Book 39: Captain's Surrender by Alex Beecroft

Naval officers who fall in love! That is the sort of pitch I am always going to be interested in.

Set during the early years of the American Revolution, the focus of this book wasn't quite what I expected. The first third of the book is centered on a terrible captain of a British ship on its way to Bermuda, which is also carrying a wealthy merchant and his ward (in reality his natural daughter). The terrible captain is cruel and sadistic and is eager to catch out his officers for offenses, especially sodomy. This is especially dangerous for Josh, who is now sharing a cabin with a lieutenant named Peter who has just joined the ship. Josh has to navigate concealing his feelings from Peter while also attempting to prevent mutiny, which Peter is narrowly able to avoid while also taking command of the ship as a result of a battle with pirates.

After the terrible captain has been removed from power due to a knife wound inflicted by one of his own crew, Josh and Peter fall in love and are noble and self-sacrificing for each other in ways that are, for the most part, incredibly satisfying. There's an incredibly brave suicide mission, an unlikely rescue, a duel to the death and a wedding, all of which are delightful. The only thing I don't love about the book is the appearance of a Wise Native American who exists more or less only to help one of them realize the true course of his life, but while that's not a trope I'm generally in favor of, it isn't so poorly done that it ruined the rest of the book for me. It brought the overall impression I have of the book down, though.

Grade: B

Book 38: Muscling Through by J.L. Merrow

Muscling Through starts with a classic romance novel set up: a pretty professor of Art History runs into a scary-looking muscle man in an alley, but instead of finding trouble, he finds love. Al, the muscle man, isn't exactly a gentle giant (he had a tendency to get involved in some bar brawls as a bouncer, which is why he took a job as a punter instead to make his mum happy), but he isn't the homophobic brute Lawrence (or Larry, as Al calls him) was initially afraid of.

The two of them embark on a love affair that is refreshingly drama-free, for one that cuts as far across social and class lines as it does. And for anyone who enjoys some nice size kink, the sex is fantastic--some of the best contemporary sex scenes I've read in a while.

I just really enjoyed this book! It's more of a novella than a novel, but given what the story is about I think it's the perfect length. There's a tiny bit of conflict in the middle, but it's dealt with quickly, and to make the book longer I fear most authors would have turned it into a huge crisis, rather than something that could be resolved once Larry and Al actually had a real conversation. The book is from Al's POV, and I loved the voice; it veered slightly too close to mockery occasionally when Al didn't understand something that both Larry and presumably the reader would, but on the whole I thought it really nailed that balance. And it was always perfectly obvious why Al and Larry were initially attracted to each other, and how their relationship bloomed into something deeper than sex, in a way that isn't always clear in short romances. It was exactly what I wanted from this kind of story.

Grade: A

Book 37: A Treasure of Gold by Piper Huguley

The third book in the series that started with A Virtuous Ruby and continued with A Most Precious Pearl, A Treasure of Gold takes place entirely in Pittsburgh. Nettie, the middle sister of five, has moved to Pittsburgh to stay with her older sisters after spending a couple of years touring the country leading revival meetings. After the death of one of the ministers, she is trying to find a new life in Pittsburgh, which starts on a dramatic note when she saves the life of a numbers man who was shot in a nearby alley.

Jay lost his first wife to a wasting disease and is raising his daughter Goldie on his own. Nettie's family thinks Jay is a gangster who runs a gambling hall, but he's also something of an unofficial bank for black people who are unable to get loans or support from commercial banks. Nettie becomes his daughter's nanny and runs a church school for black children when their school closes for weeks at a time due to overcrowding.

Much like in A Most Precious Pearl, I found the plot devices that kept Nettie and Jay apart to be more frustrating than compelling, but the overall setting and world of the book was really interesting. All three books have had detailed bibliographies that I will definitely be checking out once I've completed this challenge, but on the whole the story itself didn't do a whole lot for me.

Grade: C

Book 36: A Most Precious Pearl by Piper Huguley

This book is the first sequel to A Virtuous Ruby and focuses on Ruby's younger sister Mags and Asa, a journalist who fought in the Great War and lost his leg. Asa knows Ruby and her husband Adam in Pittsburgh, and Ruby sends him down to Georgia to report on the lynchings taking place there at an escalating pace. Ruby also wants him to bring her younger sister back with him to Pittsburgh, both to help her with the birth of her baby and also to become his wife.

Much like in A Virtuous Ruby, Mags and Asa are immediately attracted to one another but certain they cannot be together, Asa because he thinks himself unfit to be any woman's husband due to his injury and Mags because of how dark her skin is. The setting and the issues involved are once again fascinating, as the story deals with Mags losing her place as a manager in the mill because of the men returning back from the war, and Asa detailing the brutal means the white people in power use to subjugate black mill workers. But the setting and history of the time is more affecting than the romance at the center of the book, which doesn't have enough genuine conflict there to sustain the entire novel.

Grade: C

Book 35: A Virtuous Ruby by Piper Huguley

This is exactly the sort of book this project was intended for. I bought this book (and two sequels) during a publisher sale because they sounded interesting and different from my usual fare. And it was definitely different, especially in that I didn't realize when I bought it that it's inspirational romance. But I'm also really glad I read it, and without a project like this it likely would have sat on my e-reader unread for years.

The story focuses on the lives of a black family living in Georgia in 1915. The titular Ruby is the eldest daughter of the family, and her life (and the life of her whole family) was upended when she was raped and bore a son as a result of her attack. The rape is one of many disturbing elements of the story, which also involves lynchings, chain gangs and union breaking in the big mill of the town. It's not a easy story, but it also manages to find hope, and gives characters a path to a better life while not glossing over just how terrible life was for black people in the South fifty years post-slavery.

Ruby has just begun to reassert herself in public life six months after the birth of her son when a new doctor named Adam arrives in town. He's black but passed for white in order to attend medical school in Minnesota, and he's the son of the owner of the mill and a maid. Adam and Ruby butt heads at first but fall in love as they realize they can do more for themselves and other black people if they work together.

I really enjoyed the writing and the characters in this book. Ruby and her family were all incredibly vibrant, and Adam's outsider point of view was just the right level of naive. I'm looking forward to reading the next books in this series focusing on additional members of Ruby's family.

Grade: B