Ridiculous Regency: Edition the Second

    Amber Marie Sterlington, the Rage of the Season in Regency-era London, has her pick of men and she knows what she wants most in a husband: a title and a fortune. Why would she ever marry for something as fickle as love? And why would she ever look twice at Thomas Richards, a third son of a country lord?
    But Amber's social standing is shattered by a rare disorder which causes the loss of her hair. Publicly humiliated and estranged from her shamed family, she is exiled to Yorkshire, facing a future she never expected in a circumstance far below what she has known all her life. Humbled and lonely, Amber wonders if isolation is for the best and questions what real love means until she finds a romantic path to a man who offers unconditional love.

Oh my.  Oh my, my.  Where to start with this cover?!  I saw it at the library and thought to myself "Ha!  Is this supposed to be historical fiction? That looks like a girl going to prom!"  I flipped it over and discovered that it actually claimed to be set in the Regency era.

What the hiccup.

In what universe is that acceptable?!  And then the STORYLINE-- pain.  Utter pain.  Also, a heroine named "Amber"?  The Regency Encyclopedia catalogs baby names from the latter half of the 1700's, and Amber is not among them.  Aurora is.  Even Audrey is there.  She could have used something that gives the idea of modern times and still have been historically accurate if she'd actually wanted to.

Ridiculous Regency: Edition the First

So, as most of you know, I work at a library, and the majority of my time is spent taking books on or off shelves, organizing them, checking them in, and sending them to other libraries.  Lately I have been amusing myself by writing down the book titles on ridiculous "historical fiction" covers that I see.  The best (or worst) ones are the supposedly "Regency" books.

Anyway, I thought you might like to snark over them with me, so here we go.

This is the one that started me off.  I looked underneath the title where it says "A Regency Romance" and I think I probably scoffed rather loudly.  Excuse me? Regency??  What Regency lady would ever go around with her hair spilling about her like that-- and also, where on EARTH did she get the (amply applied) mascara and eyeliner?

While we're at it, let's take a look at the synopsis.

Southern belle Meg Burton is her parents’ last hope of avoiding financial ruin, and a distant cousin’s kind gesture seems an ideal solution: he will sponsor Meg for a London Season. The pursuit of a wealthy husband was not exactly how the bookish young woman had envisioned her first trip abroad—after all, what does a girl from Charleston, South Carolina, know about being a lady? Amidst the stunning gowns and extravagant balls of the ton, Meg feels like an imposter [sic]. Thankfully, she has one friend who knows her true self—Carlo, a handsome stable hand. Despite their difference in station, love blossoms between the unlikely pair, and Meg is sure of one thing: she wants nothing to do with the insufferable European aristocracy.