As a young kid, I’ve read my fair share of historical romance. As a child with an interest in history but a lack of history teachers enthusiastic about the subject they were teaching, these books let me take a peek into those eras, and had the added bonus of having some kissing in them as well.

But, as expected of books at the time — early to mid 90s — gay people were either not there, an antagonist, or an inconsequential side character. It wasn’t something I noticed when I was reading them back then, of course, but now seems spectacularly obvious now that I’m old and decrepit.

A gay historical romance wasn’t something I ever even considered, stupidly enough, so I was really excited to read Cat Sebastian’s “The Ruin of a Rake” when Mina lent me a copy. It’s technically my first gay historical romance — I don’t think “Maurice” counts — so I was ready to be wowed!