So technically I've only read 58% of this book (on my Kindle), and I don't know... I picked it up to read as my last 2015 Read Harder challenge item--a "guilty pleasure" book, which is difficult because a guilty pleasure implies shame, and I'm not ashamed of what I read. I'm not normally a reader of straight up romance, so I chose this since it is slightly outside my comfort zone. I really liked this at first. It had a pretty decent, dominant plot outside the love story, interesting historical tidbits, and the steamy parts were suitably steamy (even for me being really tired of the whole being-a-virgin-is-attractive-and-worthier). But I got halfway through and just stalled. And stalled. And I'm on school break and the clock's a-ticking. And I figured it's not really a guilty pleasure if you don't feel like reading the whole thing. Maybe I'll continue this later; I'll certainly recommend it to people looking for a romance with substance. ( )

And I still thoroughly love this adorable love story. ( )

Katherine, a Black woman and a newspaperwoman in her late twenties in 1884, has always been fiercely independent and never plans on marrying. But when one of her stories puts her in the path to marry a man she never meant to - and her conniving father tells U.S. deputy marshal Dixon Wildhorse he can marry his daughter to cover the man's debts - she finds herself in a pickle.

I'm in a librarian book group that meets every other month and discusses various genres and how we can recommend titles to our patrons - what we call Readers' Advisory. This year, we're reading various genres that also have diverse characters and authors, so I thought with reading romance this month I should read one of the best-known black romance authors. The historical portion was fascinating, and even if it occasionally was given to me in chunks and paragraphs, I loved learning about the history of Black Seminoles in Florida, the experience of a wagon train of mail-order brides, and more. I never felt beat over the head by a point, but a couple of scenes showing casual racism really stick out in my mind. The romance develops between characters already married, and while I could take or leave a lot of it, I did like their banter and interactions as they learned more about each other. The side story of Rupert, the man Katherine almost marries who follows them causing trouble, draws out the story a longer than I felt necessary but ultimately it's a satisfying read. ( )