[hildea]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And many of them have vampires and whips/chains.

Indeed. Or angels, butterflies, cocaine, espionage, fog, ghosts, heiresses, inheritance disputes, jewel thieves, knitting, latin declensions, marriage at gunpoint, notoriety, opals, pornographic bookshops, queens, the rat godess of Thames, smartwatches, sedition, suffragettes!, self-evident truths, space ships, sex, shooting parties, taxidermists, universities, veneral diseases, witches, xenobiology, the year without a summer, or zombies

While book two makes sense without having read book one, I find that you could end up with spoilers, you miss character development,or other things. It's best to read a series in order. I would not be reading book two without having read book one.

Tastes differ. If you were asking for recommendations, I'd never suggest a later book in a series. Since I don't know the preferences of jenieliser, or anyone else who might be interested in the recommendations here, I gave enough information for them to make their own choices.

Originally Posted by hobnail

Wouldn't be much of a romance without those three ingredients. They are what make a book work for me but I also need some sort of plot, preferably in a fantasy setting.

Perhaps we should have a recommendation thread for favourite romances of all types, both light and heavy on plot?

Sometimes the plot is just about the people, backstabbing or whatnot, then I call it a soap opera; that's typically what a historical novel about the English aristocracy/royalty is; people plotting and backstabbing.

I've come to prefer my historical romances without dukes as love interests (although there are exceptions). Which reminds me of another book for jenieliser's list:

Rose Lerner: Listen to the Moon

John Toogood prides himself on being the perfect gentleman’s gentleman: skilled, discreet, and professional. But now he finds himself laid off and blacklisted, desperate for a job. Any job.

His instant attraction to his happy-go-lucky maid Sukey Grimes couldn’t come at a worse time. Her manners are provincial, her respect for authority nonexistent, and her outdated cleaning methods…well, the less said about them, the better.

Then John learns that the town vicar needs a butler—but the job is only for a respectable married man…

(This one's also second in a series which doesn't require reading in order to be understandable.)