Through the Storm

My first book of 2023! There are authors I know I can count on, and Beverly Jenkins is one of them. I love her characters and her stories and how each is written with the compassion – that you help people when you can. 

Our couple is Sable and Raimond. They meet at a Union camp in the waning days of the war – she's fleeing slavery, and he runs the camp. Eventually there's a misunderstanding where he thinks she's a Rebel spy. The story then moves to New Orleans, and Raimond's family. 

Her characters go through adversity, or have gone through it. After all, her heroines and heroes are Black, living often in the South during or after the Civil War. But Beverly Jenkins also shows her characters persevering, finding joy, finding power, and triumphing against those who wish them harm.

The author never goes to ridiculous lengths to come up with a misunderstanding to keep our couple apart, or takes a desire for revenge for a broken heart too far. The books have these things, but the main conflict is usually the couple against the world, not the couple against each other. 

I've read another book in the Le Veq family series, Rebel, as well as other books that also tie into this world, like Forbidden. I'm not sure there's a bad place to start with this author. You can even do a contemporary, like Rare Danger!

What a great cover, too.