Romancing History: A Romance Author’s Love of the Past

The first romance novel I had ever read was a historical.  I can tell you I was hooked. Nothing matter more to me than getting my next book. Instead of doing school work, I was reading. Luckily, I still managed to pass my classes.

So when it came to writing a novel, I—of course—had to write a historical romance. I have written a couple before I actually had my first novel, The Marriage Alliance,  published then came Claiming the Highlander. 

I have always loved history. To me, history is the way we can time-travel—experience the different lives and times. While I’m writing my novels like my medieval Highlander novels I am a clan chieftain raiding my enemies lands or I am a Scottish heroine struggling to stay alive against an evil English baron trying to kill me (my next novel The Laird’s Right, which is coming soon).

I have loved history since childhood when I would stare at my mother’s porcelain doll dressed as Marie Antoinette. My child’s imagination would transport me to 18th century France.

As I started school, I wanted to learn all about the past. The details from fashion, food to even the mundane like how they stood. I swore that I could somehow become them and once knowing the information, I naturally turned to writing.

Because I just didn’t want to know it. I wanted to lay down these characters’ I concocted so that they could exist. And history is written down to be shared. You heard of method acting well I’m a method writer.

I love traveling to the Highlands of Medieval Scotland.
And to Regency England.
And Montana Territory in 1870s.
And 16th century Scotland.

I hope you will join me on one of my travels. Sign up for my newsletter at Mageela Troche

Tell me what is one of your favorite time periods. Where would you escape?

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Go Western, Romance Reader

Westerns are dead – killed by the romance reader who doesn’t buy them. That’s the response I’ve received from agents and editors about my western, Loved by You.

The tale of Melissa and Calder came to me and became such an infatuation that I had to put fingertips to keyboard. For about three years, I’ve worked, tweaked, and polished my manuscript. When I mailed it out, either by snail mail or electronically, the replies were great story but the market for this genre isn’t there. Then this past week, numerous blogs- Misadventures of Super Librarian, Petticoats & Pistols, Ramblings on Romance and The Good, the Bad and the Unread, banded together and started the Great Western Drive.

I cheered when I read their posts. I was ready to hitch up my wagon and join the drive. (Forgive the “hitching up” remark, I just had to make it.) I love Westerns. The rugged often emotionally scarred hero with an unwavering code of ethics, the strong heroine who can work the land as good as any man, the raw settings and the conflict and danger that can ride in with the stagecoach. That combination is the reason why I love the sub-genre and why I lay down my dollars for it.

I must not be the only person (my friend and fellow western writer Patt Mihailoff pens them still) since The Bridegroom by Linda Lael Miller is #26 on New York Times best seller’s list. I sure didn’t buy all those copies. I wonder if my fellow readers are waiting for more westerns. Are you? Have you ever read a western? Do you consider yourself a fan of the sub-genre? If so, which one is your fav? And if not, would you try one out?