[CW: discussion of gender essentialist language] I first heard of Amanda Quick’s Ravished on the Fated Mates podcast. Sarah and Jen did a deep dive on this book and so I knew it had very beach-y themes AND a sex scene in a cliffside cave. So, for my seaside locale week, I decided to read this romance for my #historicalhistorical series. (For anyone who hasn’t read any of these posts before, I read and analyze historical romances published before 2000 in this series. Ravished

[CW: fatphobia; imperialist/colonialist thinking; generally misogynistic characterization; nonconsensual kissing] The inspiration to read The Husband Hunters by Barbara Cartland for my #historicalhistorical series struck quite organically. I am at my grandmother’s house this week and she has a collection of vintage historicals, including a bunch of Cartlands (the house is near the beach, so most of these books weren't actually bought by my grandmother, but are titles that oth

[CW: threatened sexual assault/kidnapping/dieting/body shaming] The star of my first #historicalhistorical post comes to me courtesy of my grandmother’s house. She has always lived by the ocean, so her shelves are filled with 40 years of abandoned beach reads. Most of the romances are Westerns from the 80s, but I found this one lone regency, The Rake’s Protégé (1985) by Barbara Hazard, on her shelves last summer. The thing that really blew me away about this book were the sce