My very first guest post on another blog is out today!

We have a webpage for the upcoming anthology Hot Highlanders and Wild Warriors in which I have a Roman-set story, “The Promise of Memory”. [UPDATE: website no longer available.]

I’m talking about historical romance and historical erotica and why I find it so enthralling. You can either read the post below, or read it on the Hot Highlanders and Wild Warriors website. [UPDATE: website no longer available.]

Getting Off On History

An introductory guest post by Regina Kammer

I love history. I love reading about history, visiting heritage sites, wandering through history exhibitions in museums. And I love reading historical romance and historical erotica. The settings themselves are exciting.

You see, I get off on history.

In today’s world, there’s an erotic romance to fit every predilection imaginable: BDSM, vampires, shape-shifters, small-town America, billionaires, firefighters, Bigfoot, etc. As romance readers we tend to gravitate to the sub-genre that, uh, “inspires” us most.

For me, just thinking about the rigid restraints of history sets my heart a-flutter.

In the same way some readers get off on bondage – or, rather, get off on reading about other people in bondage – I’m titillated by the restrictions historical settings demand. I love the external plot elements created by real-life events, the social rules and proscriptions, the limitations of technology, the encumbering costume (although some eras afforded a great deal of freedom with the lack of costume!).

In my writing, I like to incorporate history as the spark to set the plot afire: the use of the vibrator as a treatment for hysteria in The Pleasure Device; the nascent American railway system in Disobedience by Design; the British capture of New York during the American Revolution in The General’s Wife. In “The Promise of Memory”, my Roman-set short story in Hot Highlanders and Wild Warriors, the heroine’s predicament is a consequence of Trajan’s campaigns in Germania.

Of course I’ve written contemporary stories, two actually for Cleis Press the publisher of Hot Highlanders and Wild Warriors. I’ve even written Steampunk – which I found fun with its pseudo-Victorian/Edwardian setting. But as a reader and a writer I feel most comfortable turning the pages of a story set in a time long past, losing myself in history.

What about you? Do you find a story’s historical setting as enthralling as I do?