Neighborhood Book Pusher: A Quick Guide to Buying Classic (Clean) Regency Romance

If you are a fan of today’s Regency Romance writers such as Sarah M. Eden, Sally Britton, Jennifer Moore, Heather B. Moore or a host of others, you may grow bored as you wait for them to write more amazing new romances. In the meantime, you can find a plethora of older Regency Romances from authors who published for the thirty or forty years prior to this millennium. But where do you begin???

Where Can I find Older Clean Romances?

After Georgette Heyer, whom I covered in my previous post, many authors followed in her footsteps with much humor and action, though perhaps not as much substance and historical accuracy. You may not be able to find these authors in your local bookstore, but if you have a used bookstore close, the shelves can be full of them. Local paperback book exchanges are one of your best resources to find these titles for a cheaper price tag, especially if you trade in books you no longer want to receive a discount.

If you can’t find any locally, check PaperbackSwap. If you haven’t heard of this site and you’re an avid reader, you are missing out. You can list books from your own bookshelves that you want to get rid of, mail them off when they’re requested by others, and then use your credits (from mailing books) to request books from others. Sometimes it’s hard to hold on to your old books long enough to wait for them to be requested, but the site really does work and hundreds nationwide use this site to trade books. If you have a plethora of movies instead, you can list movies on DVDSwap and transfer the credits into your PBS account. Especially for older books, you can find members who will give you discounts on multiple books ordered or boxers who will send you a mix for minimal money. If you find the right member, you can score up to four books for one credit. If you don't care about the shape the book is in, you can also receive damaged books free from other members.

Another helpful resource is Thriftbooks.com where you can order lots of books from a network of digitally-connected bookshops across the country. Shipping is only $1 an item until you reach $10 worth of merchandise and then it’s free. Most of those same bookstores also post on Amazon, but there you have to pay $4 separate shipping for each item. You can also try Abebooks.com, but they may have many of the same offerings. For harder-to-find authors you have no recourse but to use eBay or another seller site, but only a few authors are really worth that price.

In the last couple years many older Regencies have become available in a digital format. You can buy them on Amazon or another platform at $4-7 a piece. Or, if you have a local library card you can check out digital copies from the Overdrive App (or Libby by Overdrive) and even have them sent to your Kindle. You can also request physical books from your library through Interlibrary Loan if you don't mind paying the occasional shipping fee. You don’t have to buy them before knowing whether you will like them or not! But I'm sure the authors appreciate your support of their newly-digitized novels.

Which Authors Should I Start With?

So how do you know which authors are safe to check out (without encountering bedroom scenes, language, etc)? As a general rule, anything published before 1980 is pretty clean and you should be safe with those titles. If the publisher is Zebra, Signet, Fawcett, Coventry, or Bantam books, 95% of those titles are clean and you shouldn’t encounter any problems. Even Harlequin was pretty tame before 1980 (possibly stretching to 1990) and you can read most of their earlier offerings.

Which authors are worth reading? Yes, it’s easier with technology to find the older clean romances, but which authors are really worth reading? Barbara Cartland was prolific (and was sued by Georgette Heyer for plagiarism), but I couldn’t read more than a book or two from her collection. I prefer authors who only published 20-30 books in their career because I find them better-written than the serial authors. Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting my favorite books by these authors, but if you just want a quick list of enjoyable authors to get you started on your Regency journey, here are my favorites: