Example — Jean, your mention of Mary Balogh using the term handicapped, for the normal reader who doesn’t know as much about history like you do, that woudn’t even jump out at them. I had someone point out to me a couple of years ago an author had Big Ben tolling in the background but Big Ben did not exist in the year the story took place. ???? I have no reason to know when Big Ben was built and I really don’t care. What the author did was give me the flavor of London along with other descriptions she used. Now, maybe I can say that because I’m not British so I don’t know English history all that well. Well, it would be the same for me if an author took license with the Boston Tea Party to fit her story. Go for it, I say. I want an author to use her imagination and give me the best story she can. If she has to do something different with history to do that, by all means, go right ahead.

Now, if the inaccuracy is something like, as a friend recently mentioned when we had this exact same discussion, a man zipping or unzipping his pants before the zipper was invented, yeah, that might take me out of the story for a second or two, but it wouldn’t last because I”m not going to go look up when the zipper was invented. It’s not that important to me. So an author got it wrong. Doesn’t ruin the story for me.

Something that will pull me out of the story and ruin it - another example, I reviewed a book several years ago where the author had the hero three sheets to the wind in a medieval story. That definitely pulled me out. Now, I didn’t look that little bit of slang up either, so I guess it’s possible it was used back in those days, but to me it’s a modern phrase and shouldn’t have been used in that book. There were several like that throughout. If it had been just the one, I might have overlooked it, but three or four different ones doesn’t work.

I realize an author has to balance this type of thing out because there are history majors and buffs out there. But that’s why I don’t read historical fiction. I don’t like to read real history with real historical characters so that an author has to stick to historical facts for her story. She’s limited in what she can do. I want fiction to give me just that, all fiction to give me a story with characters I will moon over and put that book on my keeper shelf. I read for purely entertainment purposes and nothing more.

Then why do I read historicals? I can still enjoy a good historical, it gives the book flavor and texture and a beautiful backdrop. And I like a Duke falling in love with the milk maid. That’s fantasy and that’s what we long for when we read, that could it happen to me syndrome. I guess that’s why I also go for paranormals so much, because the author has free rein to do what they please to give the reader a story.

Sorry, I know I’m all over the place here. I wrote as things occurred to me! But we can debate this issue until we turn blue, it won’t make an author’s job any easier and we’ll still debate it no matter what because of the different ways we look at reading and history. Yes, I have my certain issues that I do find here and there, but they’re few and far between, and as long as I get a good story, alpha hero and all, I’m happy.

I’m sure too much of what is written is intended to be more relatable than history buffs like to read about, but a romance should be about the romance of the main characters rather than the general setting, right? I will admit that if something is so glaringly inaccurate or the use of a modern word doesn’t fit with the setting, it can ruin a book for me. But usually those books that have great characters and plots also have a good historical setting that maybe isn’t truly accurate, but gives the right feeling for a well written story. That’s my point of view at least.

Mary Balogh writes well and some of hers are on the keeper shelf. But she had one using the word “handicapped” in the sense of physical disability in the early 19th century. It is only attested as that use from the early 20th century. In the early 19th century it was a horse racing term for added extra weight to the horse in a race.

Another writer doing the same era had a character in an interior dialog referencing the Royal Ballet. That august institution was founded in 1931 and did not receive its royal charter until 1956.

It’s these sort of thing that throws me out of the world the writer is building. Maybe I’m just being a cranky-pants. I still have trouble with clan setts in medievals too.