We have been asked, more than once and not always politely, who Astoria Bane is.
Society likes to know three things about a person: her family, her house and her income. We can offer none of them. We can tell you what she writes, and in our experience that is the more revealing report.
What does Astoria Bane write?
Astoria Bane writes dark historical romance set in the last years of the Gilded Age, the American side of the Edwardian era. Her books take place in New York and Newport in 1911, among families who own shipping lines, keep boxes at the opera, and can finish a young woman’s prospects with one paragraph in the morning paper.
Her heroes keep ledgers and grudges. Her heroines read every room they walk into. The obsession belongs to modern dark romance. The calling cards, the chaperones and the mourning rules belong to 1911, and they make everything harder. Nobody in her books is redeemed to tidy up an ending.
The Wreckage Between Us
Her series, The Wreckage Between Us, follows one couple across four books. Duncan Ainsley is thirty-one and the new head of the Ainsley shipping concern. Catherine Sidney is nineteen, the second daughter of a family with an old name and a thinning fortune. She is not impressed by him. That is his first problem.
The series runs from February 1911 into 1912. It is meant to be read in order, and every book ends on a drop.
- The Devil’s Asking PriceA prequel
- A Savage ArrangementBook One
- The Cruelest SeasonBook Two
- What the Water TookBook Three
The prequel opens on the night Aldric Ainsley dies at his desk at Thornfield, and his eldest son watches it happen and does not cross the room. Begin there.
How dark, and how spicy?
Dark, and explicit. The books begin with restraint: touch withheld, distance kept, a look held a moment too long on a staircase. When the heat arrives, it is on the page.
The darkness is real too. The series deals with infidelity, coercion and blackmail, among other things, and its leads are neither punished nor redeemed. Each book carries content notes. The prequel’s are on the series page, and we recommend reading them first.
How historically accurate are the books?
The setting is researched down to the hall table. Who may leave a card at which house, and when. How long a widow wears black. What a household on board wages does in Newport in February. Who sits where at the opera, and who notices.
This column exists for the same reason. Each issue of The Bane of Society is a piece of society gossip from the world of the books, followed by a note for the modern reader on the real rule behind the scandal. Start with No. 1, A Season Begun in Black, and read on in order.
Where to start
With the prequel. The Devil’s Asking Price is out now, free to readers who join Astoria Bane’s list. A Savage Arrangement, The Cruelest Season and What the Water Took follow, in that order.
We shall be at the launch. We are always there.
A Caller
Questions readers ask
Is The Wreckage Between Us a standalone?
No. It follows one couple, Duncan and Catherine, across a prequel and three books. Read them in order.
When and where are Astoria Bane’s books set?
New York and Newport, from February 1911 into 1912, in the last years of the Gilded Age.
Is this Edwardian romance or Gilded Age romance?
Both. Edward VII died in May 1910, but readers and historians usually stretch the Edwardian era to 1914, so 1911 and 1912 sit inside it. In America the same years are the end of the Gilded Age.
Are the books explicit?
Yes. The build is slow, and the heat is explicit and on the page.
Where can I read them?
The prequel is free to readers on Astoria Bane’s list. Books One to Three are coming soon to Amazon.
Who writes this column?
Astoria Bane, under the name of a correspondent who is always in the room. The column signs itself A Caller.