[Note from Frolic: We are so excited to welcome Constance Sayers to the site today! She’s talking all about the importance of historical fantasy in romance. Take it away Constance!]
My mother was a romantic soul, never quite fitting in with the time slot she found herself living in. I have little doubt she would have made a fabulous Victorian lady. Instead, as a young girl set against the backdrop of WWII, she found herself cruelly separated from a boyfriend at the peak of their love story. Through letter writing, their romance continued as he went off to the European theater. Sadly, their love was not meant to be. You might think you know where this story is going—it was war after all—but I assure the gentleman returned from the Army safely, he just didn’t return to my mother. Six months into his tour, the young man mistakenly mailed her a letter addressed to “My Darling Anne” (my mom’s name was Barbara) and the romance (quite naturally) went caput from there. There were extenuating circumstances worthy of Sandra Bullock film in this situation, but nostalgic days, my mother chalked up the loss of him to fate and the challenges loving during wartime. As a kid, I recall being quite mesmerized by this story. It had all the makings of a great novel, but I also had an overwhelming desire to correct it and give her a different ending.
When you think of it, romantic love is a rather universal emotion—a combination of hormones and biology. I have little doubt that emotions swirling around love and romance in the 1800s were just as they are now, but there were very different rules of engagement. Many times, I’ve heard it said that the appeal of historical fiction is a return to a simpler time, but in regards to romance, I actually think the opposite is true. Swiping right on Tinder these days is far easier than the confining dating rituals of the past. A great headline from Quartz’s Matt Philips on marriage prospects after the death of 1.4 million men post-war, read, “Think a Good Man is Hard to Find Now? Try France After World War I.” The point is that neither life, nor romance were simpler “back then.” Rewind even further to the Victorians where marriage was more of a business arrangement requiring a dowry, a good family, and a chaperone just to talk to your love interest (and touching was forbidden). But it is both precisely those rules that are so intriguing in the exotic backgrounds of a different time period. Historical fiction is escapism at its best. Fold in fantasy into historical fiction and it really takes it to another level.
In historical romantic fantasy, characters can move back and forth in time periods often changing the outcome or entangling themselves in places they don’t belong. Think finding a soul mate is hard today? What if your true love actually lives in Victorian England? (Binge stream the incredible Lost in Austen for that one!) The ability to transport between time is usually discovered accidently during times of crisis or reflection and involve antique shops, secret passageways, fog, amulets and other devices allow characters to, not only witness other times, but often require them to choose between altering the outcomes or remaining in another time to where they are drawn.
This desire to transcend the limitations of history is where the historical fantasy novel is at its most powerful. The German philosopher Novalis said that “Novels arise out of the shortcomings of history.” Diana Gabaldon does this so well in the Outlander series. Claire Randell (later Fraser) is deposited from the future—into the Scottish Highlands in 1743. She is from another time, both literally and figuratively, but despite the frustration of the gender limitations imposed on her by the 18th century, escape for her is always a delicious possibility if she can just make it back to the stones at Craigh na Dun. Most women (like my mother) didn’t have a stone to travel through, but were, instead, stuck in the time period dealt them. But, with Gabaldon’s wide brush, Claire can step back and forth in time like she’s tasting a sampler platter. It’s a wonderfully re-imagined and different ending for the women of history like my mother, who often weren’t given voices and didn’t get the outcomes we wanted for them.
Here are four historical fantasy novels that I recommend: