Take a photo of a barcode or cover
dearreader_erin's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
abrasrose's review against another edition
5.0
I received a free copy of this book at the Romance Times Booklovers' convention.
You get a lot of free books at these conventions and most of them aren't that great or aren't my thing. Every so often, though, you find a book you love and discover a new author. This is the case with Forbidden.
Forbidden is set not long after the Civil War. The hero was born a slave and the heroine was born of freedmen. She may not have been a slave, but she's worked six days a week for her whole life. Eddy is a cook and has a dream of going to California and opening her own restaurant. Unfortunately, her purse was stolen as she was leaving for the train and her ticket and all her money was in it. Since Eddy had already given her landlady her notice, she has nowhere to go. She joins a man going to Fort Collins although that is north and not west. From there she goes with a Mormon family to Salt Lake City. There she takes a wagon with Father Nash. While they are in the middle of the desert, he tries to assault her. When she refuses, he steals her money and leaves her to die in the desert.
Eddy picks up her bag, puts her cookstove on her head and starts walking back to civilization. She is found near death by Rhine. He is very wealthy and very kind. Rhine is passing for white as he is light skinned and has green eyes. Using his privilege he is a major benefactor for the black community. He owns a saloon that allows black people inside, he's given people money and a place to work when others refused to help them because of their skin color. Rhine is attracted to Eddy because of her looks and her determination. Eddy gets more done in a day than I do in a week.
She finds work in a boardinghouse. She cooks for the boarders (including herself) and for the three times weekly dinners there. Her cooking is so good that soon so many people come for her dinners that the place is packed. The white community finds out about her cooking, but of course even if they wanted to they can't go into the boardinghouse. Eddy, ever resourceful, suggests delivery to white people and starts a side business for her landlady.
This book is fascinating. It is well researched and brought me into that time and place. The relationships, the news of the day, the way people worked under a disgusting system - it was all there and it all felt very real. Of course, these are not historical characters, but their lives are dictated by historical events.
The romance between Rhine and Eddy starts slowly because Rhine is engaged. His fiancé is white and very beautiful, but very young (20) and is spoiled and small minded. As he falls more and more in love with Eddy, Rhine begins to consider what he really wants in his life.
You get a lot of free books at these conventions and most of them aren't that great or aren't my thing. Every so often, though, you find a book you love and discover a new author. This is the case with Forbidden.
Forbidden is set not long after the Civil War. The hero was born a slave and the heroine was born of freedmen. She may not have been a slave, but she's worked six days a week for her whole life. Eddy is a cook and has a dream of going to California and opening her own restaurant. Unfortunately, her purse was stolen as she was leaving for the train and her ticket and all her money was in it. Since Eddy had already given her landlady her notice, she has nowhere to go. She joins a man going to Fort Collins although that is north and not west. From there she goes with a Mormon family to Salt Lake City. There she takes a wagon with Father Nash. While they are in the middle of the desert, he tries to assault her. When she refuses, he steals her money and leaves her to die in the desert.
Eddy picks up her bag, puts her cookstove on her head and starts walking back to civilization. She is found near death by Rhine. He is very wealthy and very kind. Rhine is passing for white as he is light skinned and has green eyes. Using his privilege he is a major benefactor for the black community. He owns a saloon that allows black people inside, he's given people money and a place to work when others refused to help them because of their skin color. Rhine is attracted to Eddy because of her looks and her determination. Eddy gets more done in a day than I do in a week.
She finds work in a boardinghouse. She cooks for the boarders (including herself) and for the three times weekly dinners there. Her cooking is so good that soon so many people come for her dinners that the place is packed. The white community finds out about her cooking, but of course even if they wanted to they can't go into the boardinghouse. Eddy, ever resourceful, suggests delivery to white people and starts a side business for her landlady.
This book is fascinating. It is well researched and brought me into that time and place. The relationships, the news of the day, the way people worked under a disgusting system - it was all there and it all felt very real. Of course, these are not historical characters, but their lives are dictated by historical events.
The romance between Rhine and Eddy starts slowly because Rhine is engaged. His fiancé is white and very beautiful, but very young (20) and is spoiled and small minded. As he falls more and more in love with Eddy, Rhine begins to consider what he really wants in his life.
nkechii's review against another edition
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
dknippling's review against another edition
4.0
Excellent history and setting , embodied in plot threads that I liked a lot. The male lead starts off as pushhhhy, though, and doesn't learn to back off and play more respectfully until late in the game. There are plot reasons for this that I won't spoil, and he never crossed the line for me, but YMMV. Also, you will be starving as you read this book. Lots of excellent food descs.
andiebiagini's review against another edition
3.0
I almost quit on this a quarter of the way through, but when I picked it back up again it pulled me in and I finished the rest in one sitting. The way the historical details are presented is a little clunky at times, but otherwise it's a fun little romance.
rachelmarisa's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
cristalclearshershelves's review against another edition
2.0
This was not good. I found the characters stilted, the romance dry and corny, and the plot mostly boring. The only really interesting moments happened during the very last chapters—when I finally started reacting to the characters and was alert to the action—which was frustrating because why wasn't the whole book like that? I'm bummed because I've wanted to read Beverly Jenkins for a while and now I'm not sure I'll give her another go.
I don't recommend.
I don't recommend.
mediaevalmuse's review against another edition
3.0
I wanted to read more Beverly Jenkins after completing Something Like Love, so I picked up Forbidden because it had an interesting premise. Overall, a lot of the things I liked and disliked were similar to those I liked and disliked about my previous read. While I appreciate the stories Jenkins is trying to tell and I adore her heroines, I just don't think her writing style is for me. Thus, I'm rating this book only 3 stars.
Writing: My main criticism of the prose in this book is similar to the points I made for Something Like Love. While I don't think Jenkins's writing is atypical for the romance genre, it also just wasn't to my personal tastes. I felt that Jenkins told more than showed, and pacing felt fairly uniform.
Plot: The plot of this book follows Eddy Carmichael, a skilled cook who dreams of starting her own restaurant in California. Eddy has just enough money saved when tragedy strikes at the beginning if the book: she is robbed, and so, she is forced to rely on the kindness of strangers to make it from Colorado to San Francisco in post-Civil War America.
What I liked about this plot was the way Jenkins used the setting to explore racial dynamics and Rhine's identity. Rhine isn't directly subjected to racism in Virginia City because he passes, but he does get a nasty peek at what white people say to one another. There is also plenty of discussion about colorism, and I appreciated these topics being tackled head-on in a romance novel.
Unfortunately, she is tricked by some strangers and is left penniless and wandering in the desert. Luckily, she is rescued by Rhine Fontaine and his business partner. Rhine is mixed race and passes as White, and he uses that privilege to make a life for himself and free Black folks in the multicultural town of Virginia City, Nevada. He helps Eddy land a job cooking for a boarding house in Virginia City while she saves up enough money to venture west again, and during that time, the two find themselves attracted to one another. Things are further complicated because Rhine has a rich white fiancée who doesn't know about his parentage, and Eddy is being courted by the local Black carpenter/architect. Shenanigans ensue.
That being said, I didn't quite feel like I was reading a tightly-plotted narrative. Most of the time, I felt like I was reading about the day to day lives of our characters, and while some events are interesting, I didn't get the sense that plot points were building on one another to create a story. Maybe this ambling pace will appeal to some readers, but personally, I wanted a bit more.
Characters: Eddy, our heroine, is easy to root for in that she has a definite goal and works extremely hard to meet it. I liked that her arc was about her burgeoning independence, and it felt like she truly was being appreciated after living in near poverty for so long. I also liked that she was readily embraced by the Black community in the town, and I liked watching her find her home.
Rhine, our hero, is also interesting in that he faces numerous dilemmas regarding his identity. I appreciated the moments in which he had to weigh his personal happiness against his privilege, and I liked that his motivations came from a place of wanting freedom and power. I also liked that he was an honorable man and despite his past, he wasn't so angsty that he was bogged down. He seemed to be always looking forward, and that was nice.
Side characters were also nice in that they created something of a found family for Eddy. Sylvie, her employer, is truly a good friend and supports Eddy without judgment. Vera the seamstress is also bright and fun, and the residents of the orphanage are endearing. Even Zeke, the rival for Eddy's feelings, is hard to dislike since he is so genuinely interested in Eddy, and he is incredibly kind and generous.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's the White antagonists that are the most irritating. I'm not going to sit here and complain that some white people are portrayed as awful bigots - they served their purpose in the story, so I think it was appropriate. I do think, though, that some of the racism was just kind of "fly by," so I couldn't quite determine if responding to oppression was supposed to be a major theme or inserted to make the setting a bit more "textured." The unhinged ending with Natalie kind of illustrates my point; without spoiling anything, I will say that the ending made isn't seem like white rage was just kind of something to brush off and even when it was threatening, it didn't quite matter. Maybe I'm not the best person to speak on this, though, and maybe anything more serious would affect the tone Jenkins was going for. I don't know.
Romance: The romance between Eddy and Rhine was... OK. My main issues were not that they were ill-suited, but that Jenkins uses a couple of tropes that I personally dislike. First, there's a love triangle, and while I liked that no one was made out to be the villain, I couldn't help but feel really bad for Zeke. There was litterally nothing wrong with him except that he didn't excite passion in Eddy, and I am not 100% sure it was right for her to start seeing him. Second, Eddy is an incredibly naive virgin who doesn't even know what an orgasm is (or that male orgasms can lead to pregnancy?) before meeting Rhine. I personally don't care for virginal heroines because it makes them seem a bit sheltered, but I also understand that a virginal heroine might be working against the hypersexual Black woman trope here.
TL;DR: Forbidden has an interesting premise, taking a white-passing hero and an ambitious Black woman and seeing how their goals are jeopardized by attraction. While I didn't quite vibe with the writing style or the way the plot unfolded, I do think Jenkins creates captivating settings and characters that are easy to root for.
Writing: My main criticism of the prose in this book is similar to the points I made for Something Like Love. While I don't think Jenkins's writing is atypical for the romance genre, it also just wasn't to my personal tastes. I felt that Jenkins told more than showed, and pacing felt fairly uniform.
Plot: The plot of this book follows Eddy Carmichael, a skilled cook who dreams of starting her own restaurant in California. Eddy has just enough money saved when tragedy strikes at the beginning if the book: she is robbed, and so, she is forced to rely on the kindness of strangers to make it from Colorado to San Francisco in post-Civil War America.
What I liked about this plot was the way Jenkins used the setting to explore racial dynamics and Rhine's identity. Rhine isn't directly subjected to racism in Virginia City because he passes, but he does get a nasty peek at what white people say to one another. There is also plenty of discussion about colorism, and I appreciated these topics being tackled head-on in a romance novel.
Unfortunately, she is tricked by some strangers and is left penniless and wandering in the desert. Luckily, she is rescued by Rhine Fontaine and his business partner. Rhine is mixed race and passes as White, and he uses that privilege to make a life for himself and free Black folks in the multicultural town of Virginia City, Nevada. He helps Eddy land a job cooking for a boarding house in Virginia City while she saves up enough money to venture west again, and during that time, the two find themselves attracted to one another. Things are further complicated because Rhine has a rich white fiancée who doesn't know about his parentage, and Eddy is being courted by the local Black carpenter/architect. Shenanigans ensue.
That being said, I didn't quite feel like I was reading a tightly-plotted narrative. Most of the time, I felt like I was reading about the day to day lives of our characters, and while some events are interesting, I didn't get the sense that plot points were building on one another to create a story. Maybe this ambling pace will appeal to some readers, but personally, I wanted a bit more.
Characters: Eddy, our heroine, is easy to root for in that she has a definite goal and works extremely hard to meet it. I liked that her arc was about her burgeoning independence, and it felt like she truly was being appreciated after living in near poverty for so long. I also liked that she was readily embraced by the Black community in the town, and I liked watching her find her home.
Rhine, our hero, is also interesting in that he faces numerous dilemmas regarding his identity. I appreciated the moments in which he had to weigh his personal happiness against his privilege, and I liked that his motivations came from a place of wanting freedom and power. I also liked that he was an honorable man and despite his past, he wasn't so angsty that he was bogged down. He seemed to be always looking forward, and that was nice.
Side characters were also nice in that they created something of a found family for Eddy. Sylvie, her employer, is truly a good friend and supports Eddy without judgment. Vera the seamstress is also bright and fun, and the residents of the orphanage are endearing. Even Zeke, the rival for Eddy's feelings, is hard to dislike since he is so genuinely interested in Eddy, and he is incredibly kind and generous.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's the White antagonists that are the most irritating. I'm not going to sit here and complain that some white people are portrayed as awful bigots - they served their purpose in the story, so I think it was appropriate. I do think, though, that some of the racism was just kind of "fly by," so I couldn't quite determine if responding to oppression was supposed to be a major theme or inserted to make the setting a bit more "textured." The unhinged ending with Natalie kind of illustrates my point; without spoiling anything, I will say that the ending made isn't seem like white rage was just kind of something to brush off and even when it was threatening, it didn't quite matter. Maybe I'm not the best person to speak on this, though, and maybe anything more serious would affect the tone Jenkins was going for. I don't know.
Romance: The romance between Eddy and Rhine was... OK. My main issues were not that they were ill-suited, but that Jenkins uses a couple of tropes that I personally dislike. First, there's a love triangle, and while I liked that no one was made out to be the villain, I couldn't help but feel really bad for Zeke. There was litterally nothing wrong with him except that he didn't excite passion in Eddy, and I am not 100% sure it was right for her to start seeing him. Second, Eddy is an incredibly naive virgin who doesn't even know what an orgasm is (or that male orgasms can lead to pregnancy?) before meeting Rhine. I personally don't care for virginal heroines because it makes them seem a bit sheltered, but I also understand that a virginal heroine might be working against the hypersexual Black woman trope here.
TL;DR: Forbidden has an interesting premise, taking a white-passing hero and an ambitious Black woman and seeing how their goals are jeopardized by attraction. While I didn't quite vibe with the writing style or the way the plot unfolded, I do think Jenkins creates captivating settings and characters that are easy to root for.
moyarb's review against another edition
adventurous
inspiring
relaxing
medium-paced
4.25
While I love the romance, I also loved that this was a story about Eddy finding community.
okelle's review against another edition
5.0
A sweet romance and a great Black history lesson
This book weaves romance into a compelling, well-researched story about the lives of Black people in the West following Reconstruction. Not only was the love story sweet and fulfilling, the rest of the story was engrossing and well-written instead. It’s nice to read a book that features Black joy instead of Black suffering. I’m looking forward to reading more of this author’s work.
On a steaminess scale of 1 to 5 I give this a 2, but while the love scenes aren’t explicit or long, they’re still compelling.
This book weaves romance into a compelling, well-researched story about the lives of Black people in the West following Reconstruction. Not only was the love story sweet and fulfilling, the rest of the story was engrossing and well-written instead. It’s nice to read a book that features Black joy instead of Black suffering. I’m looking forward to reading more of this author’s work.
On a steaminess scale of 1 to 5 I give this a 2, but while the love scenes aren’t explicit or long, they’re still compelling.