- 1). Visit the websites that offer to let you read historical romance novel e-books for free. A number of websites exist now to allow Internet users to browse through and select novels to read from online catalogs. Many of the books posted on these free websites have passed out of copyright (such as Jane Austen's classic "Pride and Prejudice") and other, newer works are listed on these sites for free because they were published online and may not have the quality of books you find in a bookstore. Examples of websites that provide free historical romance novel e-books include Free-Online-Novels and Free-eBooks. EduChoices has an article that advertises "25 Places to Read Free Books Online." (See Resources).
- 2). Purchase an e-book online at one of the commercial e-book websites. Websites such as eHarlequin, BooksOnBoard and eBooks now sell quality historical romance novels (as well as other books) you can download and read online. Many of the listed prices for the novels sold as e-books on these sites are lower than those you would find in stores for the same novels.
- 3). Download the appropriate e-reader software with which you can read the new books you purchased. BooksonBoard, eHarlequin and other e-book vendors offer free e-reader software that you can download, such as Adobe EPUB, Adobe PDF, Microsoft eBook, Mobipocket eBook, MSReader and eReader. These free software downloads contain the programming necessary to allow you to read the special document formats in which many e-books are sold. You choose the download based on your computer's specifications. The BooksonBoard e-reader software downloads can be found at the bottom of their Help page under "Formats." The eHarlequin e-reader software can be downloaded from the bottom left-hand corner of the main page, under the category "Free eBook Readers."