Due to being unemployed, chronically ill and extremely depressed, I've read 90 histrom books in the last three months. Yes. Ninety. In 90 days.
Recommend: Lisa Kleypas, Erin Langston, Mia Vincy.
Mary Balogh is addictive except she keeps triggering the fuck out of me by forcing reconciliations with her MC's toxic families and general abuse apologia. Aydra Richards is also great except she did the same thing in Charity Nightingale Heals Her Husband and I'm still furious about it. Tessa Dare is too silly for me. Loretta Chase and Lisa Kleypas's Regency books are my threshold for silly and Tessa Dare and Julie Anne Long both dip beyond that. Julie Anne Long has exactly one book I love and recommend, It Happened One Night. It's clearly the only story she cracked open a history book for. None of the rest are worth it, not even What I Did For A Duke. I hold her in the same contempt as Julia Quinn. Loretta Chase is really fun and I love Last Night's Scandal, but she's really classist about accents and the Carsington book inspired by The Mummy (1999) is horrifically racist, even more than the movie. Felicity Niven's Convergence of Desire is great autism rep but the rest is so-so. Rose Lerner is a relief when you get tired of the aristocracy and want some history instead, but her pacing needs work. M.A Nichols also writes only about the landed gentry. She's weirdly engrossing but retrospectively boring. I can't explain why I read eight of her books back to back when she should be bland as bran crackers by all rights. Sherry Thomas writes the absolute worst MMCs in histrom. They belong on r/relationship posts. I can't explain it but Meredith Duran's characters all know what an iPhone is. Annabelle Greene bored me stupid.
Obviously, none of the above can touch the utter genius that is KJ Charles. Or even Joanna Chambers's Enlightenment series. (Both are MM). Neither can they deliver the consistent quality and historical authenticity of Mimi Matthews. Cecilia Grant is a tragically mismarketed literary author so there's no fair comparison with the fluff she's shelved in with. All of whom I discovered during last year's three month depression binge read.
TBR: Alice Coldbreath, Courtney Milan, Elizabeth Hoyt, Paulina Simons, Susanna Kearsley, Elin Gregory, Annick Trent, Jess Everlee, Ava March, AJ Damas. Hopefully things look up and I'll only be able to read them in my next depressive spiral next year.
