Review: ‘Midnight’ is Not to be Missed Historical Romance

Originally published at Am I the Only One Dancing?. Please leave any comments there.

It is said that the most segregated hour of the week in the United States is the hour when people go worship the deity of their choice. I would contend that the bookshelf is perhaps the most segregated place in America. And it’s a damned shame. Midnight is a historical romance written for African Americans that I strongly suggest White readers ‘cross the aisle’ to read.

I have read most of the great and ‘crossover’ African American writers, and am aware of their rich and powerful literary tradition. Too often, though, fiction that is not written as a ‘great novel’, such as genre fiction, gets stacked separately, and not marketed to middle aged blonde women like me.

Such was the case with Midnight by Beverly Jenkins. It’s a historical romance set in and around Boston in the early days of the American Revolution, and the main characters are pulled out of the free Black working and middle class of the time. I picked it up in my latest library haul because I really liked the cover art and because far too little historical romance is set in that time period.

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