In The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom and Their Lover, Sylvie disguises herself as a boy while on a journey, and at one point the Duchess is dressed as a bearded man, as well. In The Moonlight Mistress, there is a cross-dressing woman, but I won't spoil the story by revealing her identity.
Here are a few of my favorites in the romance genre.
Georgette Heyer cross-dresses her heroines several times. My ultimate favorite is These Old Shades
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In Mary Jo Putney's Silk and Secrets
Nita Abrams features quite a lot of cross-dressing in her spy romances set during the Napoleonic Wars. My favorite is The Exiles
The heroine of Jo Beverley's My Lady Notorious
Sometimes, heroines only dress as boys when they need to for the purpose of being a sneak thief. Connie Brockway's All Through the Night
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Pam Rosenthal takes a more serious approach to cross-dressing in Almost A Gentleman
One of my favorite authors, Laura Kinsale, twice uses cross-dressing heroines. (Hmmm, maybe that's one of the reasons I love her books so much!) In The Prince of Midnight
What are your favorites? And why?
The illustrations for this post are both images of Katherine Hepburn from the movie Sylvia Scarlett. Doesn't she look hot?
Related Post:
My Favorite Girls Dressed As Boys - Fantasy Edition.
My own female crossdressing characters:
"The Magnificent Threesome," a 6000 word short story set in a loosely historical American West, available for Kindle and for Nook.
"Under Her Uniform," a Spice Brief - tie-in to The Moonlight Mistress (electronic only): (2012):
Kindle, Nook, Google e-book from Powell's, Audiobook at Audible.com, read by Kelsey Larsen.
The Moonlight Mistress: (2009):
Kindle, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Powell's, Audiobook at Audible.com, read by Patsy Kelland, and Italian translation for Kindle
Just read a lovely story by Naomi Novik in the FAST SHIPS BLACK SAILS anthology, about a girl who has boyish hobbies so gets shipped off to the colonies for a husband because she can't get a proper peer. Along the way they get captured by pirates, and to save her virtue she puts on an amulet that literally turns her into a boy. What she does after that -- to the pirate captain, because she likes his legs -- is effing hilarious. Highly recommended.
ReplyDeleteOoh. I was thinking of getting that anthology.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorites is Eloisa James' Duchess By Night. Love watching the hero struggle with his feelings for a "boy".
ReplyDeleteAnother is Hannah Howell's Highland Honor. The woman is trying to escape from her sadistic husband.
I think you picked all my favorites! How spooky!
ReplyDeletePerhaps I am you and you are me and we are all together!
ReplyDeleteJohanna Lindsey liked to use this device a lot. I quite enjoyed it in a couple of her Viking books.
ReplyDeleteBlythe Gifford has one out right now I want to grab titled "In the Master's Bed"
I'll have to check some of these out, they sound intriguing :)
ReplyDeleteThere's something deliciously transgressive about the trope.
ReplyDelete