Queer historical romance is an excellent genre and it’s also REALLY interesting to see the way that authors engage with, set aside, and confront contemporary issues through the haze of historical distance and the promise of the romance novel’s happy ending.
That because the early 19ty century is, in its own way, as unreal as Narnia, its fictional version operates under rules that are very different than the actual 19th century. Which, combined with the drive to end happily, pushes the narrative towards a kind of creative problem solving that would be too simple in “literature” precisely because it forestalls conflict rather than revels in it. Of course our dyslexic hero makes it work!
And that’s the charm and also the power the genre has to imagine a non-conflictual resolution to obstacles that, by their nature, literature that runs on deep conflict can’t offer.