Introduction: Conflict and colonialism in 21st century romantic historical fiction: repairing the past, repurposing history

This chapter introduces the main argument of this book: that twenty-first century Anglophone women writers use romantic narrativisations of history to explore, revise, repurpose and challenge the past in their novels, exposing the extent to which past societies were damaging to women by instead imagining alternative histories. It contends that the discourses and genre of romance work to provide a reparative reading of the past, but also that there are limitations and entrenched problems to such readings. It begins by explaining that the term “romantic historical fiction” is used to encompass popular romance novels that conclude with a happy ending as well as complex love stories that do not end with the lovers together, and to emphasise how the novels discussed in this volume engage seriously with history and historical interpretations of the past. It then provides a brief survey of the development of women's romantic historical fiction over the twentieth century, followed by a critical appraisal of the extant scholarship on this body of work. It concludes with a brief description of the chapters contained in this volume.