If you love “smart” historical romance novels...

[AKAmyself]

... you’re going to love False Lights by KJ Whittaker.

I promise I’m in no way affiliated with the author, just giving back after having come here a million times desperately asking for recs :)

I picked this up at the airport last week and couldn’t put it down. The premise is original to say the least: AU Regency, set in a world where Napoleon won the battle of Waterloo and England is under French occupation. The heroes are Hester - a mixed race heiress who grew up in Cornwall with her sea captain father; and Crow, a tortured Earl (are there any other kinds?!?) with some serious PTSD. And they are, of course, thrown together in the most dramatic of circumstances.

I had been looking for a novel just like this - with enough familiar themes and tropes to qualify as comfort read but a new, fresh take on the genre, and most importantly well written and somehow looking at some of the darker aspects of the historical period, including class (and in this case racial) divides.

If you read it, let me know what you think ;)

I quite liked it.
Some elements of it I loved - the class and racial divides, that historical period, and the characters and writing were decent. I loved the start, too, and felt t had so much promise. But then the plot became so cliched - I've read it a hundred times before - and there were no surprises at all. Not sure if that's because the author usually writes YA, or how publishing has dumbed down.

Yes there were cliches And I felt the beginning was a bit rushed - but I don’t agree there were no surprises. The motivations of some of the secondary characters only became clear quite late in the game, for example.

And the plot is definitely far-fetched, but I think that’s par for the course with the genre.

But I think I see what you mean - when I was reading I found myself longing for these characters to be in a totally different novel altogether, one where they didn’t need to cross the length of the country in 2 days and exhibit a range of superhero skills just to be reunited :)

Do you have any recommendations for similar books, btw? This long weekend is made for reading

Part of the problem was the cover I think. In combination with the opening pages it got me excited - I thought I was going to get a female-protagonist Patrick O'Brien-type book. But it turned out to be a rather formulaic Georgette Heyer plot with a lot more derring-do, which is good but totally wasn't indicated by the cover and blurb.

Have you read other alt-history napoleonic books? The Temeraire series is great fun.