You can’t turn the television on these days without seeing a report regaling the English royal family’s latest antics. Whether it’s Kate sporting her most recent outfit at a charity function or William flying a helicopter or Harry dancing in the streets in purple suede shoes, the whole world is infatuated with lives most of us can only imagine.

Is it the money, the power, the sex appeal, the fame?

Vikings. Sheikhs. Spies for the Union army. French Revolutionaries. Russian archdukes. There was a time during the heyday of historical romance when authors wrote settings that spanned the globe—North America, Europe, India, Africa. Rosemary Rogers’ iconic series that starts with Sweet Savage Love took our protagonists, Steve and Ginny, from France to Mexico to Tsarist Russia and a few places in between. 

Nowadays, historical romance seems to have settled down and made itself a home in Regency and Victorian England, with occasional side-trips to Scotland. What happened to the rest of the world and the rest of human history?