An Extraordinary Union

I read historical romance all the time and I love it, but in school, I never liked history class. Even in college, I took art history classes to fill requirements. But if history classes were anything like this book, focusing on the men and women who actually made history happen, I think students would be enthralled.

But although this book is about the past, it's also highly relevant to people's lives today. I was thinking throughout the book that the US still has not resolved a lot of the racial issues that were present at the time of the Civil War. There are many varieties of racism portrayed in the various white characters and a lot of it was very familiar, such as the slaver who says his horrible actions aren't his fault, since he's just taking advantage of the system as it exists.

It does take on some very weighty issues, and it's a thoughtful book. Yet it doesn't feel like a heavy read, due to the constant action. This book is exciting. Elle and Malcolm are always in danger, as spies, but they end up in a good number of specific perilous situations over the course of the book.

Elle and Malcolm's romance is pretty much perfect, in my view. Elle has a very difficult time deciding that Malcolm can be trusted, which is easy to understand, and when she explains how she's feeling to Malcolm, he has to do some uncomfortable soul-searching as well. As a white American, living in the modern world, I'm ashamed to say I would not have guessed at some of Elle's objections either. Malcolm has the best intentions towards her from the beginning, but he only learns to be the best partner he can be over time. So it was very easy for me to feel carried away by the romance.

Overall this is one of the best m/f romances I've ever read, and I highly recommend it. I'm very excited for the sequel.

I loved this! Elle is such a strong, unusual heroine and I could easily have read a whole other book about her (hopefully she shows up in any more books in this series). I don't usually go too much for the mystery/suspense/spy genre of romance, but I've been meaning to read Alyssa Cole forever and this book had gotten such good reviews, I went for it, and I'm so glad I did!

For the Read Harder challenge of an historical romance by an AOC. I liked this more than I thought I would since historical romances are not my fav. But it had a fast-paced story, snappy dialog, and lots of passion. I did have to suspend my disbelief a little in order to accept that a Civil War-era heroine would have such a modern feminist sensibility, but, hey, more power to her.