The previous book in this series was a romantic adventure, but I think this one is more of a straight romance, albeit with a health scare/accident (not quite an adventure exactly), and more of a social commentary layer than most books of this type—mostly in the form of contrast between what I guess you could call (mostly) full-control patriarchy, all the norms of those times fully funded so to speak, and life on the frontier.

It’s not brilliant, but in the ordinary way it seems entirely free of blemishes.

…. I want to write something about common elements in romance plots and the Black experience (and the Anglo experience).

Part of romance, part of the shame assigned to it, is its spontaneity, its irregularity. Part from the fact that the words lovers use are rarely literally true, and that unlike robots they are using squishy parts, is the aspect that unlike robots they are probably not keeping to a plan or, certainly, not a schedule, right. At first you say that such and such will never happen, but later it does. (That’s a character in a romance novel; in a gen fict novel or in real life, it might be vice versa. But that’s not fun.) Thomas Jefferson, who was obviously a slave owner, and certainly part of the Anglo intellectual experience, is somebody I read about in this book about Black vs Anglo culture in 18th century Virginia. At one point he wrote a letter to his daughter, assigning her a schedule (really almost a monastic rule of life): she was to spend X minutes/half hours reading in English, Y amount in French, and take breaks only at prescribed intervals, etc. Obviously there is some use sometimes to regularity if one agrees to or creates it oneself, and I suppose there is a minimum amount of regularity to a good life. But the 100% planned 24/7/365 intellectual monasticism Tom tried to apply to his daughter would be totally inappropriate and unrealistic even as a self-created plan for self-control, you know.

Sex can be unreasonable, and sometimes is, not least for taking place in a shame-filled, often unreasonable world. But sometimes what we are shamed about IS what’s good about sex, which is sometimes what can seem peripheral to it, or even the cost involved.

…. I do think it is a straight (non-adventure) romance, even if it isn’t the sort of ‘sheltered’ setting that often implies. It’s the romance of people living in a violent, challenging setting, and that violence can kinda interrupt and influence the plot, but I don’t think that the struggle for life itself becomes a real rival for the struggle for love, the way it would be if you were looking to find out who killed the great god Pan, and spared a look sideways at your sidekick along the way; the physical attacks/lack of safety are just an obstacle to overcome on the way to love, and not a really independent sort of plot influence; there are different kinds of books, of course.

…. I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that a system built on raid & pillage, slash-and-burn-down-to-the-bottom—the confiscation of Native land—developed into a sort of crook-capitalism with a lot of fraud and irregularity, you know. We burned everything that was there before, and often rush-built rather primitive stuff on the ash and rubble. The ‘old west’.

But it’s nice to have the whole finance crisis as the end is coming up. The old elite, the old guard politeness police, decline to talk about money—‘I’m rich, but I hardly notice’—but romance does have a lot to do with prosperity. Pentacles and cups are both feminine.

…. I used to think that the whole Jane Eyre plot thing that people like, where you inherit money when you’ve discovered the secret of life or whatever, was silly, “unrealistic”, because really it’s all “random”, and anyway what people like can’t be good; but now I think that that is how money comes sometimes, even today but especially back then, by inheritance, and really despite all the nonsense of life, some of which we can’t control, a great portion of it is voluntary, and when you learn the secret of things, life promotes you.

Miss Bev does it again! Spring is wonderful. She does it all and takes no guff from anyone. And then she meets "cinnamon roll" Garrett, who is an utterly delight. Love the world, the supporting characters, and the story. I look forward to the next one in this series! ( )

Colton Lee has come to Wyoming to interview a black doctor there, for his father's black newspaper. When he gets lost in a snowstorm he encounters the Doctor's sister Spring and the two of them begin to spark. He has plans for his future back home back east but she has carved a life out in Wyoming for herself that she is determined to maintain. Can they work a relationship, particularly when their families get involved.
Good fun with a very determined and competent female lead. ( )

I love this book, and each of Beverly Jenkins books includes a tantaling glimpse into other characters that now I need to go find lol. ( )

This was decent, but I couldn't really get into it. The heroine is quite hardened and prickly, and her background excuses it somewhat, but I felt like I was kept on the outside of her shell most of the time, and wasn't able to know her that well, so I didn't entirely warm to her. The hero and supporting characters were fine. I disliked the showdown scene near the very end, but mostly I didn't *dislike* the book, so much as I just felt pretty mildly about it. Not as engaged as I would want. Others seem to have taken to it though, so it could largely just be me.

* Major spoilers for the scene I disliked If ever you have reason to believe someone hates you enough to rape, beat, and potentially kill you, and they've shot you in one leg but you actually reach your own gun anyway (which you're skilled with)- if they then tell you to 'drop the gun or they'll shoot you in your other leg', %&$#ing let them!!! And while they're doing that, shoot them in the head! Do NOT actually toss your gun away! An additional leg wound will be the least of your concerns when you're unarmed and completely at a psychopath's mercy! AND, if you then miraculously see an ally coming up on them out of their line of sight definitely DO NOT call their attention to them so they can shoot them a few times too! WtF?!? Even at that point I expected her to scramble for her own gun while he was distracted, but it isn't mentioned if she did, so as far as I know she just passively sat there watching the scene play out, all their lives on the line What is the point of her being all tough and hardened and casually counting off the bones she's broken, if she's just going to fall into dumb damsel mode the second her life is on the line?? I would have been less disappointed if she had just burst into tears and then fainted(!), at least those would be honest physical reactions to fear that she probably couldn't control, rather than two absolutely bone-headed choices that further put her own life, and someone else's(!), into the hands of an absolute monster! Argh... ( )