The latest regency romance novel I read -- and my first finished book of 2023 -- was A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall. It's a friends to lovers story, a queer trans fairy tale, and just a beautiful breezy romp. There's a great review of it over on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books that covers the particulars. Instead of rehashing that, I want to comment on the concept of historical accuracy in regency romance novels and how it applies in A Lady for a Duke.
I've seen reviews of this book that complain about the historical inaccuracy of a trans woman being accepted unconditionally by her family and her best-friend-turned-lover, but historical accuracy is a malleable thing in regency romances and deciding to complain about it here says a lot more about the people doing the complaining than it does about the novel's own relationship to historical accuracy.
Courtney Milan -- one of my favorite regency romance authors -- once said she strives for historically probable instead of historically accurate, and that's the lens through which all regency romance should be viewed, in my opinion. Does the author present a probably world that you can immerse yourself in as you read? If yes, then mission accomplished, because historical accuracy is never 100% possible.
Now when I talk about regency romances, I'm not talking about Jane Austen and her contemporaries. I'm talking about Regency Romance as a modern day genre, widely consider to have started with Georgette Heyer in the 1920s. It's a genre with deep cisheteronormative roots.
So while queer regency romances are a lot more common now, I think trans regency romances are a fairly new thing. Cis straight women make up the majority of regency romance novel readership and are therefore the driving force of what's popular. Because of that, the most popular queer regency romances are specifically m/m stories (the lack of popularity for sapphic regency romances is a whole other topic I'll write about in more detail at some point). The overall reason for this is removing women from the equation can make sexual fantasies more enjoyable for women because they don't have to keep their guard up against misogyny. There are a lot of reasons why the boom in m/m regency romance novels is not as progressive as it appears on its face (I say this as a queer person and an avid reader of m/m romance), but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Back to A Lady for a Duke.
Regency romance in its most basic form is foremost a sexual and emotional fantasy, escapism for people who like pretty clothes, tea parties, and happily ever afters. I own around 200 romance novels and at least 190 of those are regency romances. I know that to enjoy regency romances requires a somewhat permissive attitude towards historical inaccuracy. All of us who read regency romances know this on some level.
This is, of course, broad strokes. Like any genre, regency romances vary in quality, level of social commentary, amount of research done by the author, etc. etc. I love romance novels such as KJ Charles' Society of Gentlemen series, which have happily ever afters while grounding the stories in the realities of being queer and working class in Regency England. I also love regency romances that are just pure fairy tales that allow me to set aside my modern progressive sensibilities and enjoy pretty frocks and comedies of manners.
Criticisms about the lack of historical accuracy in A Lady for a Duke sparks a lot of questions like: who is allowed to indulge in regency romance fantasies? at what point do reader's consider a romantic fantasy too unbelievable?
The complaints about historical inaccuracy in A Lady for a Duke are revealing in that they suggest the people leveling the complaints believe trans women are not permitted these fantasies and that a world like the one in this book where transphobia and homophobia don't exist is simply too unbelievable. Because society constantly reinforces that idea that being trans and queer is to always hide and suffer.
Any trans and/or queer person reading this book knows it's a fairy tale. Alexis Hall, who is a queer person, wrote it that way on purpose. In doing so, he sent a clear message to trans women that yes, they are also allowed to indulge in these fantasies of true love and pretty frocks that have long been only for white cis heterosexual women.