Ruritania's Successors
Fictional Kingdoms in Modern Romance
  

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I list here some more-or-less realistic, contemporary novels of the romance or romantic-comedy genre.

There are a host of fictional countries ranging from Atlantis to Utopia, but we'll look at only a few set in modern times. These are neither utopia nor dystopia, and positioned within a quite recognizable current-day Europe. The locations are at least somewhat imprecise, although one, Sondmark, is required by its novels' plots to be on the Baltic coast along about the location of Denmark and Pomerania. Another, Monterra, is between Switzerland and Italy; its language is Italian. The novels' modified geographies or alternate histories are close enough to ours that characters may have attended Stanford or Oxford, fly to Paris for shopping, vacation in Spain, and so on. There are romantic encounters between Americans (or others) and charming European royals.
  

We may take as our prototype the famous novel The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) by Anthony Hope (Hawkins). This is an adventure-romance set mostly in Ruritania, a very small invented kingdom in Central Europe — you buy a railway ticket to Dresden to take you most of the way. Its language is German.

All right, then, for Ruritania. Now what do I mean by successors? Successor states refer to the smaller countries, fragments, left after the collapse of some empire. The Macedonian, Roman, Holy Roman, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, German, Ottoman — all these multi-national and multi-cultural conglomerations, when they disintegrated, have strewn the landscape with fragments which may or may not have been unitary, self-sufficient, and peaceful. Usually not.

The believability of neo-Ruritanias (or willing suspension of disbelief, in Coleridge's phrase) took a terrible hit from the First World War. A lot of possible niches for small and little-known countries were obliterated. Further, readers' knowledge of European geography was much improved, so obscurity could no longer cloak odd corners of the map. Nevertheless, some real miniature states survive, for instance: Andorra (population about 80,000; language is Catalan); the Principality of Liechtenstein (population about 40,000; language is German); and a few more. There also are a lot of non-European independent islands and small island-groups, but these don't fit into Ruritanian parameters as we're dealing with here.

Readers also may find it too painful properly to empathize with the happiness and hopes of characters who cannot anticipate one or another of the great disastrous wars looming just out of sight ahead.

So we see why our novelists prefer contemporary settings, and have to imaginatively re-fold and re-color the map of our current Europe to fit in their small or even not-so-small (Sondmark again) kingdoms.
  

Good modern presentations of neo-Ruritanias, especially those comprising a series, employ sufficient pages and chapters to develop good detail of characters and places. The actions of some novels or series are entirely or mostly within their exotic principalities; some tight or loose series establish their principalities in the first novel, with sequels allusive but dependent on the first for description. In one novel below, its Türenbourg principality is off-stage except for allusions and flashbacks but its existence is critical to understanding the leading man.

In these we may see adventure and chicanery but not enough to damage either the romance (or the comedy if any), in fact usually to enhance them.
  

I do not define "kingdom", “royalty”, "nobility", "court", etc., nor filter by rigid categories. I call them as I please. All titles listed are predominantly romances; comedy and adventure vary.

So as not to play favorites in the listing, order below is chronological by year of publication; within that, alphabetical by author. I hope this provides a sense of the continuity of the field. Only novel-length books are included. I take a shot at distinguishing between sweet / closed-door versus spicy / adults-only: if you care, before reading look them up and take care.

For novels which are part of a series (series name in italics below), I tend to prefer those taking place in or near the court, rather than royals loose in the wild. The latter, of course, may be fine novels in themselves, but they are not so relevant to my purpose here. Regardless, important or colorful background details or characters will be much better appreciated if the series is read in order.

This certainly is not an exclusive list, rather a sketch or beginning of one which I may add to from time to time. However, I've read all these novels and enjoyed them.
  

•  Royal Date (2015) by Sariah Wilson. Royals of Monterra, book 1. Monterra.

•  Running from the Prince (2018) by Julia Keanini. Princes of Valdoria, book 1. Valdoria.

•  Marrying the Prince (2018) by Julia Keanini. Princes of Valdoria, book 2. Valdoria.

•  Falling for the Prince (2019) by Julia Keanini. Princes of Valdoria, book 3. Valdoria.

•  Royally Rearranged (2021) by Emma St. Clair. Elsinore, book 1. Elsinore.

•  The Impossible Princess (2022) by Keira Dominguez. Royals of Sondmark, book 1. Sondmark.

•  Butt-dialing the Billionaire (2022) by Annika Martin. Billionaires of Manhattan, book 6. Adults only. Türenbourg.

•  The Winter Princess (2023) by Keira Dominguez. Royals of Sondmark, book 2. Sondmark.

•  Royal Gone Rogue (2023) by Emma St. Clair. Elsinore, book 2. Elsinore.

•  The Midnight Princess (2024) by Keira Dominguez. Royals of Sondmark, book 3. Sondmark.

© 2024 Robert Wilfred Franson

  
... Ruritania is in the eye of the beholder. The big Budapest hit of 1902 was Jenö Huszka's Prince Bob, the only Hungarian operetta set in London and the story of a son of Queen Victoria who goes out into the streets to woo a Cockney serving wench. That's Hungary's Ruritania: the United Kingdom. When a later Prince of Wales took up with a serving wench — or, anyway, an American divorcee — the Hungarians were quick to point out the plot had been lifted from a show they'd done 30 years earlier.

Mark Steyn
"The Real World"
Broadway Babies Say Goodnight
Musicals Then and Now  (1997)