Gothic novelist Lady Georgiana Cleeve begins to suspect that another Gothic novelist, Lady Darling, is … not exactly copying her work, but somehow, strangely, intersecting with it? Similarities in character names, plot points, and settings are too close to be mere coincidence, but their publication histories don’t point to any obvious possibility of plagiarism. When Georgiana and her classicist friend go to investigate, they discover that Georgiana and Lady Darling share much more than a love for creepy love stories …
I’ll admit to a big blind spot in my romance reading: Regency-era stories. I think it’s mostly because I’m an anarchist at heart: dukes and earls and barons make my skin crawl, and all the comedy-of-manners shenanigans make me want to throw up my hands in frustration. I did enjoy Minerva Spencer’s The Boxing Baroness, but mostly because it dealt with Napoleonic intrigue and featured a decidedly un-ladylike heroine. Gothics are my go-to for historical romances, with big swings at atmosphere and lots of over-the-top behavior; Regency stories just seem too tidy.
Which makes a book like Alexandra Vasti’s Ladies in Hating an interesting puzzle for me: it’s certainly a Regency, with some earls and a duke and a secret inheritance making important appearances, but because the main characters are Gothic novelists and much of the setting is a ruined mansion with ghostly rumors around it, it has a strong enough whiff of the Gothic that I let myself be drawn in. It’s also a sapphic romance, so from the outset it has to play against the expectations of the rigid Regency social castes. Georgiana and Cat (“Lady Darling”) are fiercely independent characters, and they manage to carve out a space that is very much at odds with prevailing norms.
It’s also a rollicking fun story, even if it’s not quite a Gothic despite its trappings. There’s a mystery to be solved, an inheritance to be secured, and hearts to be mended, and while I wish there had been actual ghosts or bloody murders or devilish curses, there was sufficient tension to keep me hooked on the story to the very end.
I see that Vasti has more Regency romances that play against expectations, so I’ll probably dip into a few more. I’m willing to give the sub-genre a chance when there’s a little subversion afoot.
