Topaz by Beverly Jenkins

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The April book for Rake Appreciation Society was Topaz by Beverly Jenkins! This is one of her standalone novels, but most of Beverly Jenkins's books are in the same universe and do connect in some way. If you haven't heard of the Rake Appreciation Society, it's a historical romance book club hosted by Jenn and Crystal on YouTube and it's one of my favorites! I was able to use this for my Taylor Swift Quarterly Challenge for the prompt Blank Space (character that uses a gun) and the Love Has Sprung reading challenge for prompt diverse author.

Katherine is undercover as a reporter to expose a scheme by wealthy man Rupert. When undercover around him, she finds herself engaged to him to get closer to steal the evidence of his crimes. When he catches her, things hit the fan. Thankfully Kate's father is currently offering her hand in marriage to Marshall Dixon in return for selling off his cattle when he was presumed dead. Dix arrives in time to interrupt the wedding and steal Kate for himself. As they travel back to Indian Territory, where Dixon resides, they go by wagon and have a lot of time to connect and build their relationship.

I think this is my favorite Beverly Jenkins so far. I loved the humor and really enjoyed Dix as a hero. I do struggle with getting everything that I want in a 5-star from Beverly (so far), so I do have a few nit-picky things to touch on. First is the way that at times the romance feels secondary to whatever other plot points are happening. I think Topaz is the most romantic I've read so far and gave me most of what I need. I did pay attention to this one closely while reading and found a point that I struggle with. When it comes to her steamier scenes, I don't feel the tension between the characters. I was struggling with some of their kiss scenes early on and really payed attention once I was feeling let down once again. I have figured out why I feel disconnected with those scenes in particular and it's too many metaphors or roundabout ways of describing what the characters are feeling or doing. While I can go with one, there were times where one paragraph about the same moment would have three different metaphors. It just was too flowerly and almost felt removed from the situation for me to really feel the steaminess between the characters.

I do also have to say that while I love and commend Beverly for bringing to light events in history not everybody learns in school, sometimes they feel a little too history textbook-y. When it's something that our characters are going through or relate to them directly, I can understand it better. There are times though where we get a complete shift to get a history lesson and it really just removes me from the story. While I loved this book when I was reading it, I really struggled with the urge to pick it up once I put it down. This took me a lot longer than expected to get through and ended up setting it aside to do the Dark Romance Readathon.

Despite all the critiques though, I really did enjoy this book and like I said, it's my favorite Beverly Jenkins so far. I don't want to count out all of her books, but I think at this point her writing style just doesn't quite fit 100% with my tastes. I will read her in the future I'm sure, but it'll probably be because of a book club or buddy read or something. I'm not sure if I'll reach for one completely on my own. I had a lot of fun, as always, during the live show and can't wait until the next meeting!

Have you read Topaz?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Topaz, Beverly Jenkins, 4-stars, 7 days, eBook, 400 pages, published in 1997, traditionally published

Indigo by Beverly Jenkins

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The June book for the Rake Appreciation Society, hosted by Crystal and Jen, is Indigo by Beverly Jenkins. This is a standalone of hers, but almost all of her books connect and are in the same universe. Here is a link to a family tree that was created last year. This book is one of Crystal's favorite romances. I have read a Beverly Jenkins before and wanted more from the romance aspect. Indigo certainly hit that note for me. I was able to apply Indigo to the backlist prompt for Summer of Swoon and small town prompt for the Ripped Bodice Summer Bingo.

We meet our heroine Hester first and she runs a station on the Underground Railroad. She has guests, a family and a badly beaten man. She cares for the man and finds out that he's the notorious Black Daniel. An infamous slave stealer. He had kind of given himself up to save the family he was stealing, but ended up getting saved from slave catchers himself. What we come to find out, is the Black Daniel is actually Galen. He's the grandson of a prominent creole family in Louisiana. They end up connecting, but Galen eventually has to leave.

He arrives back to their small town in Michigan a few months later, buying a portion of Hester's land and house next door. He comes to woo her, but Hester has a lot of reservations. The biggest drawback for her is the class difference. While Galen is mixed race, his family has been free for a lot longer as his ancestors were slaves under the French and not Americans. Hester is a freed slave. Where the name comes from is that she was on an Indigo farm(?) and her hands and feet are dyed indigo. A lot of twists and turns happen, but I am a little torn on my rating for this book.

If I were to rate this off of the romance, it'd be 5-stars. I really loved the connection and how Galen pushed Hester to not just open up, but also have fun. He takes her down to a river and they make mud pies. I loved how playful he was and the charm he exudes. He really pushes Hester to think about what it is she really wants. She was originally engaged to a friend and they planned for it to be a celibate marriage. Galen really pushes her to push herself to want more. 

Where this book fell short for me, was everything else. There were times where it seemed a little history textbook feeling where it was just a list of facts and historical events. While I usually enjoy  the way she threads history throughout her stories, you can tell it's an earlier book of hers. I kind of found myself skimming because it was written drier and didn't really pertain directly to the romance plot. A part of me feels a little bad about skimming those parts, but a lot of those sections were talking about John Brown the abolitionist whom I actually learned about in college. Because those parts of the book just felt like they had a different voice, I would rate those portions closer to a 3-star. I went for the average, but I did want to also go for the 4-star since this is a romance novel. If there was less of the history lessons or it was moved to the end as an author's note or something, maybe that would've been better for my reading tastes.

Overall I did enjoy this book. The villain was a little obvious and I found myself just waiting for the other shoe to drop since their first meeting. Which is even funnier since his name was Shoe. (Yay! Unintentional puns!) The romance was really good and really gave me what I wanted and expected. While the other sub-plots and history info dump didn't always fit well with the rest, the romance really kept me reading. Also, as far as older historical romances go this doesn't really have any of the normal problematic elements you usually see. I'll definitely keep reading Beverly Jenkins. I feel like I should maybe look at her older books though since this one hit me better. I'm excited to see what everyone else thinks this Thursday during the live show!

Have you read Indigo?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Indigo, Beverly Jenkins, 4-stars, 2 days, eBook, 359 pages, published in 1996

Tempest by Beverly Jenkins

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As mentioned in previous posts, I absolutely adore the Smart Women Read Romance Podcast. I am a patron and participate in their monthly live reviews. For February, the book chosen under the historical prompt was Tempest by Beverly Jenkins. This is the third book in her Old West series, although it seems most of her series are in the same world and connect via various characters.

This was my first Beverly Jenkins, and I'm happy to finally get to one of them. If I wasn't knee deep in fantasy romance due to FaRoFeb, I would've read the whole series. Most of the time (95%) I prefer to read things in order, even if it's not necessary. Unfortunately I didn't relegate enough time to read the first two books before Tempest. This book focuses on Regan, a mail-order bride moving to Wyoming to marry the local Doctor Colton. He is looking for a wife mainly for his daughter Anna. The relationship between Regan and Anna is what made this a 4-star and not 3-star for me. The way that Regan takes shy Anna under her wing and naturally helps her grow confidence in herself and allows her to be a child. 

What I wasn't as fond of is the romance between the two. Yes there were some steamy moments, but I didn't like how sudden the attraction felt and how Colton kind of fought against it. It was written like he was fighting falling for Regan, however I didn't actually feel like he was falling for her. More intrigued since she was so different than any other woman he knows (outside of his awesome-sauce sister). I also didn't like how he kept saying that "good women" did do this or act like that. Oh, and that a good woman just lifted her skirts to lie with a man and that was it. Nobody getting naked and both finding pleasure. Like, you're a doctor dude! He should've been more knowledgeable and known better. Especially with how good of a relationship he supposedly had with his wife. I also though the main conflict was a little cliché, but it fit the western feel and I'm glad it was more external. 

Overall, I enjoyed the book and will definitely pick up more Beverly Jenkins. I'm super interested in his sister's book, but I guess it's actually in the Woman Who Dare series (from what I heard). Excited to finally get to a Beverly Jenkins and I definitely get the hype about her books. I just feel like this one didn't quite hit steaminess and "great love story" that I was expected.

Have your read Tempest?

Bookishly Yours, 

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Tempest, Beverly Jenkins, 4-stars, 1 day, eBook, 384 pages, published in 2018