text: The sensual Regency historical romance has been made popular in recent years by Mary Balogh, Jo Beverley, Loretta Chase, as well as Lisa Kleypas, and Stephanie Laurens. These novels are much more explicit than the "Traditional Regency" works and include many more love scenes.
  Common elements
  Many Regency romance novels include the following:
  References to the ton (le bon ton)
  Depictions of social activities common during the social season such as carriage rides, morning calls, dinner parties, routs, plays, operas, assemblies, balls, etc.
  References to, or descriptions of, athletic activities engaged in by fashionable young men of the period, including riding, driving, boxing, fencing, hunting, shooting, etc.
  Differences of social class
  Marriages of convenience: a marriage based on love was rarely an option for most women in the British Regency, as securing a steady and sufficient income was the first consideration for both the woman and her family.
  False engagements
  Cyprians (sex workers), demireps (women of ill repute), mistresses and other women employed by rakehells and men from the upper classes
  Mistaken identity, deliberate or otherwise
  Mystery or farce elements in the plot
  The rank system of the peerage of England plays a large role in the "marriage mart" of Regency Romance. Observers have noted a historically inaccurate and statistically unlikely overabundance of Dukes in the genre.
  Duke
  Marquess
  Earl
  Viscount
  Baron
  Popularity of the genre
  Like other fiction genres and subgenres, Regencies experience cyclic popularity swings.