Certain parts of historical romance are highly unrelatable—the marriage mart, the clothing, the elaborate etiquette, the formal language—and yet that’s what makes the stories poignant. Reading about people who look and live and speak so differently from us, yet struggle like we do with their inner demons and outside forces, fight for love in their friendships and families and the people they’ve fallen for, reminds us that not only romantic love, but familial and platonic and sacrificial love is universal, and romance is timeless, that there’s a love story for anyone out there who wants one.”
