When the previous home of the Unusual Historicals column, Heroes & Heartbreakers, folded in late 2017 I opted to keep up the monthly feature on my personal blog.  Then in early 2018, another former H&H’er, Suzanne, proposed that I cross-post the feature on her blog, Love in Panels. I agreed: 1) because I like Suzanne [Editor's note: awww shucks] 2) because I’m passionate about “unusual historicals,” and 3) the more eyeballs that got on this column the better.

Now here we are in 2020, the longest year on record, and this will be the last column featured on LiP. Both Suzanne and I have been evaluating our respective blogs of late and have come to the mutual decision to discontinue the cross-posting of this column. However, Unusual Historicals will continue to have a home on my personal blog. I want to thank Suzanne and the entire LiP crew for hosting this column the past two years and for promoting historical romances that are about more than the terrible Almack’s lemonade. Onward and upward to what surely has to be a better year in 2021!

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Thankful for Unusual Historicals: November 2020 Highlights

I’m not sure how November can feel like the fastest and slowest months at the same time, but it’s 2020 and I’ve given up trying to explain anything anymore. At this point it’s a minor miracle I’m not in a bunker surrounded by books and booze. The holidays are here, COVID cases are rising, and I don’t know a single person who isn’t tired down to their bones. My advice? Snatch your moments of joy where you can, make new traditions, be kind to yourself and others.  What better way to take my own advice than to gaze upon some shiny new unusual historicals that debuted this month....

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September saw me talking about nine new unusual historicals.  Here we are in October and I have seven.  It’s like authors and publishers are maybe clueing into the fact that Wendy needs a mental vacation - because obviously an actual vacation ain’t happening anytime soon.  So for now my rest and rejuvenation is just going to have to take the form of bygone eras.  Here are the October releases that caught my eye:

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Publishing is a fickle mistress. Some months I’m scraping the depths of the Interwebs to find a handful of unusual historical titles and other months it’s an explosion of confetti being shot out of an air cannon.  Since September is an air cannon month, I’ll stop blathering on so we can get to the goodness. 

So let’s look at what indulgences caught my eye this month:

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We’re almost through 8 months of the hellscape that is 2020, congratulations I guess?  It’s something to wake up every day and wonder what new WTF’ery awaits us, and given the stress of, you know, life right now I’m doing my best to snatch moments of joy where I can.  Which, hello, books are my go-to for that.  Well, and wine - but books aren’t bad for my liver.

So let’s look at what indulgences caught my eye this month:

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After a strange, upended spring, we now find ourselves in a strange, upended summer with most of us wondering what the heck autumn will bring. How much is my budget going to tank at the library? Will the kids be back in a traditional classroom setting come September? When might life feel normal enough to take a couple of vacation days again?  Uncertain times call for snatching moments of joy when you can - and I think I speak for most of Romancelandia when I say books are a great way to find some joy.  Here are some unusual historicals releasing in June that caught my eye:

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Not even COVID-19 can stop the arrival of Spring. Romancelandia, my sincere wish for all of us during this time is that we snatch our moments of joy where we can find them. Mine has taste-testing new tea blends from a company I learned about on Facebook (hey, it’s not a complete dumpster fire over there…), getting back into a reading groove, and, of course, hunting up new unusual historicals.  Here’s what is catching my eye for May.

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Somehow we’ve ended up in April. I’m not sure how it happened but one moment I was looking forward to burying 2019 out in the desert like a Las Vegas mobster and then the next I’m trying to figure out how to do my job in a post-COVID-19 world.  On the bright side, I’m past a string of books I was obligated to read for various reasons and I’m diving head first into comfort reading. For me that means category romance, mysteries and historical romance. Because nothing will take me away faster than a time period I’m not currently living in.  Here are some of the unusual historicals landing in April that caught my browsing eye.

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Let’s address the elephant in the room, shall we? Our unwelcome guest COVID-19. The library system I work for is closed to the public and I oversee the division that is responsible for all the delightful items you find on the physical shelves and in our digital collections. So keeping that machine running, while re-configuring staff schedules and work spaces has meant no time for reading or Romancelandia. And let me tell ya, I miss it y’all. So let’s take a collective break and enjoy looking at some new Unusual Historicals out this month. And lucky for us, it’s a bonanza!

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Here we are in February 2020 and I feel like this year is out to get me. I’m starting to take it personally.  My reading so far has been fairly lackluster and the continued RWA crisis has now devolved into me keeping a small pillow on my desk for fear of repeated concussions.  Hey, at least I have half-priced Valentine’s Day candy and a new crop of unusual historicals to cheer me up.

Here are the February publications catching my eye:

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