We have been looking forward to this book since Miss Beverly talked about it on the podcast back in APRIL, and now it’s here and we have it and things are good.
First and foremost, this is a book about a period in history not talked about much in Romancelandia, and the whole world Jenkins gives us is drawn in such clear, confident lines. The hero is a hero I’ve never seen before, and the heroine is strong and also described as worthy of being cherished. That’s something we don’t often see for Black women in mass media.
This is the beginning of a new series that jumped off from Through the Storm (published in August of 1998). In TtS, the heroine has a brother that shows up briefly, and apparently people have been clamoring for his story since August 2nd, 1998. Jenkins has been affectionately calling these fans her Rhine Whiners, but needed to let things simmer and figure out what the hook was.
Rhine Fontaine is the son of a slave and her owner, and is able to pass as White. After the Civil War, he decides to commit to passing White full time, and ends up in Virginia City, Nevada, where he owns a saloon and a number of other properties, is active with the White Republicans, is on the city council, and is engaged to a pretty White lady. He finds Eddy Carmichael, a cook from Denver on her way to San Francisco, wandering the Nevada desert after she is robbed and left for dead. He and his partner in the saloon biz nurse her back to health, and a romance is planted.
It’s complicated, because as long as he is living and passing as White, marrying Eddy is illegal in many places, and the life he’s built for himself is contingent on the White people thinking that he’s White. If he wants Eddy, he has to make a choice. Eddy flat out tells him that she’s not interested in being his mistress: if he wants to bang, they have to be married, and if that’s not on the table, then neither are they.
Exploring Rhine and the type of person he was is what made this really interesting for me. Even though he described himself as having “turned his back” on his race, he didn’t do that thing of “I AM WHITEST PERSON TO HAVE EVER WHITED LOOK AT ME I AM WHITEY MCWHITERSON.” He still supported Black businesses, invested in them, sold land to Black business owners, allowed Black people in his saloon, and tried to manage the vicious racism in the White arm of the local Republican party (a noble, if failing, endeavor). I trusted Jenkins to write a sympathetic hero, and I found myself thinking that a passing hero who tried to compensate by being a dickish White dude would be REALLY hard to redeem and it would have been hard to understand why Eddy would want to get with such a man. Rhine is not that man.
I liked Eddy, with her determination to create her own life, and her almost bewilderment that dudes would be interested in her. She has plans, and she finds in Virginia City a found family of friends and employment. Jenkins said that she found a reference to a Black woman walking across the desert with a cooking brazier on her head, and that’s where her inspiration for Eddy came from.
There’s a very…unfortunate (to put it extremely mildly) habit of putting Black women into specific tropes- either the over-sexed Jezebel, or the Mammy whose job it is take care of everyone cheerfully and selflessly, or the Strong Black Woman Who Don’t Need No Man. I would like to think that I don’t need to explain why the Jezebel or the Mammy are harmful, but it may be difficult to see why Strong Black Woman trope isn’t great, either.
The Mammy trope reduces Black women down to someone who doesn’t get support, and isn’t worthy of being cherished or desired for who she is. She needs to take care of everything and everyone, and no one takes care of her. Similarly, expecting (and being expected) to be a Strong Black Woman makes it difficult for Black women in the real world to cope with the fact that the human psyche isn’t designed to support the entire load on one set of shoulders. It’s also reductive– you are Strong, and that’s all you are or get to be. Not seeing people like yourself be cherished and loved in mass media has a very real effect on what you find yourself expecting in your life. Mikki Kendall has a great Storify on the topic which you should check out. It’s exhausting. It’s demoralizing. Worse, it’s dehumanizing.
What Jenkins has been doing for decades upon decades is giving her readers strong three-dimensional Black women who are loved, desired, and cherished. I can’t tell you how important that is. Eddy gets to be strong, but also loved and supported by her community and her man, and that is the thing I loved most about her. I’m so glad Jenkins is writing these stories and giving voice to these times and places and people. We’re really lucky to have her in our community.
The Black community of Virginia City (although to be accurate, there are people of all races in it) is so multifaceted and populated. This is one of the thing Jenkins does best- worldbuilding. She wants to set her stories in places where Black people have actually been and lived and loved, “…and give people a great story as always, and we can learn while we are fanning. Fanning from the love scenes.”
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There’s so much that I love about this novel that my feels are just all over the place. I’ve already convinced two people to read it, and it’s been out for 2 days. And one of those people is a fellow African American, who isn’t much of a reader who upon seeing the cover said, “Yas, representation!” and then gushed over how beautiful and glowing Eddy’s skin is and that the cover artists cared. If that isn’t proof Beverly Jenkins’ stories are needed, I don’t know what is.
Speaking of that cover, can we talk about how in Romancelandia the covers often do not accurately represent the novel and how this cover depicts perfectly the intense, heated gazes with words unsaid that occur frequently? The tension on this cover is so overwhelming in all of the good ways.
And somehow I’m going to have to find an appropriate situation in which to use “the whitest person to have ever whited.”
I agree – the cover is gorgeous and SO MUCH TENSION.
I was thinking about getting this one. This review pretty much sealed the deal for me. Woo!
Thanks for the great review but more importantly, thanks for “getting” my work. You bitches rock.
I sooo Love Beverly Jenkins writing.. this is an AWESOME review 🙂
Love this review. Love this book.
I just want to say that this book made me cry multiple times. And laugh. And get really, really hungry for a fish fry.
I recently saw on twitter (was it Sarah MacLean? Courtney Milan?) discussing committing that for every cisgendered/straight/white romance you read to consider reading one with a more diverse cast. Despite being queer I have really stuck to cis/het/white books and I just bought this as my first attempt to diversify. I have read so many great reviews about Beverly Jenkins that I’m sure I will enjoy it. Could we maybe get a round up of similar books?
I. Can’t. Even. Deal.
This book is *amazing.*
I love Rhine. I love Eddy. I love their very real-feeling friends and their delicious sounding food and their love and what they give up for each other and oh, oh, oh, o have so many feelings. I was genuinely nervous of how much it would cost them to be together, especially in this era.
I’m supposed to be studying but I want to go back and read it AGAIN.
Sigh. Good Book Noise is happening here.
I love the history in Beverley Jenkins’ books. I thought I had a fairly decent grasp on American history (for a foreigner) but every time I pick up one of her books, I learn something new. I read her ‘Destiny’ trilogy and realized that I had absolutely no clue about that era of Californian history (with all the land-grabbing that went on) and went off to read all about it.
As a 20 something, Black, Librarian…I am constantly seeking out representation in books. Not just for me, but for many of my students(elementary school librarian). I find so few characters that I would describe as the “Carefree Black Woman”. Not that she doesn’t have cares but a book where she is allowed to experience a variety of emotions and experiences. This reminds me of an article on why you’ll never see a Black Zooey Deschanel-type character in the media. We must be hypersexual or asexual. There’s so much in between.
Okay rant over…I look forward to diving into “Forbidden”. Thank you for this review! I second a list of similar books.
Now THAT is a romance novel cover.
I’m struggling with this book. I’ve been wanting to read Jenkins for a while but five chapters in I don’t particularly care about either character, the cardinal rule of writing “show don’t tell” seems to have been completely thrown out because I am told EVERYTHING: “eddy was nervous. rhine was confused” For a piece that relies on it’s old west setting I can’t envision anything- the saloon, the streets, etc. I am a passionate fan of the little house books so I feel like I have some sense for this era but this town does not come alive to me, there are random characters whose entire purpose could be cut, the historic references feel blatant instead of woven in, and then the phrase acting “troop” (troupe), Where was the editor?
Since reading romances I have had very few DNFs but this might be one of them. Tell me it’s going to get better? Or no?
While I really love your reviews RHG and respect your opinion, I found the multiple paragraphs about tropes about black women to be really out of place in this review. The problem of heroines being molded into racial stereotypes is important to talk about, and worth their own separate conversation on this site. However, writing extensively about tropes that are forced onto black women by white authors and editors in the context of a novel written by a prolific black writer feels a little tone deaf at best and patronizing at worst.
I’d like to read more about Eddy’s arc as a character specifically. I’d like to hear “we should have more authors like Jenkins in our community and more historical romance with black characters” instead of “I’m so glad Jenkins is writing these stories and giving voice to these times and places and people. We’re really lucky to have her in our community.” That might be a little too fine of a point, but I hope you see what I’m trying to drive at.
That said, I thought about not saying anything because it feels like nitpicking and I get that it’s not really a Big Deal and some might think I’m being oversensitive. But lately I’ve been thinking about the lack of POC reviewers on mainstream romance sites after I read that awful Kirkus open letter to Courtney Milan. Then I tried to read My American Dutchess after its A review and kept tripping over sentences where the white hero was described as being like a Mohawk warrior. Same for Rogue Not Taken where I was bothered by the side character who is essentially Kanye West, but is white and gets mocked for calling himself a creative genius while ignoring the fact that Kanye has said in interviews that he calls himself a genius to preempt people calling him the n-word or “rapper” or “celebrity” in a negative light. Neither of these things ruined my reading experience or even felt like things worth downgrading a book for, but I felt the yawning absence of discussion about it. If we don’t talk about it, it happens again and again. (After all, Eloisa James’ earlier effort “When the Duke Returns” features, in the words of the top review on Goodreads: “Orientalist stereotypes that just stepped out one of Edward Said’s footnotes.”)
I’m Black. I loved this review on so many levels. Thank you.
(brief only because I can’t even when people read reviews then complain that there is too much discussion of race. Before I get into any of that I would rather express my sincere appreciation and keep it moving).
STM. No worries. If it’s a DNF for you, that’s okay. Thanks for taking a chance on me.
Update: I did, in fact, finish and the conclusion I came to was this: fiction is constructed of scenes and summary and this book has engrossing scenes but when the scene ends and you get to summary it flounders a lot. So when Eddy & Rhine are together the book feels alive but almost every transition stopped me dead in my tracks.
I think I’m going to try at least one more of Ms. Jenkins’ work.
STM. Try Topaz.
Can i just say how awesome it is that there are authors active in the comments?!? So awesome! Thank you for spending time to interact with us readers and the other authors. You all are the best!
I enjoyed the book, couldn’t put it down. But I found myself ultimately disappointed. I loved the story line and thought the internal struggle Rhine would go through had great potential. He was a man passing as white, all his success revolved around him being white and so I was disappointed that the book didn’t delve into that internal discussion/turmoil more deeply. Eddy wouldn’t have him unless they were married and voila, he seemingly easily turns his back on the life he’d built for over 10 years? Also, I found it hard to believe that he didn’t face more backlash from the white community once he revealed himself as black.
That said, I really loved the chemistry between Rhine and Eddy and couldn’t get enough of them on the page together. I loved all the different characters and I really got a sense of community and small town camaraderie. So I can’t wait for the next installment in the series!
Oshoveli — I agree. I felt we didn’t get to see Rhine make that important decision and that was a big lack for me. I’m still not sure why he decided to reveal his secret at large, since it appears that he and Eddy could be married anyway. (Or did I misunderstand that?) I also felt things were set up rather conveniently for him, with his white brother to be his backup in financial matters. But of course this is a romance and we want it to end happily for them.
STM — I’m also not a huge fan of Ms. Jenkin’s particular prose style, but I think she has very interesting stories to tell, so it’s a bit of a trade off.
Incidentally, I was fascinated by the historical note at the back of the book about the archeological dig and am really curious now how an entire saloon got buried!
Just a caveat–the Republican party of the late 1800’s was actually much nicer to blacks than they are today; Karl Rove actually wrote a decent book about President McKinley that makes that pretty clear (I don’t know about you, but I fainted, though the book itself could have used an editor with an axe to weed out the extraneous detail). Now, I don’t know about the Republican party out West–that could have been different.
This still sounds like a way cool book, though.
I finally got to read this and loved it. Thanks for pointing me to it!
All of the Beverly Jenkins covers that I’ve seen have been way above average in terms of both matching the way the characters are described in the book, and overall composition/art.
Count me among the fans who enjoy her “behind the scenes” snippets at the end, too. It’s really cool to see the historical research process and the bits that inspired her to create these particular characters in this particular time and place.