Our Rallying Cry

Are a bunch of readers historically feral for back-from-the-dead love stories going to let publishers, the internet naysayers and the world at-large tell us historical romance is dead? Heck no.

Historical Romance is alive and well at Romancelandia University, and we’re determined to find ways we can grow our year-round offerings and provide support to historical romance readers and writers for years to come.

A few things we’re doing to make this sustainable and to ensure we can continue to provide uncensored, spicy as heck content, because many of you have kindly asked us:

• We’re working on a website - proceeds from Bonfire merch go toward building this baby.

• We now have a ko-fi - because several of you have asked how you can support RU without purchasing items, and we love this.

• We’re figuring out Substack and exploring how to use tiered subscriptions. Don’t worry - RU will never be behind a paywall.

We will not let them drive us from the communities we’ve built, but we will find new and creative ways to stay connected. Even if we have to put your RU zine in an underground post, we will keep yapping about how much we love romance with you all.

A little fun

And in this spirit, care to play a game with us? Historical romance ISN’T DEAD… but can you guess these back-from-the-dead characters?

1. Historical Romance isn’t dead… despite its love interest walking right up to it, pointing a gun, uttering “say your prayers,” and pulling the trigger.

2. Historical Romance isn’t dead… you’re thinking of its twin brother who was taken out by a gorilla.

3. Historical Romance isn’t dead… and it isn’t only a clever lie you concocted. it’s at the door, alive, and back from the war. and it wants this castle.

4. Historical Romance isn’t dead… but it’s been in an asylum these long months. Only a specific combination of mathematics and Quaker thee thou bonnets can help it now.

5. Historical romance isn’t dead… it was just adopted by a Mexican family for whom it is currently seeking revenge one teeny tiny little bank robbery at a time.

6. Historical romance isn’t dead… but it is writing romantic adventure stories under a mysterious pen name and raising a bad guy’s illegitimate children in a crumbling castle.

7. Historical romance isn’t dead… but it is UNdead and cobbled together from pieces this nice young woman found at the morgue.

8. Historical romance isn’t dead… but it is prepared to let its awful brother inherit the family title. Just need to investigate the brother’s weird obsession with a local suffragette first.

9. Historical romance isn’t dead… but its wife was very happy to think it was. HR is very different from the last time she saw it… VERY different…

10. Historical romance isn’t dead… it was just kidnapped on its wedding night and transported to an Australian penal colony for four years where it ultimately staged a prisoners’ rebellion and brought the whole (surviving) crew back to England.

11. Historical romance isn’t dead… it came back to your secret love cave twice and could never find you, didn’t you know?

12. Historical romance isn’t dead… but upon escape from pirates, it realized the woman it was unluckily betrothed to isn’t *quite* married off to someone else yet. so it’s waiting things out on the continent for a bit.

13. Historical romance isn’t dead… but it did start a brand new life after Waterloo and her name is Viola.

14. Historical romance isn’t dead… but it is busy solving a murder mystery on an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic (despite an excellent disguise, you’ll know it when you see it, it’s wearing that funny ring…)

15. Historical romance isn’t dead… but it is sending your younger brother mysterious anonymous letters.

16. Historical romance isn’t dead… and keep your pants on, because she may turn up in the middle of the night and put a gun to your head.

17. Historical romance isn’t dead… but its scheme to get out of marrying a gross old duke did result in another man being accused of its murder. It’s complicated! You had to be there!

Answers and the very very bottom of this post, so we don’t spoil the fun!

HR news you need

A number of RU students and friends have joined Kelsey at YourBookishBFF and Jenn at Jenn.AlwaysReading for a read-along of Elizabeth Hoyt’s iconic Maiden Lane series in 2025. We wanted to also share that Heather at Haithar.Reads is hosting an Elizabeth Hoyt appreciation week February 22 - February 28 on Instagram. Hoyt fans, assemble!

How many did you guess?

Ok, answers below! How many did you guess?!

1. Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase

2. The Earl Takes All by Lorraine Heath

3. When a Scot Ties the Knot by Tessa Dare

4. Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale

5. The Outlaw and the Lady by Lorraine Heath

6. The Belle of Belgrave Square by Mimi Matthews

7. Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match by Sally Thorne

8. The Suffragette Scandal by Courtney Milan

9. Stranger in My Arms by Lisa Kleypas

10. The Sins of Lord Lockwood by Meredith Duran

11. My Beautiful Enemy by Sherry Thomas

12. The Lady He Lost by Faye Delacourte

13. A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall

14. A Tempest at Sea by Sherry Thomas

15. Once Upon a Marquess by Courtney Milan

16. A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal by Meredith Duran

17. No Good Duke Goes Unpunished by Sarah MacLean