📝 Okay so I gather this was like, a historically important book. One of the first historical romances to feature Black love and become commercially successful. I can definitely see the appeal, but the book was originally published in 1996 and it does feel a little dated, which is maybe a weird thing to say about a historical. Things just seemed a little more sedate, I guess? Overall it was just a little more old fashioned than I like. But it was still a good book!

🤓 I liked that there were real historically relevant things in the text. It's kind of hard to avoid them, since we're talking about Black people in the antebellum United States (1858-59), but it's still good to have the details. Multiple references to the Fugitive Slave Act, the Dred Scott decision....not really sure how John Brown and Harper's Ferry was relevant to the love story, it felt like it was shoehorned in, but I'm all for including an armed insurrection in the text. Thinking back to what the average reader in 1996 might have known about the history of abolition, a lot of this was likely educative to them. Hey, even to a lot of readers now, it's probably at least somewhat new information.

🎧 The narration was a bit stiff, but the audio was produced a decade ago so that kind of fits I guess. Only one female narrator, although the POV switches between his and hers throughout. She does not change intonation or anything when she switches POVs.

🌶️ 3/5 there were a bunch of encounters but the steamy stuff overall was definitely more... flowery/roundabout language than I'm used to reading from more recently published books.

This book was swoon-worthy! I've never read anything set in this time period and it was so eye opening and also so romantic??? I loved it. The plot is strong and the steam is there. Amazing read, 10/10. Will absolutely be checking out more of her books!

 

There is so much I want to say about this book, yet I feel I cannot do justice to the thoughts swirling in my head. Beverly Jenkins has been an author I meant to read for a very long time. While I now realize she writes both contemporary and historical, I was under the impression that she was a strictly historical author and I had stepped away from that genre for a while. Over the last year, I started incorporating historical romance back into my reading (I’m still not sure why I ever got away from it in the first place) and still hadn’t read one of her stories. WHAT TOOK ME SO LONG?!?

This author writes with such sensuality and intimacy, I was shocked to realize how far into the book it was before Hester and Galen actually gave in to their desires. The raw sexual tension and meaningful looks made it seem as though these two were much more physical with each other than they actually were. Ms. Bev has a true gift and I am going to happily delve into her library or work. Now that the seal has been broken for me, there’s no going back.

I’m the type of reader who is fascinated with the level of research a writer such as this puts into her work. I’m also a history buff so want to know all the things. As it is, when reading a historical romance I often look things up as I go along to find out more. When a book, whether historical or not, takes place in my neck of the woods I get even more invested. This story takes place, for the most part in Michigan. The Detroit area. In other words, my neck of the woods. I was thoroughly intrigued by this story of a conductor of the Underground Railroad and The Black Daniel, a man who took great risks to steal slaves and set them free.

The author does a wonderful job of weaving the story of Hester and Galen, aka The Black Daniel, with the history of the time and place. It’s never intrusive but gives such richness to the tale of these two and the town and surrounding areas. There are issues with class, gender roles, politics, and love. Most importantly love. To Hester, love leads to pain so she never desired to find love for herself. She’s seen what love has done to those closest to her. The same can be said for Galen in a way, but growing up rich and light-skinned and free, he was more about having fun than thinking about love.

Whenever I go into a book that was written over 20 years ago, I go in with some expectation of the writing feeling a bit dated. Now, this doesn’t happen as often with an historical, but it still happens. I never felt that with this book. Gee, maybe because a black woman author knows how to write stories about black women. Even when it’s being written about a time when slavery was still legal in much of the U.S. and racism was rampant even in places it was not legal.

As I said, my words cannot do this story justice. Just know that it blew me away and I cannot wait to read more by this author.