Barbara Reeves

3-1/2 stars

This interracial romance between a white woman and a black man in Texas in 1871 was all in all pretty well done. The writing was decent without being astounding but it was certainly far from bad. It just felt clunky every once in a while. The hero, Nick, was a black man whose mother was a slave and his father the white plantation owner. He was himself never a slave he was raised in Paris by an artistic aunt. He served in the Northern army during the Civil War and as a Buffalo show more Soldier after that. The heroine, Enid, was a southern war widow who went west to escape her overbearing brother.

The story was fairly realistic in that Nick was very wary about any relationship with Enid. There were secondary characters who were on either side of the prejudice or non prejudiced issue. I do think that perhaps there was too much acceptance too easily from others than would have been realistic at the times.

There were some fairly explicit love scenes. My WTF moment came when they were doing the deed and they could see his penis pressing up through her stomach. WTF???? again. The angle is wrong, there's a bone in the way plus a bladder. That's a hell of a boner he has. There is some stuff done by secondary/evil characters that is pretty horrendous. So if you're squeamish, you've been warned.

But all in all I thought it a pretty solid entry into the interracial genre. Particularly since BM/WW romances are rare and historicals even rarer. show less

Book meet wall. Bam! I ended up disliking both the hero and the heroine. Both stubborn and stupid. He knows that the one thing she can't forgive is a lie and then proceeds to deceive her for no particular reason. She thinks that she must marry money, which is entirely reasonable given the circumstances in the book and just because she isn't mooning over him enough (though she really is) he decides to test her by saying he has just lost his fortune. Of course she finds out and doesn't forgive show more him immediately so everyone takes his side, again of course. This is a romance so you know what happens next, she swallows her pride and forgives him etc. Now, I must like romance books since I read so many of them, but in some cases I don't believe in the stock happy ending given. Given her temperament and his fumbling courtship I don't think she really would have forgiven him and I don't necessarily think he deserved it. show less

Animals in the City gives us a look at how animals have adapted their survival to city life. This is a nice story to read before taking a walk with your 6-9 year old children to see what wild animals they can find in their own community.

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