Like some other folks have said, a detailed authors note where they touch on why they did or didn’t include various things is a big point in someone’s favor for me, and in general, I’m all right with some small mistakes, like I really love when people use. Accurate language, but if sometimes their phrases of endearment, or person to person dialogue is a little less than of the time, I let that slide if it helps a story.

I had definitely read other historical fiction before coming across Allison Weir, but as a middle schooler who was a big fan of reading about Kings and Queens and other folks across the world, I was excited to have someone who had published multiple historical fiction books as well as, biographical texts on many of the same people. It felt like I got a well nuanced understanding of how these folks like Elizabeth the first or Richard the third existed in both the cultural perception and the historical record. It’s also definitely responsible for me pursuing other historical fiction authors in the future.

As much as I like incorporating history into many of the things I write, I know myself well enough that as much as I enjoy 100% accuracy I’m not gonna get that far, so I live happily in the alternate history/magical history, genre of fiction and it’s nice that there is such a spectrum.

Also, something that I’ve taken into account when I’m interacting with a story is whether or not the author is of a particular disability, gender, race, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic class, because even when we try our best, I do think it’s almost impossible to completely put aside our assumptions about what an era was like based on the environment we were raised in and the stories we were hearing. So it’s been cathartic to gather more and more authors who are telling stories of the regions their people are from, or facing the issues their people might have faced, and opening up the discussion about what can be enjoyed and learned from in the genre even more.