My wonderful friend Alice recently was excavating the origins of our friendship (we have been friends for six years!), and she found an email from me where I described my reading like this:
The, uh, the really really trashy kind of trashy romance novels. Where everyone is called Alexandra and Gareth, and they cause a scandal and a hissing by making out in the arboretum and then Gareth is like, “Darling, why do you care what the cats at Almack’s say of you? Let’s make love all day in my decadently decorated bedroom!” and Alexandra is like, “And the men at the club will clap you on the back and call you a good fellow, but for me — a bluestocking spinster whose father is in trade — it would be utter ruin. And I cannot think only of myself; there are my sisters to consider!”
That is…I’m really sorry that 2012 Jenny felt shame about reading romance novels, because they are amazing and fun and not trash at all. But I am deeeeeeeeelighted with 2012 Jenny’s précis of the type of historical romance I still enjoy.
Please rec me some romances along the lines. I believe at the time I was reading a lot of Loretta Chase and Courtney Milan, just to give you a guideline.