Other common elements of Regency romances include:
- Mystery or Farce elements in the plot
- a secondary romance between another couple in addition to the more serious story involving the main protagonists
- mistaken identity, deliberate or otherwise
- false engagements
- marriages of convenience
- depictions of activities common during the Social Season such as balls, routs, carriage riding, theatre events, fittings, suppers, assemblies, etc.
- references to, or descriptions of, leisure activities engaged in by fashionable young men of the period, including riding, driving, boxing, gambling, fencing, shooting, etc.
Like other fiction genres and subgenres, Regencies experience cyclic popularity swings. Currently, two publishers, Zebra and Signet used to produce the shorter traditional Regencies every month until 2005, when both stopped their traditional Regency lines. The readership has waned somewhat during the early 2000's along with the popularity of other historical romances in favor of contemporary settings, and the subgenre has changed somewhat under pressure from a changing reader base. While long-time readers have balked at a corresponding increase in sensuality, the publishers are attempting to keeping the subgenre afloat until the next upturn in the popularity of historical romances by appealing to a new generation of readers while still delivering the witty and clever plotlines the loyal readers love.
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