I’m serious about my research. I prefer well researched historical romance myself, and I try to research the details in my own romances to make sure I get them right. The problem is, I often don’t know what I don’t know. If I’m fortunate, I’ll find out before I finish the book, and can edit accordingly. Or rewrite, even, as when I discovered that my receivers of smuggled goods would almost certainly not be arrested if they simply paid the duty, with perhaps a thank you bonus to the customs officials.

I hate it when I don’t notice until I’ve published the book and found a reader who winces. No, my hero could not buy flowers from a shop in the early 1800s in Bath. Flowers at that time were sold from barrows. Actual shops devoted to selling flowers had not yet made an appearance even in Paris, where they apparently started.

I took flower shops for granted and didn’t trouble to look them up.

On the other hand, several times, I’ve had readers with a little knowledge who have lambasted me for getting wrong something I have exactly right. Anglican clerics with parishes did directly receive the tithes paid by their parishioners.  Cleanliness in surgery and in sick rooms was a natural part of Arabic medicine, and also commonly practiced in the British navy and by doctors trained in Scotland. While upper class women were expected not to engage in work for income, the crafter families of England taught their crafts to their daughters, who continued to work alongside their husbands if they married someone in the same craft.

So when I bump into a small fact in other people’s writing that I know to be wrong, such as the Regency lady in a recent novel I read who offered a visitor a choice between Chinese or Indian tea, I note the historical discrepancy and move on.  In this particular case, I’m certain of my facts. The British stole tea from China in the early 1820s. The early experimental plantings didn’t translate into commercial production until the 1850s. But often, I’ve checked a fact that appears wrong to me and discovered that I am the one who is wrong. Lesson learned, and thank you, author.

And even if I’m right, I’m not going to scoff at the author in a review.  How rude! And what an invitation for the powers of balance to strike me next time I include a detail that I didn’t know I didn’t know.