Reformed Rakes
by Reformed Rakes
Reformed Rakes is a historical romance novel podcast steeped in dissipation. Hosted by Beth, Emma, and Sawyer, this podcast is perfect for every pirate, second son, bluestocking, and viking who wants to hear more about the kissing books we love. We update once a month.
Episodes
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Rake Recommends 3
Our third episode where we each recommend a book for the other two rakes to read. Sawyer recommended Nightfire by Valerie Vayle. Simonne is a seamstress who goes to Russia to make dresses for a princess' wedding. Initially, she has an affair with the bride's brother, Trevelayn, before slowly...
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Fabio in 1993: An interview with Michael Small
Sawyer interviews former People Magazine reporter Michael Small about the two(ish) weeks he spent with romance cover model Fabio Lanzoni in 1993. Michael is also the host of the podcast I Couldn’t Throw it Out. Listen to his episode, My Fun, Strange Adventures with Fabio, featuring Sarah Wendell…
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Moonrise
Set in 1865 during the Second French Empire, Moonrise by Roberta Gayle tells the story of Pascale de Ravenault, the daughter of an acclaimed artist. Pascale is an artist in her own right, though she has abandoned painting in favor of aiding her father in the business side of art. At a salon, she...
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Warrior’s Woman
Warrior’s Woman by Johanna Lindsey is a futuristic romance set in the year 2139 and follows Tedra de Arr, a highly skilled Security Agent who is too bodacious to lose her virginity to the puny men on her home planet of Kystran. When a failed presidential candidate launches a coup, Tedra, along…
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The Gilda Stories
Published in 1991, the The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez starts in 1850 where we open on an unnamed enslaved girl as she kills a bounty hunter trying to capture her. We meet the first Gilda, who takes the girl in and raises her along with her partner Bird. Both Gilda and Bird are vampires with...
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History of the Definition of Romance as a Genre
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 points, pushing something out of “romance” and into a neighboring genre. Critics and professional organizations of authors and publishers might…
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Excellent Women
Today we’re discussing Barbara Pym’s second novel, Excellent Women, published in 1952. Pym wrote mid-century comedies of manners and experienced some success in the first decade of her career and then struggled to publish new novels. Excellent Women certainly has a Miss Bates style heroine, but...
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One Burning Heart
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 book opens on a perfunctory sex scene that could be the stuff of nightmares. Margaret has been married to William for six years, and he's decided to...
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Just Like Heaven
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 successful series is the Bridgerton series, even before the adaptation, features a large, tight-knit family that run around Regency London acting...
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A History of Harlequin
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 gatekeepers influence the romance genre. While writing this script, I was influenced by John Markert’s book Publishing Romance where he argues that...
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A History of Mills & Boon
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 Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss. By doing this, people erase a key evolution and influence in romance, which is the category romance. If you’re from the UK...
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Garters
Pamela Morsi’s books were different than the typical historical romance of the time. Writing stories set in rural America, with poor or working class characters, Morsi was hailed as the “the Garrison Keillor of romance fiction,” by Publishers Weekly. When demand for the Americana subgenre waned...
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Chasing Cassandra
Chasing Cassandra by Lisa Kleypas is the sixth book in the Ravenel series. The Ravenels are the most recent series in Kleypas’ extended universe—going back to the Gamblers of Craven. The Ravenels are a family made up of two sets of cousins: Devon, Earl of Trenear and West Ravenel, then Helen...
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History of Obscenity & Literary Censorship
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 because sometimes well-meaning people misapply these laws or standards to current book banning resistance. Emma shows us how "but what about the...
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In Bed with the Devil
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’s crew of child thieves as grown ups. The first book features Lucian Langdon, referred to as the devil earl as it’s common knowledge he murdered…
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Murmur of Rain
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 descendent of enslaved people in French Guiana and a white Frenchman. Her parents were deeply in love, but their marriage estranged them from society…
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The Moon in the Palace
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, she said: “To me, the period of time is not as important as the historical figure or the event itself.” This focus is evident in her the book that...
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Rants and Raves
Previously released as a bonus episode on Patreon, Emma and Beth discuss the books they loved and hated from 2024: Raves The Hidden Moon by Jeannie Lin One Burning Heart by Elizabeth Kingston The Secret Pearl by Mary Balogh (related article by Emma “why now? why this duke?”) A Splendid Defiance…
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Notorious Pleasures
Notorious Pleasures is the second book in Elizabeth Hoyt’s Maiden Lane series. Elizabeth Hoyt came onto the historical romance scene with her 2006 debut The Raven Prince. She writes strong characters who have opposing ideological centers to generate conflict. Lady Hero, the daughter of a duke, is...
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The Phoenix Bride
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 himself into his work as a doctor, taking on more clients outside his small Jewish community and Cecilia has fallen into a depression, staying at her...
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Honeytrap
Honeytrap is a Soviet/American spy romance set in 1959 between Daniel Hawthorne and Gennady Matskevich. Daniel and Gennady are charged with finding who is behind the attempted assassination of Nikita Khrushchev during his 12-day trip to America. As the bullet only hits the side of a train, the...
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His Lordship’s Mistress
Jessica Andover needs money to pay off the mortgage on her estate. Instead of capitulating to her blackmailing neighbor who holds the mortgage and marrying him, Jessica decides to go to London and act on the stage, under an assumed name. In Regency England, this is her way of soliciting a...
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Mary Balogh
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 anniversary of the publication of her first Regency romance, A Masked Deception. A Masked Deception was a Signet Regency Romance published by New American...
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The Warm Hands of Ghosts
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 army in Belgium. Something doesn’t add up about his supposed death so Laura, a discharged combat nurse, decides to go to Belgium herself to find…
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The Countess Conspiracy
We would characterize Milan’s works as the best possible combination of historical research and alternative realities that serve her characters’ stories. She doesn’t fudge history out of laziness or received wisdom, but in order to tell a better romance and backs up her creative license with...
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An Extraordinary Union
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 politics of their time through espionage. Elle Burns is a freedwoman who has been living in New England with her parents after their enslaver died and his...
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Fabio: Part Two
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, we’ll start at the height of Fabio Mania in 1994 and end in present day, thirty years later. We’ll be taking you through viking battles, chivalry...
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Fabio: Part One
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. Known briefly as “The Fabulous Fabio,” he and his managers parlayed his success in romance modeling into an internationally recognized brand. Fabio…
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Hold Fast
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 this subgenre: Julie Garwood. Hold Fast is the story of a woman who was handfasted to an abusive laird and once free of that arrangement, assumes…
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Rake Recommends 2
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 shared love of Heather Guerre. Emma recommended a Carla Kelly because she’s quickly becoming a pod favorite. Keeping with last episode, Beth...
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Keeper of the Dream
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 pledges his fealty to Henry II, who is currently invading Wales. In the first scene, Raine kills one of Arianna’s brothers in a skirmish and the book...
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Fingersmith
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 Lilly, a lady who is trapped by her uncle in a macabre house called Briar, and compelled to work for him as a secretary. When it was initially…
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Waterloo
In this episode, we’re specifically focused on Waterloo, Napoleon’s last stand and a favorite backdrop of historical romance. Waterloo took place June 18, 1815, when Napoleon’s Army of the North was met by the Seventh Coalition, an army composed of Wellington’s English troops, and various German...
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A Caribbean Heiress in Paris
Published in 2022, A Caribbean Heiress in Paris is the first full-length historical romance from Adriana Herrera. We follow Luz Alana Heith-Benzan, who travels to the Exposition Universelle in Paris to expand her family’s rum trade throughout Europe. It’s there that she meets James Evanstan...
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Written on Your Skin
Meredith Duran has an unlikely publishing story: at her sister’s encouragement, she submitted her first manuscript, Duke of Shadows, to the Gather.com first chapters contest, and won first prize: Duke of Shadows would be published by Pocket Books. Duran followed up with Bound by Your Touch and...
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Private Arrangements
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 Arrangements, we follow Gigi and Camden who have the ideal marriage. They live separately and now after ten years Gigi wants a divorce. Camden says...
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Janet Dailey: Part Two
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 one of the genre’s biggest success stories, but her husband’s work as her manager, and his interest in making her the #1 author in the world fueled...
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Janet Dailey: Part One
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 plagiarizing the work of Nora Roberts, one of the other most successful and prolific romance authors of all time. Before the scandal, Janet Dailey was the...
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The Windflower
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 sheltered woman named Merry who is kidnapped by the pirates on a ship called The Black Joke, and falls in love with her captor, the excruciatingly handsome...
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For the Earl’s Pleasure
Currently on hiatus from writing historical romance, Mallory has written eleven histroms. Her books often are genre hybrids, with a mystery plot as an undercurrent with the romance. The books are Regencies and edge toward the wallpaper line, with a few historical inaccuracies, almost dollhouse…
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Pregnancy
Today we’re going to talk about a sometimes polarizing topic—pregnancy in romance. We think pregnancy poses some interesting narrative questions and conflicts. For historical romance novels, babies and pregnancy bring up questions that aren’t really as much of a contemporary concern like…
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Starchy Hero Gets Unstarched
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 awkward in company. He’s often an aristocrat who puts too much value in his social standing, and doesn’t take enough time to smell the roses. With…
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Think of England
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 Captain Archie Curtis as he arrives at Sir Hubert’s estate. This isn’t merely a social call, as Archie suspects Sir Hubert of purposely sabotaging...
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Midsummer Moon
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 goofy! It does in fact feature a hedgehog, along with an aphrodisiac salt, a pre-Alexander Graham Bell invention of a telephone-like device, an inventor...
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Bow Street Runners
The Bow Street Runners, like Newgate Prison, are one of those setting markers that tells historical romance readers “oh we’re in a historical romance in London, probably in pre-Victorian.” A few different authors have written whole series centered on Runners as heroes—Lisa Kleypas, Kate Bateman,...
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The Silver Devil
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 reputation, and The Silver Devil, set in the “opulence and intrigue” of Renaissance Italy, is perhaps the moodiest, bloodiest, most devilish bodice...
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Forever & Ever
We’re finishing our journey through Patricia Gaffney’s Wyckerley trilogy. Published in 1996, the final installment in the trilogy, Forever & Ever, is an enemies-to-lovers class difference romance between Connor Pendarvis, a man who goes undercover in copper and tin mines to expose shoddy working...
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To Have & to Hold
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 Sebastian Verlaine, the new Viscount D’Aubrey and Rachel Wade, an outsider to Wyckerley. Rachel, until very recently, had been incarcerated for ten…
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To Love & to Cherish
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 provincial life. Set in 1854 in the fictional village of Wyckerley is alive with Dickensian characters and glimpses of heroes yet to star in their own...
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Barbara Cartland
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 eyeshadow, false eyelashes, and excessive costume jewelry thanks to one woman: Barbara Cartland, who was dubbed by the Romantic Times as the “Queen of...
About this show
Reformed Rakes is a historical romance novel podcast steeped in dissipation. Hosted by Beth, Emma, and Sawyer, this podcast is perfect for every pirate, second son, bluestocking, and viking who wants to hear more about the kissing books we love. We update once a month.
Hosted by
Reformed Rakes