Reformed Rakes
Episodes
History of the Definition of Romance as a Genre
14 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What makes something a romance novel? Most readers probably have an intuition of where their definitional lines are, and what are the make or break po...
Excellent Women
17 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Today we’re discussing Barbara Pym’s second novel, Excellent Women, published in 1952. Pym wrote mid-century comedies of manners and experienced s...
One Burning Heart
17 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
One Burning Heart is the latest book in Elizabeth Kingston’s 13th century medieval series, Welsh Blades, and it is a Reformed Rakes favorite. The bo...
Just Like Heaven
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Just Like Heaven was published in 2011 as the first in the Smyth-Smith quartet and follows a family set in the Bridgerton world. Quinn’s most succes...
A History of Harlequin
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We spoke about Mills & Boon last week and now we're onto Harlequin. While we go through the history of Harlequin, we continue with the lens of how...
A History of Mills & Boon
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When we look at the history of romance novels, often people pin the start of modern romance history to the 1972 publication of The Flame and the Flowe...
Garters
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Pamela Morsi’s books were different than the typical historical romance of the time. Writing stories set in rural America, with poor or working clas...
Chasing Cassandra
26 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Chasing Cassandra by Lisa Kleypas is the sixth book in the Ravenel series. The Ravenels are the most recent series in Kleypas’ extended universe—g...
History of Obscenity & Literary Censorship
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Emma uses her lawyer powers to teach Chels and Beth about the history of obscenity law in the United States. The impetus for this episode came about b...
In Bed with the Devil
08 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Bed with the Devil by Lorraine Heath is the first in the Scoundrels of St. James series. The series is Oliver Twist fanfiction, as it follows Fagin...
Murmur of Rain
24 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Murmur of Rain is a Gothic-tinged historical romance set in France and Haiti in the 1890s by Patricia Vaughn. Lauren Dufort is the daughter of a desce...
The Moon in the Palace
10 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Rakes discuss The Moon in the Palace by Weina Dai Randall. In response to the question what inspires or interests Dai Randall about a time period,...
Rants and Raves
13 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Previously released as a bonus episode on Patreon, Emma and Beth discuss the books they loved and hated from 2024:RavesThe Hidden Moon by Jeannie LinO...
Notorious Pleasures
29 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Notorious Pleasures is the second book in Elizabeth Hoyt’s Maiden Lane series. Elizabeth Hoyt came onto the historical romance scene with her 2006 d...
The Phoenix Bride
15 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Phoenix Bride is set in 1666 and Cecilia Thorowgood and David Mendes have both recently lost their great loves to the plague. David has thrown him...
Honeytrap
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Honeytrap is a Soviet/American spy romance set in 1959 between Daniel Hawthorne and Gennady Matskevich. Daniel and Gennady are charged with finding wh...
His Lordship’s Mistress
18 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jessica Andover needs money to pay off the mortgage on her estate. Instead of capitulating to her blackmailing neighbor who holds the mortgage and mar...
Mary Balogh
04 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we’re discussing the career of Mary Balogh. Balogh is a Welsh author who now lives in Canada and we’re recording this near the fortieth ann...
The Warm Hands of Ghosts
18 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Warm Hands of Ghosts opens on Laura receiving her brother’s clothes in the mail in January 1918. Her brother Freddie fights for the Canadian arm...
The Countess Conspiracy
04 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We would characterize Milan’s works as the best possible combination of historical research and alternative realities that serve her characters’ s...
An Extraordinary Union
12 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In An Extraordinary Union, published in 2017, is the first in Cole’s The Loyal League series, both main characters are attempting to shape the polit...
Fabio: Part Two
29 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Last episode, we covered Fabio’s not-so-humble upbringing, his journey to America, his early romance career, and his rise to fame. In this episode, ...
Fabio: Part One
14 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the 90s the face of romance was the Italian cover model Fabio Lanzoni, who broke out of the insular romance fandom into mainstream superstardom. Kn...
Hold Fast
01 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hold Fast is a medieval Scottish romance and MacArthur invites and garners a lot of comparisons to perhaps the most famous romance novelist who wrote ...
Rake Recommends 2
17 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Maybe a yearly tradition? Where we recommend books to each other. Chels recommended the first in the Psy-Changeling series to Beth because of their sh...
Keeper of the Dream
03 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Keeper of the Dream, published in 1992, has this real threat of danger throughout the book. Arianna is the daughter of the Welsh prince and Raine pled...
Fingersmith
20 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters is a Victorian crime novel centered around two young women: Susan Trinder, who grew up in a house of thieves, and Maud Lil...
Waterloo
06 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we’re specifically focused on Waterloo, Napoleon’s last stand and a favorite backdrop of historical romance. Waterloo took place ...
A Caribbean Heiress in Paris
23 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Published in 2022, A Caribbean Heiress in Paris is the first full-length historical romance from Adriana Herrera. We follow Luz Alana Heith-Benzan, wh...
Written on Your Skin
09 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Meredith Duran has an unlikely publishing story: at her sister’s encouragement, she submitted her first manuscript, Duke of Shadows, to the Gather.c...
Private Arrangements
25 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A Sherry Thomas story is built around one central conflict and then mining as much story from that conflict as possible. In her debut novel Private Ar...
Janet Dailey: Part Two
11 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Last episode, we covered the rise of Janet Dailey, one of romance’s biggest stars in the 1970s and 80s. A secretary turned millionaire, Dailey was o...
Janet Dailey: Part One
28 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1997, a scandal rocked the world of romance: Janet Dailey, one of the most successful and prolific romance authors of all time, got caught plagiari...
The Windflower
14 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tom and Sharon Curtis’ most famous work is 1984’s The Windflower published under the pen name Laura London. The Windflower is about a young shelte...
For the Earl’s Pleasure
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Currently on hiatus from writing historical romance, Mallory has written eleven histroms. Her books often are genre hybrids, with a mystery plot as an...
Pregnancy
16 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today we’re going to talk about a sometimes polarizing topic—pregnancy in romance. We think pregnancy poses some interesting narrative questions a...
Starchy Hero Gets Unstarched
02 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today is a very special episode voted on by our Patreon subscribers. A starchy hero is uptight, obsessed with morals and propriety, and often a bit aw...
Think of England
19 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, the Reformed Rakes discuss Think of England by K.J. Charles along with special guest Mel. Set in the early 20th century, the story follows Capt...
Midsummer Moon
05 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Midsummer Moon features what Kinsale calls the “hedgehog humor” of some of her lighter novels and is the origin of that label. Midsummer Moon is ...
Bow Street Runners
20 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Bow Street Runners, like Newgate Prison, are one of those setting markers that tells historical romance readers “oh we’re in a historical roma...
The Silver Devil
06 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Silver Devil was published by Jacqui Bianchi, under the pen name of Teresa Denys, in 1978. We’ve talked before about bodice rippers with a cult ...
Forever & Ever
19 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We’re finishing our journey through Patricia Gaffney’s Wyckerley trilogy. Published in 1996, the final installment in the trilogy, Forever & E...
To Have & to Hold
05 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This is our second episode in our trilogy on Patricia Gaffney’s Wyckerley series. Published in September 1995, To Have & to Hold is the story of...
To Love & to Cherish
21 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The first of the Wyckerley trilogy, To Love & To Cherish came out on January 1, 1995. To borrow the subtitle from Middlemarch, it’s a study in p...
Barbara Cartland
07 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If you were to ask someone in the 20th century what a romance novelist looked like, they’d likely have visions of pink chiffon, bright blue eyeshado...
The Earl I Ruined
24 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What is an 'unforgivable act'? This week, the rakes explore one heroine's egregious behavior, and the lengths she'll go to to make things right. Peckh...
Indigo
10 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Indigo by Beverly Jenkins follows Hester Wyatt, a conductor on the Michigan Underground Railroad. Hester’s hands are marked by indigo, a remnant fro...
Mistress of Mellyn
26 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Mistress of Mellyn, widower Connan TreMellyn hires Martha Leigh on as the governess to his eight-year-old daughter Alvean. Like many a governess be...
Gaywyck
12 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gaywyck was published by Avon in 1980. Set on the Long Island estate of the wealthy Gaylord family in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centurie...
The Jade Temptress
29 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Rakes read the second book in the Lotus Palace series, The Jade Temptress by Jeannie Lin. Set during the Tang Dynasty in China in Chang’an, the ...
Rake Recommends
15 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What exactly do the Reformed Rakes read when they don’t read historical romance? Okay, so half these books are historicals, BUT we recommended to ea...
Interview: Sharon Spiak & Shirley Green
01 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A clinch, if you’re unfamiliar, is the type of romance novel cover where the couple is embracing, seemingly in flagrante delicto. Gowns are hiked up...
Cheating
17 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Cheating is often regarded as the worst thing that a character in romance can do. Here at Reformed Rakes we love the meanies, so we try to get to the ...
Stormfire
04 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Stormfire by Christine Monson is a bodice ripper with a reputation for violence. Set during the Irish rebellion of 1798, Sean Culhane kidnaps his poli...
A Taxonomy of Rakes
19 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the spirit of excess and self-indulgence, the rakes inspect our own characters. What is a historical romance rake, and can they be categorized by t...
A Bride for the Prizefighter
06 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Come with us to Cornwall as we discuss A Bride for the Prizefighter by Alice Coldbreath, a working class romance between a former schoolteacher and a ...
Unmasked by the Marquess
23 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The first in the regency imposter series by Cat Sebastian, the book centers on a romance between Alistair de Lacey and Mr. Robert Selby. As their rela...
Newgate Prison
09 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Newgate prison served as the main punitive facility in London for six centuries until it closed in 1902. If you expect this genre to be limited to cou...
The Ruin of Evangeline Jones
24 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The rakes discuss The Ruin of Evangeline Jones by Julia Bennet, a Victorian romance between the Duke of Harcastle and a medium. The Duke, Alex, occupi...
Miscommunication
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why can't we just talk to each other? The Reformed Rakes have an honest conversation about why miscommunication is so reviled in romance, and argue th...
Romance BookTok
04 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Reformed Rakes tackle booktok. Often touted as the savior of Barnes & Noble (questionable), and a driver of romance book sales (unclear). We r...
Cecilia Grant
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Reformed Rakes talk about Cecilia Grant’s Blackshear series. Cecilia Grant published the first Blackshear, A Lady Awakened, on January 1, 2011. ...