Historical Romances are great escape reads that, if done well, also provide some insights into life in other times. Here’s a short list of top picks.
Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series is a genre-bender, combining romance and fantasy and some intrigue/spy/adventure stuff as well: Claire Randall travels in time from the 1940s to 18th-century Scotland while on a second honeymoon. If you have some time to fill, do pick up Outlander, the first book in the series. Dr. Gabaldon has a comprehensive author web site which says that the ninth in the series, Go Tell the Bees That I am Gone, is to be published soon.
The Regency romance, set in England in the early 1800’s, is a historical romance subgenre started by Georgette Heyer in the early 1930s. The traditional regencies are very thoroughly researched and generally not explicit, and to my recollection while shelving them back in my library days, not particularly long. Historical regencies are a bit longer, the language and behavior are more modern, and the love scenes are more frequent and more explicit.
Beverly Jenkins writes American Romances involving women of color. Not all of her books are historical, but if you visit her site and click on Book List you can see her titles broken down into categories. Her web site has lots to explore.
So, this page gives you a few highlights. There are countless mass market historical romance novels out there; for more suggestions visit Goodreads.