Historical romance is a broad category of mass-market fiction focusing on romantic relationships in historical periods, which Walter Scott helped popularize in the early 19th century.

These books feature Vikings during the Dark Ages or Middle Ages. Heroes in Viking romances are typical alpha males who are tamed by their heroines. Most heroes are described as "tall, blonde, and strikingly handsome." Using the Viking culture allows novels set in these time periods to include some travel, as the Vikings were "adventurers, founding and conquering colonies all over the globe." In a 1997 poll of over 200 readers of Viking romances, Johanna Lindsey's Fires of Winter was considered the best of the subgenre. The subgenre has fallen out of style, and few novels in this vein have been published since the mid-1990s