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Originally Posted by Blossom
Yes they do. I've read her books aren't terrible accurate and could be set in any setting. I have not read her but I have heard this from several people.
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Ah. I'll admit, I've assume some of her situations like that are not historically accurate (illegitimate family members accepted into the family, babies/children adopted and given precedence in the inheritance order).
I'll also admit, I've only been reading historical romance with any consistency for maybe the last five or so years (and maybe irregularly five years earlier than that). But it seems to me almost everything I've read is like that. The woman all refuse to marry except for love. They all seem to run their households because of inefficient or absent male relatives. They've all managed to have "some idea about sex" because of exposure to farm animals or randy servants. They're all friends with their servants. And they all seem to decide they're going to remain unmarried, so they might as well experience sex, even though there's no (safe) way to avoid pregnancy.
They definitely don't read like Austen, but I've never read anything - except maybe some of Lynn Connolly's early works - that gave the same feeling to me.
I do notice some things....Amanda Quick is always having her heroines say "Good grief!", for example.
But I'll admit, I assume that the historicals are written the way they are because young woman today don't want to read about powerless woman who marry at 16 to men more than 3x their age.