For a number of years, My Dear Friend Kate tried to convince me that historical romances were a good thing to read. For that same length of time, I tried to put on a distant smile and refuse to be drawn in. This was partly prejudice – I have never wanted to be seen as a reader of romance – and partly because she was so keen that I try them. Last year, however, Kate cottoned on to a means of basically forcing me to read them: she sent me four as a birthday present. I will now admit that I have read three of those (I am still holding out and not reading the one called The Bridal Bed), and a couple of others she has since given me. Some have had surprisingly good plot structures and interesting characters. The basic theme is always the same, of course – boy and girl meet and eventually end up together; girl is often described with words such as ‘wilful’ and ‘head-strong’, therefore making her a more interesting character and allowing for interesting adventures and devious wooing. Some of them have been fairly pedestrian. I think my favourite is Wings of the Storm, because it’s about a female historian ‘accidentally’ sent back to 12-century England. The love story was fairly humourous, but I also found it very interesting how the author got her character to deal with the change in time and scene (partly, she made her an avid member of an Historical Anachronism society).

Much to Kate’s disappointment and disgust, I am still not entirely hooked on this genre – I don’t think I’ll ever go out and actively look for them. I can concede that they are not all as bad as I had thought, though, which I think is a fairly big step.