Historical Romance in Peril: Voices from the Industry
Nine historical romance authors share their publishing experiences, insights on the current market, and expectations for the future.
Editors Note: This post was recently edited removing an author’s statements regarding diversity that do not align with Romance & Co.’s beliefs. Please see the bottom for the statement.
It’s no secret that I love historical romance. Over the year, I’ve written about Dollar Princesses, Highland Warriors, Bow Street Runners, Spinsters, and more. Despite my personal mission to purchase every historical romance available, the genre has been facing a decline in readership. This isn’t a new phenomenon, but it has reached a crescendo—at least on social media.
New authors are finding it increasingly difficult to break into a market dominated by the rising popularity of romantasy and dark romance. Even established authors aren’t immune. In recent years, several high-profile authors have parted ways with their publishers. Beloved author Elizabeth Hoyt, for example, announced this year that her Greycourt series would end prematurely.
While Hoyt hasn’t confirmed whether this decision came from her publisher, many readers strongly speculate that it did. Internet sleuths pieced together from interviews that she already had drafts of the later novels.
One common argument is that historical romance doesn’t resonate with younger audiences. Critics claim the genre feels out of touch, with readers gravitating toward “fresh” themes. But if freshness is the issue, no one delivers it better than Adriana Herrera in her Las Leonas series. Following three Latin American heiresses visiting Paris during the 1889 World Exposition, the series boasts a richly diverse cast and doesn’t shy away from historical realities—such as the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade and those who profited from it. It features excellent queer representation, including an entire novel devoted to Sapphic Paris, and explores pressing issues like access to women’s healthcare. What more could a historical romance reader ask for? And yet…
I could go on about industry trends and lament the unfair treatment of historical romance, but that wouldn’t be particularly informative (or interesting) for you.
Instead, this week, we’ll hear directly from the authors. I put out a call on Threads, asking historical romance writers to share their experiences. The response was overwhelming—so many authors offered open and thoughtful insights.
So now, I’ll step aside and let them share.
How has your experience as a historical romance author changed over the past five years?
Anne Knight: Five years ago I was querying and realizing that histrom (historical romance) was getting more and more difficult to get requests in. I was genuinely surprised when I signed with my agent in June 2023. We still have not sold that book. I've made friends with a lot of other writers in the same boat as me—gotten agents through historical romance and planned to be primarily histrom writers, but got stopped before our careers can move further.
Kate Bateman: Having published 12 histroms via the trad (traditional) publishing route since 2016, my publisher SMP has recently declined my next histrom series. Since I still love writing historical romance and believe there IS still an active audience out there for it, I'm most likely going to go the self-publishing route. I'm not really interested in changing genres right now, just to remain traditionally-published
Faye Delacour: Five years ago I was querying agents and people would comment that historical romance was "a tough sell". It was hard to get my foot in the door as a debut, but it was still a subgenre that editors were acquiring, and established authors were still selling their books to readers. Everyone seemed to be relying on the popularity of Bridgerton to pitch their books, hoping that fans of the show would transfer over to them. That doesn't seem to have happened. A few fans picked up Julia Quinn's books and didn't go any further. Now people aren't saying historical romance is a tough sell, they're saying authors should pivot to other genres or switch to indie, because trad pub is done with it. In the past few months, many best-selling authors have announced that they're doing exactly that. If authors who had ten plus books on the NYT bestseller list can't sell historical romance anymore, newcomers certainly don't have much of a chance. It feels pretty bleak for those of us who really love this genre and hoped to keep writing it.
What are the biggest challenges you currently face in the historical romance market?
Emma Theriault: Support! It’s very disheartening to hear as a debut author that the likes of Elizabeth Hoyt or Liana de La Rosa or other icons aren’t getting new contracts in the genre. If they aren’t getting publisher support, bookstore support, etc, what hope do us newbies have? Without the proper support in 2025, we simply aren’t able to reach readers.
Lucy Morris: Not as many young readers are interested in the genre, and those that do try historical romance, start with quite problematic books from the 80s and 90s which put them off reading further, when actually historical romance has changed over the years - especially Mills & Boon/Harlequin, our accuracy, diversity and inclusions as well as wide range of heat levels is unparalleled. Our stories are also not that short (a common misconception) as our word counts are higher than moderns and are around 70-75k.
Katherine Grant: I'm an indie author, which means my main challenge is discoverability. There are so many historical romances out there that even once a reader knows my author name, it may take them months or years to give my books a try. My goal remains trying to get historical romance readers to read my books, as opposed to trying to convince general romance readers to read historical romance.
Faye Delacour: Getting the word out so that readers know my books exist. With stores not carrying mass market paperback anymore and people relying more on TikTok for their reading recommendations, where historical romance doesn't seem to be very popular, it's hard to get new books into the hands of readers. Then it becomes a vicious cycle because publishers won't put a marketing budget behind a fading genre, and without a marketing push even fewer readers see the books so the genre shrinks further.
Have you noticed any shifts in how historical romance novels are marketed or promoted? If so, what changes stand out to you?
Anne Knight: Yes. Classical romance tropes and themes aren't mentioned. [Alex] Vasti's debut, Ne'er Duke Well, (which is phenomenal and everyone should read it!) is marketed as "secret erotic library for women," when in the past it would've been "bad boy duke wants to save his siblings." My agent wants to focus on my FMC's (female main character’s) medical practice for our pitch rather than the second chance romance dynamic. The covers are changing. Anne Mallory's new cover mimics contemporary. For a while historical romcoms had a moment (Martha Waters style) but even that seems to be mostly gone. It honestly seems like less history the better. A reader said Evie Dunmore's books "had too many words." And people don't want to learn while they're reading (which is tragic to me). I write history very heavily into my stories, and that will definitely be a challenge for me. I'm like 50/50 historical and romance, while 30/70 is what *might* sell.
Lucy Morris: Some illustrated covers, which work for romcoms but I’d love to see other historicals marketed similar to romantasy. A common criticism is that our books look old fashioned. But current readers baulk at the idea of changing the clinch covers.
Kate Bateman: The attempt to switch many historicals over to the weird 'Mass Market Max' size was one shift that didn't pay off for the trad publishers. That hit me mid-series, and readers weren't happy that the first two books were the larger size, and the last went back to the regular mass market smaller size. So that was frustrating!
The shift in covers, from the 'old skool' couple clinch cover, shirtless man, or 'single woman in a flowy dress' cover over to illustrated cartoon covers was also something that wasn't a complete success. I understand why trad decided to try it - presumably to lure younger readers to the genre, or to appeal to those who were embarrassed to buy the more obviously 'romance' covers, but although I'm sure it worked for some authors, the feedback I had from readers was that there was a dissonance between the cute, almost YA (young adult) / NA (new adult) -looking covers, that hinted at a sweeter love story, and the steamy historical they actually read between the covers. And many readers LOOKING for that steamy histrom were put off by those same covers, believing them to be not what they were looking for.
Matilda Madison: Yes, unfortunately. The big trad pubs seem to have pulled all advertising for historicals and have been relying on BookTok, but BookTok doesn’t really have an appetite for historicals so it hasn’t really left trad historical romance authors with anything. Not to mention big trad has stopped publishing even the biggest names in the genre, so it feels a little bleak at the moment.
Elizabeth Everett: Yes, so I think Sarah Blumenstock, my editor at Berkley, did an amazing thing by introducing a number of non-traditional historical romance authors to trade and gave them illustrated covers like contemporary romance, Liana DeLaRosa, Mimi Mathews (she was always indie), Evie Dunmore and myself among them. Before, HR was very much a mass market genre. Back when I first signed with Berk about five or six years ago, marketing and PR had a heavy emphasis on advertising and marketing at romance conventions. All that has gone by the wayside.
Katherine Grant: When I first started publishing, the prevailing advice was to write and release as fast as possible. For established authors, 2020 was a banner year. However, even as I started, the market was saturated, and now it is flooded with AI-generated books, so the rapid release strategy doesn't seem to be working anymore for those who were recommending it (it was never a strategy I could execute). My focus for the past couple of years has been building relationships with readers and highlighting the ways my writing is human and my books are unique.
Faye Delacour: I think this is a problem that's been building for a long time, and we're seeing it come to a head right now. Courtney Milan spoke very openly on her blog back in 2011 about her decision to self-publish after starting out with Harlequin, and about the difficulties that traditional publishers were having back then promoting historical romance and getting the books on shelves so that readers can find them. She could have been talking about the genre in 2025, except that the print run numbers are half the size now. It seems very hard for historical romance to get attention outside its core base. We get shelved off in a corner at the bookstore instead of on the displays. When you see a round up of the "ten best new romances of 2024", there might be one historical on the list, and it's usually the same one every time. Some of the books on these lists are submitted to the magazines for consideration by publishers, so again, it can come back to whether or not the genre is being actively promoted, but publishers don't want to devote resources promoting a genre they aren't confident will sell.
If you’ve worked with a traditional publisher, how has their approach to historical romance evolved?
Emma Theriault: As a new author, I can’t say for certain. There is a definite shift away from mass market paperbacks, and given that a lot of legendary authors speak of how damaging that was to the genre, I have to believe them. I wouldn’t mind seeing more variation in book cover design. I don’t think we should have turned our backs so completely on realistic covers. There had to have been a way to modernize those too and reach even more readers.
Lucy Morris: We get a LOT less marketing and love. We do well in Europe and so our marketing in the English markets isn’t supported as much sadly. Despite Harlequin authors winning awards and being mentioned in library journals and NYT.
Elizabeth Everett: My editor has always been super supportive and ahead of the game, they let me do The Love Remedy where the heroine is an apothecary who provides abortion care, but Berk never did anything to highlight how untraditional my and other's HR books were in comparison to what used to come out in the old days.
Have you noticed changes in reader preferences within historical romance? If so, how would you describe them?
Emma Theriault: I think readers expect tropes a lot more than they ever have before, and I think in historical that can lead to disappointment over unmet expectations. Grumpy x sunshine is going to look a lot different in a regency than a modern office setting. But at the same time, as a reader I’d much prefer the ACTUAL sort of enemies to lovers pairings you can only get in historicals. So there are benefits and drawbacks to both.
Anne Knight: It seems to be split between long time fans who want more of the classical stuff—more Mary Balogh, more beautiful dresses, and newer readers who came in through Bridgerton. They tend to want 21st century stories in Regency get-up. And I don't mean stories about feminists, queer characters, or POC. Because those characters can all do very well within the classical themes and tropes. I mean the style of the writing, the setting, the attention to historical accuracy and aristocratic norms.
Lucy Morris: Our audience has not changed much and that’s a shame. I think we could offer so much more to a variety of readers.
Kate Bateman: I think a LOT of genres have seen a broadening in spice levels of books being offered, not just historical romance. Now readers can enjoy everything from closed-door sweet romance to incredibly steamy open-door romance (separate from erotica), depending on their reading preference. I think there's been a trend towards steamier, hotter historicals - at least compared to the traditionally-published histroms, and indie authors have enjoyed the freedom to write characters and scenes that might never have been accepted in a traditionally published book. They can be darker, more edgy, push the boundaries.
I also think a lot of the newer histrom readers aren't as worried about complete historical accuracy, either. They're looking for a great story, and will overlook behaviors and situations that are anachronistic.
Matilda Madison: There’s definitely a demand for diversity in historical which I’m so happy to see because historicals have mainly been set in the U.K. And Europe, but there’s so many places and time periods that haven’t been properly explored.
Elizabeth Everett: Younger readers have said in panels things like "why would I want to read the same books my grandmother read", "I don't want to learn things when I read" and someone told Evie Dunmore once there were too many sentences in her books. I don't think I heard that sort of criticism ten years ago when I first discovered historical romance as a reader.
Katherine Grant: After the 2024 election, I saw a tone shift on Bookstagram where readers actively wanted historical romances that offer critical social commentary. This had always been part of the selection of histrom, but it seems more important to readers for the moment. I'm not sure if this is a long-term shift or just a little bubble.
Are there particular subgenres, time periods, or tropes in historical romance that seem to be gaining or losing popularity?
Kate Bateman: In the 80's and 90's, there was a vast array of time periods available. Authors like Johanna Lindsay and Laura Kinsale wrote books set all over the world, from Caribbean Pirates, American privateers, Medieval Scottish Highlanders, Viking marauders, Russian Princes, European Royals, Egyptian Adventurers, Desert Sheiks, as well as the usual England-set Regencies. Somewhere along the way the scope began to narrow, and soon the trad-published hist rooms seemed to be predominantly Regency or Scottish Highlanders with just a few outliers.
With trad only offering Regency romance to readers, it then becomes a catch-22 that they only BOUGHT Regency. (And then when indie authors started offering a wider range of time periods, they grew in popularity with readers bored of the same old London ballrooms and Country House Parties.) Variety is the spice of life! (Edited for Length)
Matilda Madison: I think the gilded age up to the 1950s is having a bit of an upswing since the regency period has been overused.
Katherine Grant: I've been hearing from authors who are ten years ahead of me in their career that their readers are "dying off" and that younger readers don't want the same things from the text as older readers. I'm a young reader, so I've just been writing towards what I want to see: sex positivity and intersectional feminism.
I think traditional publishers have spent the last few years leaning into light, frothy historical romances that are more "rom com" than sweeping, epic adventure love stories. Readers of the bodice rippers of yore want more pathos in their stories, and newer or younger readers want stories that have more to say or at least know how to acknowledge the problematic elements of historic eras.
Faye Delacour: I queried two historical novels that were not set in England before I sold my debut, which is set in England. Even though editors and agents will put "diverse settings and time periods" on their mswl (manuscript wishlist), if you try to pitch a historical romance that isn't set in Regency England you're likely to get a rejection that lists the setting as one of the reasons.
I'm old enough to remember when Harlequin picked up Butterfly Swords from Jeannie Lin in 2009, set in China in the Tang Dynasty. Many people in the romance community were excited to see trad pub publish a historical romance that actually had a different setting, but then several books and a few years later it was announced that Jeannie Lin's book The Jade Temptress wouldn't have a print run and would be digital only because sales hadn't been good on the previous books. The thing is, you will never find a romance reader who's read Jeannie Lin and didn't like her. They're really good books! They got fantastic reviews. So it wasn't a problem with readers not liking these books, it was a problem with marketing them so that readers knew they existed and picked them up long enough to give them a chance. I think we still have that problem today. (Edited for Length)
Have you noticed any increased demand for historical romances that incorporate diverse perspectives, settings, or languages? If so, how has this influenced your writing?
Emma Theriault: Absolutely, and we need to fully welcome them. There are so many more stories to tell than those of aristocratic white people, and if we want the books we read to reflect that reality, we need to be seeking out diverse voices to tell those stories. Authors like myself need to be willing to do the work in order to write inclusively, and that might mean digging deeper with their research or hiring sensitivity readers, but really that’s the bare minimum we should be doing.
Anne Knight: I do see an increased demand, both from longtime fans and news fans. I think it's fantastic. These stories should be told. I consider myself part of the new group of authors, those with a focus on these characters but also authors who take writing as a craft very seriously and attention to historical detail seriously, also.
Kate Bateman: I've always tried to write historicals that aren't the usual Regency fare - they have more action-adventure subplots, and some are set partly in Napoleonic France, or Spain or Wales! These have been popular with readers.
I definitely think readers are keen for more diverse settings and perspectives too. Traditional publishing HAD seemed to be slowly commissioning more diverse historical authors and settings in recent years, and it's so disappointing now to see many of those same authors being dropped, or not strongly supported. That said, this is where indie romance authors can definitely take advantage of trad's lack of vision. . .
Matilda Madison: Absolutely. I’ve personally tried to incorporate mental health in my books, because mental health has always existed but not always spoken about, or it’s been preserved differently in the past or wholly ignored.
Katherine Grant: No, I don't think there has been significant change in market demand. I think most readers turn to romance for comfort, and so as much as they say they want to read a variety, they can only really handle one or two major "differences" from the genre conventions at a time. I think the hardest sell is an era outside of the popular ones (British-centric or Scottish 19th century).
What do you think the historical romance publishing landscape will look like in the next five years?
Emma Theriault: I’d like to see a revival. I’m heartened by veteran authors and readers saying that there have always been ebbs and flows. Historicals have been around a lot longer than this current generation of readers, and I’m sure they will outlive us.
Anne Knight: I honestly have no idea. With politics as it is, people will either turn to historical romance because they see characters fighting oppression or they'll dive into contemporary/paranormal for escape.
Lucy Morris: More indies, less traditional, and possibly less diverse because of it.
Kate Bateman: I don't think there will be half as many trad-published histroms, and those that are will move to trade paperback size, with mainly illustrated or object covers instead of couples of single figure photo/ art covers.
I do believe that trad's loss will be indie's gain, however, and that there are still a huge number of readers who love historical romance and will continue to buy it. If the mass market paperback is on the wane, sales will undoubtedly skew toward e-book sales, instead of print, although there will always be readers like myself who love holding a paperback in their hands. I'll always offer a print option for my indie books!
I'm genuinely excited to see what the next five years will bring for the historical romance genre. I think there's a huge opportunity for indie authors to pick up where trad have left off, especially when it comes to catering for the more diverse tastes of readers.
I've been in this game long enough to know that everything is cyclical - historical romance might not be selling as well as it did in previous years, or as well as other genres like Romantasy right now, but I firmly believe it will swing back around. My goal is to keep writing and publishing the very best books I can, and hope that readers will find them.
Matilda Madison: There will definitely be an upswing in indie authors since trad pub is pulling back on them, but everything in publishing is a trend so it very well could come back to trad one day.
Elizabeth Everett: Oh my god - your guess is as good as mine. I'm just hoping to still be publishing something in five years.
Katherine Grant: Since traditional publishers seem to be taking a step back, I think readers will discover more indie authors, which will allow more variety to shine in the genre. Indie authors tend to be more idiosyncratic since we answer only to ourselves, so I think readers will find stories with the pathos they want or the strong viewpoints, and soon the genre will be "rediscovered" and come into a new era based on whichever strand has been trending the most with readers.
Faye Delacour: I think it's pretty clear that trad pub is backing away from this genre for the moment and most of the big name authors we know have gone with it. So we will see less historicals in stores and we may see some more of it in indie and self-pub, which can be a good thing in some ways. That's always been a place where queer authors and authors of color can write their stories without having to try to fit it into the mold of what a trad pub is willing to take a risk on. But it's an easy platitude to say, "oh, just go to indie. You'll be fine." when authors also hope to get paid for their work and it can be a lot harder to shoulder the burden of editing and cover design and marketing all on your own. I think there's hope that trad pub will circle back around to historical romance eventually, but probably only after someone in the indie scene blows up with a viral bestseller makes the genre take off and become more profitable again.
Meet the Authors
Emma Theriault
Emma Theriault was born and raised in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. She has been everything from an enthusiastic bookseller (who once sold a book to Prime Minister Trudeau) to a purveyor of whitewater rafting adventures in the Interior of British Columbia. She uses both her incomplete history degree and insatiable sense of curiosity to help her write stories for readers of all ages, including her debut novel, Rebel Rose.
Anne Knight
Anne Knight has been writing stories since she was three years old. Before she could read or write, she followed her parents and babysitter around, begging them to dictate her words. Eventually she learned the alphabet and began writing herself. She sneaked her first romance novel when she was thirteen, but did not become an avid reader or writer of the genre until after college.
Her work history includes ESL teacher, domestic violence advocate, paralegal, and hospital project manager. She lives in Arkansas with her real-life swoony hero, three sons, and two cats. The cats are named Cyrano and Ivanhoe.
Lucy Morris
Lucy Morris has always been obsessed with myths and legends. Her books blend sweeping romance with vivid worldbuilding to whisk you away to another time and place filled with adventure. Expect passion, drama, and vibrant characters.
Lucy lives in Essex, UK, with her husband, two children, and two cats. She has a massively sweet tooth and loves Terry's chocolate oranges and Irn-Bru. In her spare time, she likes to swim, explore castles with her family, and drink bubbly with her friends.
Kate Bateman
Kate Bateman / K.C. Bateman, is a bestselling author of Regency and Renaissance historical romances, including the Secrets & Spies series, Bow Street Bachelors series, Ruthless Rivals series, and Her Majesty’s Rebels Series. Her books have been translated into multiple languages, including French, Italian, Brazilian, Japanese, German, Romanian, Czech, and Croatian.
When not traveling to exotic locations ‘for research’, Kate leads a not-so-secret double life as a fine art appraiser and on-screen antiques expert for several TV shows in the UK, each of which has up to 2.5 million viewers. Kate is also a director and valuer at her own UK Auction House, Batemans in Stamford, Lincolnshire. She currently splits her time between Illinois and her native England and writes despite three inexhaustible children, a naughty toy poodle named Monty, and that husband.
Matilda Madison
Matilda Madison lives in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania. A history lover, she finds immense joy in knowing useless facts, exploring the woods around her home, and drinking copious amounts of tea. When she’s not writing, she can be found researching obscured topics for her books, refurbishing old furniture, and baking.
Elizabeth Everett
USA Today Bestselling author Elizabeth Everett is the author of The Damsels of Discovery and The Secret Scientists of London historical romance series. Elizabeth’s novels are inspired by her admiration for rule breakers and belief in the power of love to change the world.
Katherine Grant
Around the third grade, Katherine started writing my own stories in notebooks, and finished her first novel in seventh grade. Since then, she has been a writer. Since publishing, her work has won awards from the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards, the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, and the National Indie Excellence Awards. She also the host of the Historical Romance Sampler podcast!
Faye Delacour
Faye Delacour was raised in the Canadian prairies before deciding that she needed a challenge and should move to a place where everybody spoke French. She now lives in Montreal with her partner and three children, a reformed street cat, and an Australian shepherd who hasn’t yet accepted that he can’t herd a cat.
Faye writes historical romance featuring strong feminist heroines and enthusiastic consent.
Statement:
Hello everyone,
I want to take a moment to address an author’s statement in this newsletter that has since been removed. First off, I am genuinely sorry. The author shared views on diversity in historical romance that I strongly disagree with. I struggled with whether to include that part of the interview because it conflicted with my own beliefs. However, I wasn’t sure how much to editorialize or edit their words. In the end, I let it stand as-is, and looking back, that was the wrong choice.
I truly appreciate everyone who took the time to share thoughtful comments and concerns. I should have recognized that there was no reason to platform or promote these viewpoints, and I regret that I did.
I’m grateful for this community, and I will do better. Moving forward, I’ll be more mindful about how I present differing perspectives—especially when they have the potential to exclude or diminish voices that deserve to be heard.
Thanks for sticking with me, and I appreciate the important conversations this has sparked.
Best,
Julia
If I might suggest to Caitlin Reigel that it is not ahistorical for Black, brown and queer people to have had HEAs throughout history, whose stories likely didn't centre the white saviour. She may be interested in reading Black Love Matters (edited by Jessica P. Pryde) or listening to the Black Romance Has a History podcast by Nicole Jackson and Steve Ammidown, https://blackromancehistory.com/
Oof, the genre truly is dead if attitudes like Caitlin Reigel’s are still acceptable and present. White saviorism, much? And the only destiny for a brown or black person in history is enslavement? Yikes.