A Review of Forbidden, by Beverly Jenkins

Forbidden is the first book in Beverly Jenkins’s Old West series, and it is a classic. The queen at her best!

Setting

The book starts in Denver, Colorado and most of the story takes place in Virginia City, Nevada, in 1870.

Main Characters

Rhine Fontaine was born into slavery and is passing for white after the Civil War. It wasn’t an easy choice, but by passing, he can make a bigger difference for the community, supporting businesses that white banks won’t fund and serving on the town counsel to keep it from mistreating the Black community. He is set to marry a white woman who will further his political career so he can make a bigger difference, when he and his business partner find a beautiful woman in the desert who has clearly been left for dead.

Eddy Carmichael was born free to formerly enslaved parents, and has worked hard every day of her life. As conditions worsen for her in Denver as Reconstruction wanes after the Civil War, she is determined to make it to California and open her own restaurant. But on her way west, she is robbed and left to die of thirst in the Nevada desert…and she wakes up in a white man’s bed.

Romance

Rhine has to bring Eddy to his apartment over his saloon until he can get her to Miss Sylvia’s boarding house. No one can know she is there, for her reputation, and because he is engaged to be married to the spoiled daughter of a political ally. But he is drawn to the stubborn woman recovering from dehydration and heat stroke in his bed.

Eddy is shocked when she wakes to Rhine’s piercing green eyes gazing at her. She will be no man’s mistress, and marriage to a white man is illegal, but the banter between them stirs feelings she has never before encountered. She tries to focus on the much more appropriate carpenter who tries to woo her, but he can see there is a something between Eddy and Rhine, and refuses to be a consolation prize.

Rhine breaks his engagement when his fiance is rude to Eddy, and he realizes that even as a political match, she would make him miserable. And maybe now he can at least get Eddy to have dinner with him. Knowing full well that she is fooling herself, Eddy agrees to have dinner with him just once, hoping it will get him out of her system, or at least give her memories to live on.

Plot

Dinner, of course, only makes them realize they have fallen thoroughly for each other. But Rhine’s fiance is threatening Eddy’s reputation, and if Rhine crosses back over the color line to be with Eddy, he risks everything–including their lives.

Historical Worldbuilding

Beverly Jenkins, as always, does a masterful job of bringing the post-Civil War years to life. The intricate politics that hound every step Eddy and Rhine take are brought home in a visceral way, as is the community support and love. Virginia City, Nevada is a mining town, and you feel that energy, along with the continuous racket of the mines, twenty four hours a day. And it is in the desert, so you will experience the dust and sun-blisters, too. Be forewarned–Eddy is a phenomenal cook who makes her living feeding people. This book will make you hungry!

Virginia City, NV

Tropes

This, as the title implies, is a story of forbidden love. It is also an opposite sides of tracks romance, because Rhine is wealthy and Eddy is destitute. And it is a hidden identity story, as well.

Secondary Characters

Sylvia, the boarding house owner who Eddy works for is a wonderful, complex character, as is the former nun who runs the city’s orphanage. The twins at the orphanage, who Rhine mentors, are delightful, and Eddy’s nieces are resilient girls who deservedly get their own stories in the series.

Point of View

This is written third person, and flips back and forth between Rhine and Eddy’s points of view, often within the same scene.

In Summary

• This is a classic romance of the real American West after the Civil War, and the stakes are high, so your heart will pound extra hard for these two!
• It takes place primarily in Virginia City, Nevada, in 1870.
• Rhine and Eddy are both complex and powerful characters. You will fall in love with them, and they will reward you for it!
• Beverly Jenkins has made a career of bringing this history to life, and this is a masterpiece of her work.
• The tropes are forbidden love, opposites sides of the tracks, and hidden identity
• On a heat scale of 1 to 5, this a 2. There is sex on the page, but it is sensually rendered without being explicit.
• There is violence in this story, one secondary character’s mental health is pushed beyond its capacity, and Jenkins doesn’t sugarcoat the racism of the historical moment. None of this is portrayed in a gratuitous or overly graphic manner.

Keep them Coming!

Please keep the tips coming! What other historical romances have you read that are set in the Americas and you think others might enjoy? Please email me or post in the comments below with suggestions of other titles!

Love historical romance? My novel, Passion’s Claim is scheduled for release this winter. It is a romance between a Scottish widow and a Mohawk officer who must convince everyone they are married or face life altering consequences. But she carries a secret that could put them both in chains. The story is set during the first New York campaign of the French and Indian War, in 1755. It is steamy, full of action, and has all the feels! Be sure to check it out!

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Image: Historic Photo of Virginia City, NV, via Wikimedia Commons.

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