If you get it wrong (by, say, setting a work in the mid 12th Century England and utterly failing to even MENTION Steven and Maud), you do your readers a grave disservice.
Side note - it's my understanding that the co-authors of the Sister Frevisse books split up over how much should be about the politics of the time vs small local events, which is why the books suddenly took Frevisse out of the convent and threw her into politics.
In this particular case, I think it was a Brit pulling a summer month in exotic NYC out of the air without research (and possibly in the assumption that the target audience was all too young to know the difference.)
no subject
Side note - it's my understanding that the co-authors of the Sister Frevisse books split up over how much should be about the politics of the time vs small local events, which is why the books suddenly took Frevisse out of the convent and threw her into politics.
In this particular case, I think it was a Brit pulling a summer month in exotic NYC out of the air without research (and possibly in the assumption that the target audience was all too young to know the difference.)