About

ROMANCE THAT ENTERTAINS AND INSPIRES

We believe in the power of great love stories, in beautiful tales of Modern Romanticism influenced by the Romantic Age, and in living a more Romantic, imaginative lifestyle. 

ABOUT (THE SHORT VERSION!)

The Silver Petticoat Review is on a mission to help you find the best love stories in period dramas, movies, TV shows, and books, Romantic Living inspiration, and more. 

We also believe the world needs more love and imagination and less cynicism. Jane Austen proved stories have the power to change the world, and we believe that too!

So, whether you’re looking for the perfect movie or show to watch, a new book to read, or even looking for Romantic Living inspiration, we’ve got you covered!

We’re damsels NOT in distress fighting for the all-new optimistic Romantic Revolution. Join us!

OUR STORY

“Because when you are imagining, you might as well imagine something worthwhile.” — L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

We’re identical twin sisters, Amber Topping and Autumn Topping. Growing up with creative parents, we were able to imagine and create to our heart’s content. And as we grew into adults, we never lost that child-like wonder despite the many hardships we faced. Since our youth, we’ve loved reading and watching movies with great love stories. We also adored supernatural stories! 

Some of the main influences on this blog today include Jane Austen, British period dramas, the Bronte sisters, L.M. Montgomery (and the Sullivan adaptation of Anne of Green Gables), Louisa May Alcott, and L.J. Smith. A mix of the classic and the sensational! 

We first came up with the idea when we discovered there weren’t magazines or blogs that focused on old-fashioned romance and Romanticism.

So, one day at a Victorian Tea Room with our friend and original co-founder Rebecca Lane, we brainstormed and first came up with The Silver Petticoat Review idea. And now here we are!

ABOUT AMBER TOPPING

Amber works as a writer and digital publisher full-time and fell in love with stories and imagination at an early age. She loved doing Shirley Temple impersonations and creating plays with her siblings. Amber did cheerleading, and dance and ultimately discovered her passion for writing and video editing.

She has a Humanities and Film Degree from BYU, co-created The Silver Petticoat Review, contributed as a writer to various magazines, and has an MS in Publishing from Pace University, where she received the Publishing Award of Excellence and wrote her thesis on transmedia, Jane Austen, and the romance genre.

Her ultimate dreams are publishing books, writing and producing movies, traveling around the world, and forming a creative village of talented storytellers trying to change the world through art.

ABOUT AUTUMN TOPPING

In second grade, Autumn wrote her first story, “The Spinach Monster,” and hasn’t stopped writing since. Intrigued by the tales her grandmother told of vampires, witches, and ghosts as a girl, she’s always been drawn to the fantastic. 

Later, Autumn studied English and Creative Writing (continuing her love for classic literature and everything old-fashioned) and graduated with an MA in Children’s Literature and an MS in Library & Information Science from Simmons College.

Currently, she co-runs this lovely site and works as a YA Librarian. 

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MORE ABOUT THE SILVER PETTICOAT REVIEW

We founded The Silver Petticoat Review in 2013, and it has evolved a great deal since! It started as a hobby blog and transformed into a professional site over time. We realized we should be more serious about it when we had a few articles go viral (one post getting more than 90,000 visits in one day)!

We have a wide-ranging readership from people worldwide (majority female demographic), including from the United States (majority), the United Kingdom, Canada, India, Australia, Europe, and more!

The Silver Petticoat Review has been mentioned and/or used as a resource on media outlets, websites, and blogs like HuffPost, Bustle, Lifehacker, Best Life, Looper, Wikipedia, The Sun, Romper, TVOvermind, Slash Film, Fanlore, TV Tropes, Buzzfeed, and many more.

We’ve also worked with notable brands like Acorn TV, BritBox, A Love So True, Sullivan Entertainment, and more! Regularly, we work with authors, publicists, publishers, and filmmakers to promote authors, artists, and filmmakers. 

If you’re interested in partnership, promotional, affiliate, or another type of opportunity, please Contact Us. 

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WE’RE ON A MISSION

We’re on a mission to help you find great Jane Austen-like romances, magical tales of Romanticism, and uplifting stories to feed the soul because these types of stories exist! 

We’re on a mission to create these stories and inspire other storytellers to create them. And we’re on a mission to live with optimism and wonder. Why? Because the world needs it.

Let’s look up at the stars and connect to nature. Let’s remember what it is like to feel alive in this breathtaking world. And let’s find and create beautiful stories of magic, romance, and imagination.

We promote this because we believe in old-fashioned chivalrous romance with a contemporary twist. We challenge the status quo of some modern-day romances that are about casual emotionless connections and swiping left.

We challenge that all content needs to be cynical or excessively explicit. And we challenge the vulgarity of conversation. Instead, we appreciate wit, culture, art, and deep conversations.

In addition to storytelling, we also challenge this trend to be harsh, gritty, and cynical in our own lives. What’s wrong with creating and celebrating imagination, beauty, nature, travel, and authentic emotion?

We’re on a mission to connect to you, fellow kindred spirits like us. Whether you’re looking for romantic influence in your own life, seeking a bit of escape, looking for inspiration to write the next epic love story, or wanting to appreciate the loveliness of life a little more, we’re the site for you! Here you’ll find a positive place to lift the spirit even when we discuss Dark Romanticism.

Here at The Silver Petticoat Review, you will not only find content about great love stories, but we’ll also introduce you to Modern Romanticism. It’s a new (or old, depending on how you look at it) storytelling style. Finally, we’ll introduce you to our vision of Romantic Living.

By spreading the messages and styles of Chivalrous Romance, Modern Romanticism, and Romantic Living, we’re starting a new movement (or reigniting a past one with a modern twist):

We call it…

THE ROMANTIC REVOLUTION.

We see ourselves as Romantic Rebels fighting for an optimistic, creative world of empathy and imagination. We’re also uniting against the popular opinion that everyone should believe old-fashioned romance and chivalry are dead. Or that these stories are silly and merely “sentimental.”

We can unite and begin to create beautiful and memorable works of art inspired by the great literature of the past while also being original and contemporary.

Together, let’s create a Romantic Revolution and start an actual new literary, artistic, and intellectual movement. Regardless of religion, culture, background, political beliefs, sexual orientation, etc., we can all unite through common ground and by sharing stories.

IS ROMANCE BAD FOR US?

With the onslaught of blogs, online magazines, and social media in the mid-2000s, we discovered that hardly anyone discussed the topics that interested us.

Namely, sweet or sophisticated love stories (more Jane Austen in style than Erotica) in entertainment, period dramas, stories inspired by the Romantic movement, and even Romantic Living. So, we thought, well, why not us?

SEE Our Old-Fashioned Romance 101 Guide

Since the time we started this site in 2013, romance has had its ups and downs in the entertainment world (it’s never stopped being popular within publishing – despite the fact it’s still a misunderstood and sometimes ridiculed genre).

Thankfully, romance is on the rise in entertainment thanks to Netflix, the surprise success of Crazy Rich Asians in 2018, Hallmark, and the popularity of TV shows like Downton Abbey and Virgin River.

Still, in our Postmodern world, gritty realism, cynicism, casual romance, vulgarity, and excessive explicit content have become the acceptable norm. While unabashed romance, optimism, Romantic imagination, and less explicit stories are sneered at sometimes. We say, why can’t there be different options for different types of audiences?

When you research popular search topics from Google, there’s a current hunger for romantic comedies, fairytale-like romances, and Romanticism in the modern-day despite the negative voices and media telling us these stories are dangerous or worse, “silly.”

If there’s no standard of Realism or grit or masculine appeal (which is fine but let’s have more variety!), the critics quickly find ways to demean genres that “appeal” to the supposed feminine psyche. Just consider the vitriol unfairly speared at Twilight.

We hate to break it to these academics and critics or even hate-filled voices on the internet claiming enlightened views. But in a bit of twisted irony, the same arguments made against romance (particularly romantic comedies and paranormal) today identically reflect the voices of men hundreds of years ago, the same men raging against women reading novels (especially Gothic ones) because it was bad for their delicate mind.

Jane Austen herself satirized these fears with her classic Gothic romance novel, Northanger Abbey.

Margaret Cohen, author, and professor of the French language, literature, and civilization, explained this history to the New York Times Op-Talk:

“From the late 18^th century through the middle of the 19^th …women were considered to be in danger of not being able to differentiate between fiction and life.”

Sound familiar? If we could count the number of times people have told us that reading a paranormal romance or watching a romantic comedy or romantic period drama (No, we don’t expect men to “be” Mr. Darcy) was unhealthy, we’d be rich! “It creates unrealistic expectations,” they say.

And yet women in perfect shape wearing scantily clad clothes while they fight like a ninja wearing heels and then fall in love with an average-looking man with average intelligence in movies and television somehow make the critical cut?

Does that mean men don’t understand a Bond girl is a fantasy? As if our minds are so “weak” we’re unable to distinguish between the tropes found in a romantic comedy and actual life.

via GIPHY

While we don’t believe men or women should be fantasies brought to life, we do think it’s perfectly acceptable for chivalry to exist, that it’s okay to be INFLUENCED by the great romances based on emotional connection!

And it’s also wonderful to live a more beautiful, imaginative life inspired by the traits of the Romantic Age (or even Medieval Romanticism) – with a modern twist.

ARE YOU A DAMSEL, DAME, OR GENTLEMAN NOT IN DISTRESS?

There’s this modern belief spreading around that you also need to scorn romance to be a modern-day person. Sure, it’s acceptable to appreciate romance in a logical, “need” kind of way. But where’s the swoon-worthy type of love?

Shouldn’t it be okay to be an educated, intelligent person who loves chivalrous romance, whether in stories or real life? Smart people who long for equal partners but don’t scorn culture, good manners, and gallantry? Isn’t it nice not to have to do everything and always be superhuman even if you can? Can’t equality and chivalry exist side by side?

So, we stand with kindred spirits like us who secretly (or not so secretly) love reading Jane Austen novels or watching shows and movies about immortal vampires and/or Prince Charming. We love cliché-ridden romantic comedies, and we’re proud to say it!

We say, why can’t we be a modern-day damsel (or dame or gentleman) who’s not in distress but sure does like to be saved (or imagine being saved) from time to time? Yes, we absolutely believe in equal opportunity rescuing.

As for us, we’re Petticoat Damsels…NOT in distress! And we’re not afraid to say it!

For more on romance, read our Old-Fashioned Romance 101 Guide. 

For more on Modern Romanticism, see Modern Romanticism 101. 

BUT WHAT ABOUT ROMANTIC LIVING?

While we’re influenced by Medieval Romanticism, the Romantic movement of the late 18th to the mid-19th century, and the American Romantics (think Emerson, Thoreau, and the Transcendentalists), Romantic Living is just a little bit different.

Think of it as Romanticism combined with Old-Fashioned Romance and an adventurous, “Romantic” style of living without all the bad behavior of Lord Byron and Percy Shelley or even intense melancholy. 

We’re taking the positive aspects of the past movements and molding them into our modern world through an optimistic Silver Petticoat lens.

Living the Romantic lifestyle means connecting to your true self, developing your imagination, intuition, and personal gifts (which doesn’t mean you have to create in the Romantic Style), and connecting to nature and others around you.

So, is Romantic Living For You?

If you’re a non-conformist who believes in kindred spirits, love, nature, beauty, imagination, spirituality, individuality (IE: Jane Eyre following her own moral compass), and that people can and should be able to get along no matter what background (YAY for fellow optimists!), then it just might be!

For more detailed information, check out Romantic Living 101.

IN SUMMARY – THE ROMANTIC REVOLUTION

In all, we’re starting an all-new Romantic Revolution! So, become rebels like us and embrace romance, optimism, hope, imagination, and creativity in stories and life!

We’re Amber and Autumn Topping…and we’re Romantic Rebels.

So, join the Romantic Revolution and rebel with us!

Want to help us spread the popularity of Romance in Entertainment and in life? Subscribe and share this page with your friends!

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Topics and Categories

Here at The Silver Petticoat Review, we share reviews, articles, lists, news, romantic moments, interviews, a Period Drama Review Archive sorted by historical era, and more!

To cover a story, it must either have a love story (no matter the genre) in it, have characteristics of Romanticism, or have aspects of Romantic Living. 

We also strive to discuss stories with less explicit content. However, we occasionally cover a movie/show/book with graphic scenes or profanity due to artistic merit, relevancy, or genre interest. Nonetheless, we include “content notes” as much as possible, so no one will be surprised when they open a book or turn something on. That said, we do not and will not cover Erotica or pornography. 

COMPLETE LIST OF CATEGORIES

(Posts typically crossover into many categories at the same time.)

Books

• Classic Books (Any books published before the year 2000. Retellings of classics published after 2000 do not count as a classic.)
• Historical Fiction

Book Adaptations

Guest Posts

Interviews

Jane Austen

Lists

Movies & TV

• Classic Movies & TV (Any movie or show that premiered before the year 2000.)
• Hallmark
• International (Anything from outside the United States.)
  • British Dramas
  • Korean Dramas
• Streaming
  • Amazon Prime Video
  • Netflix

News

• Period Drama News

Period Dramas

We’ve also included a Period Drama Archive for an easy go-to list of all of the reviews. We count period dramas as anything set up to the end of the Cold War Era in 1991.

• Costume Dramas (Any post connected to fantasy, fairy tales, folklore, or mythology with costumes from film and TV so you can find all of the “fairytale” content with costumes in one place.)

Personality & Quizzes: Fun Personality Quizzes, Typing Fictional Characters, Trivia

Reviews

• Book Reviews
  • YA Reviews
• Movie Reviews
• Theater Reviews
• TV Reviews
  • TV Recaps (Although we rarely write recaps anymore.)

Romance (Any movie, show, or book with at least a significant romantic subplot will get this categorization. Thus, the rules of the romance genre within publishing may not always apply.)

• Adventure Romance
• Clean Romance
• Contemporary Romance
• Fantasy Romance
  • Fairy Tale Romance
  • Paranormal Romance
  • Urban Fantasy
• Foreign Romance
• Gothic Romance
• Historical Romance
  • Regency Romance
• Inspirational Romance
• Literary Romance Fiction
• Musicals and Dance
• Romantic Comedy
• Romantic Drama
• Romantic Mystery
• Romantic Suspense
• Sci-Fi & Dystopian Romance
• Teen Romance
• Women’s Fiction

For more on romance, check out our ROMANCE ARCHIVES. You can also refer to our Old-Fashioned Romance 101 Guide.

Romantic Living: Posts that highlight Romantic Living – Silver Petticoat style. Think of Romantic Living as more of a perspective, a way of looking at the world – and that includes a love of the past.

Topics include:

• Fascinating History: Genealogy (Coming Soon), Folklore, Exploring Fairy Tales, the history behind famous stories, interesting stories from history, etc.
• Inspiration: Writing Inspiration, Inspirational Quotes, Inspirational Entertainment that inspires Romantic Living, and/or any topics connected to inspiration, creativity, and imagination.
• Lifestyle: Fashion – usually vintage-inspired, Makeup, Beauty, Afternoon Tea, Culture, Costumes, and more. We mostly focus on vintage and romantic styles. We also like covering Hollywood Glamour.
  • Silver Petticoat Travels: Filming Locations, Travel Lists, Travel reviews, Nature, etc.
• Real-Life Romance: Love stories from history, romance in everyday life, romantic biopics, etc.

Romanticism 

Any stories from the Romantic Period will receive this categorization. We also tag classic literature that is stylistically close to Romanticism while not from the Romantic Age. We also categorize stories pre-Romantic Period that influenced Romanticism. IE: Shakespeare, the early Gothic novel, fairy tales, folklore, etc.)

• Modern Romanticism (It includes stories from 1900 to the present day influenced by Medieval Romanticism and the artistic and literary movement from the 18th to 19th centuries.)

Romantic Moments

• We spotlight memorable romantic moments from film and television.

The Silver Petticoat Book Club

#TheSilverPetticoatBookClub is now open to join! Our book club focus on sweet, smart, and/or Austenesque books with love stories from many genres. We announce our new pick monthly. (Note: The Silver Petticoat Book Club is currently on hiatus while we make some changes.)

The Silver Petticoat Damsels 

This is the official name of our new YouTube channel. It’s very new, but we hope to add more to it soon. You can also check out our other channel, Silver Vintage Videos, dedicated to transformative fan videos. We have won numerous vidding awards, so we hope you enjoy them!

Theater

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(Dena made the featured image and is from the Etsy BubblegumBlowfish shop)