Topaz, Beverly Jenkins

Mar 09, 2009 19:17



Little r-romance is a longstanding absorption of mine, and when folks started listing off authors to try, I went burrowing for a romance novelist. I came up with Beverly Jenkins.

Jenkins is an African-American author with an impressive CV of awards, including two Career Achievement Awards from the Romantic Times and a Golden Pen from the Black Writer's Guild.

I was personally impressed that she includes a bibliography in the "author extras" in the edition of the text I indicate below; in my experience this is an unusual step, and I can see the clear impact of her research in her final product.

I'm also delighted to report that this is one of the first romances I've read --in a decade of reading them-- that passed the Bechdel test.

Seriously, can't say how cool that is.

Title: Topaz
Author Beverly Jenkins
Rating: 4/5.
ISBN: 978-0-06-117304-2

Synopsis: Katherine Love is an plain-spoken, strong-willed newspaperwoman, pursuing evidence of a crooked scheme through the upper echelons of Chicago Black community. She's about to turn up just the proof she needs, too, when her nemesis (and fiancee) finds her cracking his safe. Which might well have been the end of Kate's editorial ambitions, except for her father's intervention.

Bart Love rustles; Bart Love lies; Bart Love philanders and breaks hearts and probably hasn't a forthright bone in his body. Bart Love also loves his daughter, and Bart Love thinks on his feet. So when US Marshall Dixon Wildhorse shows up to discuss Love's recent misadventures as a rustler and the debt that Love owes him, Love offers a deal: Dix can marry Katherine, who is both educated and courageous; in return, Dix will forgive the debt. Dix, with misgivings, agrees.

So now Katherine is Dixon's problem --or at least, that's the theory. But Katherine has goals that don't include being married: consistently sensible and independent, Kate has real convictions that she's not about to relinquish. Not even for a star-toting cowboy with a strong sense of justice and an even stronger sense of connection to his past and the community he serves.

Observations: Jenkins' plot isn't as tight as it could be, and that's where she lost that fifth star. In nearly every other respect Topaz is beautifully done. In particular, Jenkins makes up for the occasionally episodic texture of the story with Dixon's stories and Katherine's news and reports: the West that Katherine and Dixon travel through is rich with tragedies and narratives somebody just left out of my AP US History class --details about the interrelationships of the five "Civilized Tribes," stories of life in the Indian Territory, and remarkable accounts of important Seminole, other First Nations- and African-American figures. These are potted vignettes, largely independent from the action of the story, but they're movingly and effectively told --I'd be grateful to read a non-fiction history by Jenkins, if she'd write one.

The sex is also blistering --and tasteful: Jenkins avoids the transports of language that plague other authors in the field. While there are some anachronisms, there is also lively characterization: minor to major, antagonist to protagonist, each are fully-imagined and consistently presented in dialogue and action. The relationship is the core of the story, but Topaz could just as easily be classified a Historical, and exhibits the same love of period detail I would expect from that genre.

(delicious), romance, african-american, american west, black seminole, historical, black writers

Previous post Next post
Up