As avid Regency romance fans, we’ve spent the last several months building this site as a reference for the real social mechanics of the Regency. The most common follow-up question from readers is which novelists actually get this world right. One author in particular, Jennifer Monroe, came up repeatedly. We reached out, and she agreed to sit down and answer the questions we most wanted to ask.
Jennifer Monroe writes clean and sweet Regency romance with a reputation for historical accuracy. Below, she answers the questions readers most often search about the period and the genre.
Q: From “sweet and clean” to “recommended Regency romances,” your name keeps coming up. You must be doing something right.
A: I hope so. I’ve loved the Regency period since I was young. What started off as one book soon became 40+ books across seven series. And now an interview with you — so I must be doing something right somewhere along the way.
Q: What makes a Regency romance feel historically accurate?
A: The social mechanics, more than the costumes. Readers can tell when an author has actually thought about what it meant for a young woman to be presented at court, or what an Almack’s voucher really signified, or how a marriage settlement was negotiated. The clothes and the carriages are easy to research. The pressure of the system is harder to write, and it’s what makes the period feel lived-in rather than decorative.
Q: Why do readers love clean Regency romance specifically?
A: I think the genre offers something rare — a world where consequence still matters. Too many dances with a gentleman at a ball could change a young woman’s life in an instant. A walk in the park without a chaperone could damage her future. In a clean Regency, the emotional charge isn’t generated by what the characters do physically. It’s generated by what they risk. Readers respond to that because it makes the love story feel like it actually costs something.
Q: Are Regency romances historically accurate?
A: The good ones can be, in the ways that matter. No novel reproduces a period perfectly, and no reader actually wants one that does. And to be honest, there was a lot going on in that time that would shock readers. To put it plainly, not everyone’s behaviour was on the up and up. But what careful authors get right is the texture — how people addressed each other, how money worked, what a Season actually involved, what the rules around courtship really were. Readers who care about that texture seem to recognise when an author has done the work, and they tend to return to authors who keep doing it.
Q: You spend a lot of time with primary sources. What kinds, and how does that show up in the books?
A: Letters and diaries first. Lady Sarah Spencer’s letters, the journals that survive from women like Frances Burney and Elizabeth Holland — they give you the rhythm of how people actually spoke and what they actually worried about. Contemporary magazines like La Belle Assemblée and The Lady’s Magazine show you what was considered fashionable, what was considered scandalous, what was being read aloud in drawing rooms. And honestly, sometimes it’s websites like this one. There are a lot of fans of the genre who quietly do the work of keeping the period alive, and they deserve their due.
Q: What do modern readers tend to miss about the real Ton?
A: How small it was. We picture vast crowds and endless balls, but the Ton itself was around 300 to 400 families. Everyone knew everyone. A reputation could move through the entire circle in a single Season. That’s not a backdrop for a love story — it’s the engine of one. When your characters live in a world that small, every social choice becomes a plot point.
Q: Is there a particular Regency social pressure you keep coming back to in your books?
A: The compression of time. A young woman of the Ton had roughly three Seasons to make a match that would shape the rest of her life. Three Seasons, with everyone watching. Women were under tremendous pressure as they aged closer to spinsterhood. The men? Of course, they could take their time. The romantic stakes in my books often come from that imbalance — the awareness, on every page, that the clock runs differently for the heroine than for the hero. It gives the love story its urgency.
Q: For someone who loved the historical articles on this site and wants their first Regency romance to feel like that world, which of your books would you recommend?
A: Lady Eva’s Fallen Rogue, the first book in The Riddle Sisters series. It opens with a letter received by the eldest sister about her parents’ death. From Bow Street Runners to the societal pressures on a woman, plus the romance at its centre, it’s a great place to start. The London Season runs all the way through it, so readers who enjoyed the articles about the Ton, Almack’s, and the Marriage Mart will recognise the world immediately.
Q: And for readers who want the deeper themes — marriages of convenience, spinsterhood, family debt — where would you send them?
A: Secrets of Scarlett Hall Book 2, Echoes of the Heart. It’s one of my personal favourites. Fair warning though — there are nine books in the series, so readers who get hooked will have plenty to binge.
Jennifer Monroe is a USA Today bestselling author of clean and sweet Regency romance. Her work spans seven series and forty-plus books, with new releases through Dragonblade Publishing. Find her at jennifermonroeromance.com. The Riddle Sisters complete box set releases on 26 May 2026.