith, and in a way, that’s what makes it work so well. Lucy and our hero, the ever-proper Andrew Blackshear, end up alone together over the Christmas holiday due to a series of disasters and questionable decisions: an injured driver, a snowy road, a broken wheel. Lucy, pragmatic but sheltered, doesn’t give a fig about propriety and only wants to enjoy the holiday; Andrew, honorable to a fault, can’t stop panicking about inappropriate his time spent with Lucy is … not to mention the thoughts he keeps having about her. The events of the novella take place over a span of about three days, but the characters’ self-awareness about how fast things are moving, as well as their reasonable trepidation regarding the major differences between them, kept me from reacting like everyone in Frozen after Anna announces she’s engaged to Hans.

Speaking of differences, I was entirely charmed by the dynamic of the lovers in this book. I’ve never been the biggest fan of rake heroes (they’re fine, they’re just overdone), but give me a stodgy prig of a hero any day! Andrew must learn that duty and propriety need not always come first, without entirely compromising the nobleness and sense of responsibility that makes him who he is, and the way that Lucy’s very presence, simply her way of being in the world, pushes him to question himself is handled very well. Lucy was delightful too, because while it can be appealing to pair the prig up with a bold, shocking heroine, Lucy is both more and less complicated than that. Her lack of propriety is shocking to Andrew, but not deliberately so; rather, it speaks to their very different lives and experiences. This makes her moments of earnest vulnerability and provinciality all the more endearing to the reader and Andrew alike.

This was also emphatically a Christmas novella, with Christmas — the hopes and expectations attached to it, the remembrances of what it once was — playing a role nearly as important as that of the hero and heroine. Each character begins with an idea of what their Christmas will entail, and each experiences something altogether different, and harder, and more beautiful than they could’ve imagined. And, in a way, the same is true of love. As the story progresses, they realize with dawning horror — and excitement — and hope — and fear — that this was never how they imagined falling in love … but (of course), as the characters in a romance novel always learn, isn’t it better that way?

A few more Christmas novellas I’ve enjoyed…

A Christmas Bride and A Christmas Beau by Mary Balogh, both of which feel extremely cozy and are practically bursting with all the best Christmas tropes (snowball fights, cocoa, a Christmas pageant, sleds, decorations, small children doing cute things)

• The Duke of Christmas Present by Sarah MacLean, which is a sexy, angsty homage to A Christmas Carol featuring lost love and second chances … also, to be fair, I enjoyed all of the stories in How the Dukes Stole Christmas, which is the anthology this one is found in

• A Vicarage Christmas by Kate Hewitt, which is a contemporary (!) romance that, to be honest, feels somewhat unresolved and suffers from the typical pacing issues of a novella, but which features what I found to be fairly moving meditations on family dynamics, feeling like an outsider, and coping with trauma

• Not Christmas and not a novella, but I did just finish Whiteout by Adriana Anders, and given that it’s set in Antarctica, there’s a lot of reference to snow, ice, cold, and (of course) cuddling for warmth. There’s also mention of penis frostbite. It’s up to you if that’s the sort of thing to put you in the holiday spirit.

I’ve got a few more pulled out from the library, but who knows if I’ll get to them before Christmas Day? If I do and I think any of them are especially good, I’ll update this list!

What are your favorite Christmas romances? Holiday romances? Winter romances?

Top 10 Romance Reads of 2020

Although I’ve read romance off and on throughout my life, it was only this year that I began truly reading romance in earnest. Shortly after Covid-19 restrictions set in this past spring, I reached out to a few friends from college and learned, to my surprise, that we’d all been coping with, well, everything by reading romance novels. Like, a lot of romance novels. At a certain point, I was consuming, on average, more than one novel a day. Thank god for my local library’s ebook collection.

At any rate, this group of friends and I formed a book club that has met (read: Zoomed) weekly for the past howevermany months to talk about that week’s selected novel. In the days between meetings, we also have an ongoing group text where we update each other about everything else we’ve been reading, not to mention interesting Wikipedia articles we run across (“Where is THIS romance?” is a not uncommon comment attached to these articles), pictures of 19th century evening dresses, and our own takes on the latest drama in Romancelandia. Texting and talking with these amazing, smart, funny women has been the highlight of my year.

For our most recent meeting, we challenged each other to come up with lists of our Top 10 of 2020 — not books published this year (because, truth be told, we didn’t read that many published this year), but our favorite books we read for the first time this year, which for most of us was hundreds of books. We also limited ourselves to one book per author. In the end, our lists had some marked differences (one of us reads considerably more paranormal romance than everyone else) and not a few similarities (spoiler alert: all four of us LOVED Band Sinister, because, duh, it’s incredible).

Without further ado, I will share my list (in no particular order) of my favorite romance reads of 2020 and a few comments about why each book blew me away:

1. Band Sinister by K. J. Charles

   This m/m historical romance is everything. Every character sparkles. The dialogue is fresh and engaging. The romance is lovely, nuanced, and realistic without being cynical. As I said above, this was the ONE book that made it onto all four of our Best Of lists. It’s something special.

2. An Unconditional Freedom by Alyssa Cole

   I love the entirety of Cole’s Loyal League series — actually, I love the entirety of Cole’s oeuvre, and her Duke By Default contemporary romance nearly made it onto this list — but to my mind, this book, the third (and final?) in the series, is the pinnacle of what Cole can do, what really good romance can do, what historical fiction can do. Daniel’s story feels devastatingly relevant right now, and the complicated, lovely romance that blossoms in this book just went straight to my heart.

3. Daring and the Duke by Sarah MacLean

   Look, Sarah MacLean knows how to end a series. Pick any series she’s written and it is a GUARANTEE that the last book is an absolute banger. I chose Daring and the Duke for this list, however, because in addition to actually being released in 2020, it is such an ambitious, steamy, patriarchy-smashing kick in the ass of a book, and it completely turns the entire subgenre of “duke books” on its head.

4. When He Was Wicked by Julia Quinn

   I enjoy the Bridgertons series, and I am waiting on tenterhooks for Bridgerton to be released on Netflix, but it is this book, which is in many ways the least Bridgerton book of them all, that truly wormed its way into my soul. Full of wrenching grief, delicious longing, and just about all the angst a girl can wish for, When He Was Wicked hit all of my buttons and then some. There is nothing I love more than pining and this book practically overflows with it.

5. Indigo by Beverly Jenkins

   Anything you pick up by Beverly Jenkins is going to be good, but Indigo is a classic for a reason. It’s beautiful and grand, with an extremely memorable heroine, a delightfully rakish hero, and palpable sexual tension. Also, for what it’s worth, I think Jenkins is among the best writers in terms of historical research and scene-setting. (Her westerns are extremely interesting too, for this very reason.)

6. Marrying Winterborne by Lisa Kleypas

   Basically I love this book because I love Rhys Winterborne. Don’t get me wrong, I love the heroine, Helen; I love her whole family, whom the series follows; and I think the plot in this one is really strong, with excellent pacing and a great twist. All of that is true. I just also love Rhys Winterborne a hell of a lot — he’s my absolute favorite of the rags-to-riches hero archetype, and I will never forget him encouraging his workers to unionize! Labor solidarity is sexy.

7. The Duke of Shadows by Meredith Duran

   I was torn between three different books by Meredith Duran for this slot — Fool Me Twice (because the writing and characterization is almost absurdly good), Luck Be a Lady (because it’s my favorite romance of her books, with some of my favorite tropes all coming together in one delicious love story), and the one I ultimately chose, Duke of Shadows. In the end, I decided on this one because I can’t help but be awed by what a sprawling, ambitious, epic book it is, spanning years, with huge amounts of character growth, as well as equal amounts of trauma. Not to mention that Duran’s prose, while always incredible, really shines here.

8. Thief of Shadows by Elizabeth Hoyt

   I’m obsessed with this book in large part because I’ve never read anything else like it. The hero and heroine, and their dynamic, are so unique and so satisfying. If you’re bored of smirking rakes and wide-eyed debutantes, read this. I cannot recommend it enough. (This one also made the list of one of my book club friends, and any time either of us mentions it we basically just have to yell about how good it is.)

9. The Viscount and the Vixen by Lorraine Heath

   Two of the members of my book club chose the book that precedes this one in the series, and I can understand why. That book, The Earl Takes All, is ambitious and tricky and the fact that Heath pulls it off is a remarkable feat. But to me, The Viscount and the Vixen is a more satisfying read, with a romance that I found genuinely moving and a consideration of grief and loss that hurt in the best way. Long after I’d finished, I still couldn’t stop thinking about it.

10. Lothaire by Kresley Cole

    I don’t know how it happened, exactly, that I read ten of the Immortals After Dark books in less than two weeks, but something about that bizarre, immersive process led me to come out of Lothaire thinking, wait, this was kind of incredible. I’m not sure I would’ve gotten there if I’d just jumped right in with this one, but as part of a long, long series, it is the sweetest payoff, complicated and dramatic and funny and weird in a way I can’t even describe. There’s a vampire 69 at one point. At another point, I teared up with real emotion. Lothaire contains multitudes.

Honorable Mentions:

• The Chasing of Eleanor Vane by Sierra Simone

  This novella, found in the recently-published Duke I’d Like to F… anthology, features some of the most beautiful prose I’ve read in romance. I’ve had trouble with Simone’s work in the past (due to content not quality) but I’ve got nothing but praise for this one.

• The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

  This contemporary features some of the most honest, thoughtful portrayals of sexual discomfort and uncertainty that I’ve ever encountered, and painfully real depictions of awkward social situations (the scene where she comes over for dinner with his family!) … and, at the same time, it’s sexy and funny and exciting and I basically had to race through to the end because I was so invested. Plus I think Michael, the hero, is a perfect man.

• Born to be Wilde by Eloisa James

  Eloisa James does historical detail so well in literally every book I’ve ever read by her, so while that’s definitely one of the highlights from this one, it’s not the main thing I’ll praise. Instead, I’ll say that this book has one of the most satisfying relationships in romance. It’s the mutual respect! It builds slowly, and they take a while to get there, but when they do so, it’s so believable and so rewarding. A lovely portrayal of not just a romance but a partnership.

• My Lord and Spymaster by Joanna Bourne

  Bourne is an excellent prose stylist whose use of free indirect discourse is maybe unparalleled. This is my favorite that I’ve read by her (so far), and I really am not exaggerating when I say she makes reading a complete pleasure. Her books are smart and unusual, and I come away every time extremely impressed by her craft.

• The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan

  As far as I can tell, Courtney Milan can’t write a bad novel. This one, which is extra sweet and frothy, isn’t my favorite thing she’s ever written. What can I say? I like angst. That said, it’s still a delightful book, with sharply-drawn characters and a buoyant, optimistic mood, and I don’t know that anyone could read it and have a bad day.