Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Take Place During the Georgian Era

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

The full prompt for today is –

Books Set in/Take Place During X (Pick a place, time, era, etc. Examples: Books set in Europe/Italy/Australia/Chicago, books set in Regency England, books that take place during the 1900s, books set in imaginary worlds/post-apocalyptic/dystopian worlds, books set on the ocean, books set it castles, books that take place during WW2, etc.)

This is a really nice prompt, and I decided to use to highlight books that take place during the Georgian era. I was initially going to go for the more specific ‘Regency’, but that mainly brings up Romance on my read list, so I thought a broader scope was required.

Top Ten Books That Take Place During the Georgian Era

Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer

Genre: Historical Romance
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
Published: January 1st, 1935
Review

‘Georgette Heyer is unbeatable.’ Sunday Telegraph .A beautifully repackaged edition of one of the best of the best.

It is in regrettable circumstances that beautiful Judith Taverner and her brother Peregrine first encounter Julian St John Audley.

The man, they both agree, is an insufferably arrogant dandy.

But unfortunately for them, he is also the Fifth Earl of Worth, a friend of the Regent, and, quite by chance, their legal guardian…

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Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater

Genre: Historical Fantasy
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
Published: March 29th, 2020
Review

It’s difficult to find a husband in Regency England when you’re a young lady with only half a soul.

Ever since she was cursed by a faerie, Theodora Ettings has had no sense of fear or embarrassment – a condition which makes her prone to accidental scandal. Dora hopes to be a quiet, sensible wallflower during the London Season – but when the strange, handsome and utterly uncouth Lord Sorcier discovers her condition, she is instead drawn into dangerous and peculiar faerie affairs.

If Dora’s reputation can survive both her curse and her sudden connection with the least-liked man in all of high society, then she may yet reclaim her normal place in the world. . . but the longer Dora spends with Elias Wilder, the more she begins to suspect that one may indeed fall in love, even with only half a soul.

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A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall

Genre: Historical Romance
Age: Adult
Format: Paperback
Published: May 24th, 2022
Review

A lush, sweeping queer historical romance from the bestselling author of Boyfriend Material—perfect for fans of Netflix’s Bridgerton, Evie Dunmore, and Manda Collins!

When Viola Caroll was presumed dead at Waterloo she took the opportunity to live, at last, as herself. But freedom does not come without a price, and Viola paid for hers with the loss of her wealth, her title, and her closest companion, Justin de Vere, the Duke of Gracewood.

Only when their families reconnect, years after the war, does Viola learn how deep that loss truly was. Shattered without her, Gracewood has retreated so far into grief that Viola barely recognises her old friend in the lonely, brooding man he has become.

As Viola strives to bring Gracewood back to himself, fresh desires give new names to old feelings. Feelings that would have been impossible once and may be impossible still, but which Viola cannot deny. Even if they cost her everything, all over again.

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Meet the Georgians: Epic Tales from Britain’s Wildest Century by Robert Peal

Genre: Non-Fiction – History
Age: Adult
Format: Paperback
Published: July 8th, 2021
Review

‘Mad, bad and dangerous to know’ is how Lord Byron, the poet who drank wine from a monk’s skull and slept with his half-sister, was described by one of his many lovers. But ‘mad, bad and dangerous’ serves as a good description for the entire Georgian period: often neglected, the hundred or so years between the coronation of George I in 1714 and the death of George IV in 1830 were years when the modern world was formed, and changes came thick and fast.

Across this century, new foods – pineapples, coffee and pepper – suddenly became available in the shops. Fashion exploded into a riot of colour, frilly shirts and wigs. Gin was drunk like it was water. Demands for women’s rights were heard, and it became possible to question the existence of God without fear of prompt execution.

These exciting new developments came, of course, from the expanding British Empire. Britain’s wealth and its sudden access to chocolate, chillies and spices, was entirely bound up with the conquest of overseas territories and the miserable suffering of enslaved workers.

This is the backdrop to Robert Peal’s new book, which introduces the Georgian era through the diverse lives of twelve people who defined it. Some seized the more enjoyable opportunities of this new era. Others fought fiercely for change, the advancement of knowledge or personal freedoms.

This book blows the dust off a riotous century and its people. Each of the extraordinary characters contained within made the Georgian era their own, and in doing so made history.

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A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by H.G. Parry

Genre: Historical Fantasy
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
Published: June 23rd, 2020
Review

A sweeping tale of revolution and wonder in a world not quite like our own, A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians is a genre-defying story of magic, war, and the struggle for freedom in the early modern world.

It is the Age of Enlightenment — of new and magical political movements, from the necromancer Robespierre calling for revolution in France to the weather mage Toussaint L’Ouverture leading the slaves of Haiti in their fight for freedom, to the bold new Prime Minister William Pitt weighing the legalization of magic amongst commoners in Britain and abolition throughout its colonies overseas.

But amidst all of the upheaval of the early modern world, there is an unknown force inciting all of human civilization into violent conflict. And it will require the combined efforts of revolutionaries, magicians, and abolitionists to unmask this hidden enemy before the whole world falls to darkness and chaos.

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Scales and Sensibility by Stephanie Burgis

Genre: Historical Fantasy
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
Published: October 4th, 2021
Review

Sensible, practical Elinor Tregarth really did plan to be the model poor relation when she moved into Hathergill Hall. She certainly never meant to kidnap her awful cousin Penelope’s pet dragon. She never expected to fall in love with the shameless – but surprisingly sweet – fortune hunter who came to court Penelope. And she never dreamed that she would have to enter into an outrageous magical charade to save her younger sisters’ futures.



However, even the most brilliant scholars of 1817 England still haven’t ferreted out all the lurking secrets of rediscovered dragonkind…and even the most sensible of heroines can still make a reckless wish or two when she’s pushed. Now Elinor will have to find out just how rash and resourceful she can be when she sets aside all common sense. Maybe, just maybe, she’ll even be impractical enough to win her own true love and a happily ever after…with the unpredictable and dangerous “help” of the magical creature who has adopted her.

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Manners and Monsters by Tilly Wallace

Genre: Historical Fantasy
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
Published: June 7th, 2019
Review

A lady never reveals the true extent of her decay…

Hannah Miles lives a quiet existence, helping her parents conduct research into a most terrible affliction – until a gruesome murder during her best friend’s engagement party pulls her from the shadows. With her specialist’s knowledge and demure disposition, Hannah is requested to aid the investigation.

Except Hannah discovers her role is to apologise in the wake of the rude and disgraced man tasked with finding the murderer. The obnoxious Viscount Wycliff thinks to employ Hannah purely as a front to satisfy Whitehall, but she’ll have none of that.

The two must work together to find the murderer before the season is ruined. But the viscount is about to meet his greatest challenge, and it’s not a member of the ton with a hankering for brains.

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Uncontrollable Women: Radicals, Reformers and Revolutionaries by Nan Sloane

Genre: Non-Fiction – History – Politics
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
Published: June 7th, 2019
Review

Uncontrollable Women is a history of radical, reformist and revolutionary women between the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 and the passing of the Great Reform Act in 1832. Very few of them are well-known today; some were unknown even in their own day. All of them contributed something to the world we now inhabit.

At a time when women were supposed to leave politics to men they spoke, wrote, marched, organised, asked questions, challenged power structures, sometimes went to prison and even died. History has not usually been kind to them, and they have frequently been pushed into asides or footnotes, dismissed as secondary, or spoken over, for, or through by men and sometimes other women. In this book, they take centre stage in both their own stories and those of others, and in doing so bring different voices to the more familiar accounts of the period. These women and many others played a part in developing political ideas and freedoms as we know them today, and some fought battles which still remain to be won or raised questions that are still unresolved. These are their stories.

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Unladylike Lessons in Love by Amita Murray

Genre: Historical Mystery Romance
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
Published: May 16th, 2023
Review

Amita Murray takes us on a journey from the pleasure gardens of society to the dangerous streets of 19 th century London, in this spectacular romantic debut by an unforgettable new voice. 

“Women mind their reputation if they want to marry. I don’t want to marry.”

As the eldest daughter of an English earl and his Indian mistress, Lila Marleigh knows what it’s like to be an outsider from “polite” society. As children, she and her sisters were wrenched from their home and sent to England, never quite accepted by those who claimed to care for them. Now Lila has set herself up as hostess of an exclusive gaming club, charming the ton that flocks to her establishment each night, though it shuns her by day. 

One night, Ivor Tristram comes barging through her door, accusing her of being his father’s mistress. Lila defies his expectations at every step and convinces him to navigate London’s rat pits and pleasure gardens with her, in her quest to solve a violent crime.

As they set out together to uncover the truth, an irresistible passion ignites that will shake them to the core. Lila must fight to protect those she loves, yet the biggest threat is to the sanctity of the heart she has guarded so carefully all her life. 

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False Colours by Georgette Heyer

Genre: Historical Romance
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
Published: January 1st, 1963
Review

A missing twin

Something is very wrong, and the Honourable Christopher “Kit” Fancot can sense it. Kit returns to London on leave from the diplomatic service to find that his twin brother Evelyn has disappeared and his extravagant mother’s debts have mounted alarmingly.

A quick-minded heiress

The Fancot family’s fortunes are riding on Evelyn’s marriage to the self-possessed Cressy Stavely, and her formidable grandmother’s approval of the match. If Evelyn fails to meet the Dowager Lady Stavely in a few days as planned, the betrothal could be off.

A fortune in the balance

When the incorrigible Lady Fancot persuades her son to impersonate his twin (just for one night, she promises) the masquerade sets off a tangled sequence of events that engage Kit’s heart far more deeply than he’d ever anticipated with his brother’s fiancée―who might know much more about what’s going on than she cares to reveal…

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So, if you’re looking for books set in or about the Georgian era, I personally think these are some great ones! And feel free to let me know your own recommendations (and yes Georgette Heyer is included twice, because honestly, Regency Buck and False Colours are both brilliant and deserve to both be included).