Destiny's Captive by Beverly Jenkins

In national bestselling author Beverly Jenkins' Destiny series, the Yates men play hard and live hard. And when they find that special woman, they fall hard . . . Noah Yates fully believes in the joys of a happy family and a good wife. But that's not the life for him. No, he would much rather sail the wild seas in search of adventure, not tied down. But then the unthinkable happens . . . he finds himself literally tied down. To a bed. By a woman. And Pilar isn't just an ordinary woman. She's descended from pirates. And after giving him one of the worst nights of his life, she steals his ship! Now Noah is on the hunt, and he'll stop at nothing to find this extraordinary woman . . . and make her his.

Suffers a little bit from being the last in a series, especially since the first quarter or so has a detour back to California and Noah's mom getting remarried. Not bad, though, especially since I'm going back and reading the first two books in the series now (so, mission accomplished, I guess!). Marriage of convenience, a little bit of enemies-to-lovers, some fun piracy and a focus on history that you probably didn't learn about in school. An excellent end to summer romance bingo!

Content warnings: sexual assault (in the past, but discussed, though not in detail), segregation/Jim Crow, attempted murder of a character.

(2020 summer romance bingo: I'm on a boat. Would work for set on island, secret identity, and maybe bootleggers.)

The history of Cuba and american race relations was interesting. The story was not terribly compelling and the sex was pretty badly written. The family relationships were humourous and engaging (and twilight-style rich family fantasy) I laughed.

I probably should do a no star review because anyone reading this needs to know 1. romance novels are not my cup of tea 2. this is probably an excellent example of one, and it is MY FAULT for not being able to recognize that.
So, that said, I read this simply because I'm trying to expand my reading by not reading white, male authors. Beverly Jenkins is held up by many fans as a master of her genre, so I picked this one simply because it involved pirates. And....I got through it.
The story came alive for me when I saw how people treated them based simply by the color of their skin. Humans in cattle cars? I wanted to be sick.
Where it failed for me, historically, was in everything else. Nothing is described in detail. I learned NOTHING about the Spanish/Cuban war, ships or gunrunners. I learned nothing about San Francisco in 1887. I mean nothing.
There is a fiercely modern woman (too modern?) and a hero suffering from PTSD (which of course no one understood then). There was many, many happy endings. And a shopping trip. This is fluff I can't get behind in these kinds of novels.
This is a story not about pirates but of a super happy, super successful family. Pull out the sex scenes and it's borderline a children's chapter book.
So, no, I wont be reading anymore romance novels. I've tried, People, I've tried and they just aren't for me.