A review by unsuccessfulbookclub
Night Hawk by Beverly Jenkins

adventurous emotional hopeful informative fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Did you order a bananas Western with a heavy helping of history? You got it!

Ian Vance, our MMC, is an outlaw turned U.S. Marshal and quite honestly he has just *had it* with all of the bs (same, Ian, same). He is the illegitimate son of the daughter of a Scottish duke and a Black sailor, and thus was raised in Scotland on the edges of society, educated in Edinburgh, and then left to find his fortune in America.

Maggie Freeman, our FMC, is a Black and Indigenous woman whose parents died when she was 12. Since then she has been making her own (very hard) way in Kansas. 

In typical Beverly Jenkins fashion, this book is all-gas-no-brakes on plot. It has numerous shootouts, a kidnapping, a couple of murders, and lots of banging between the leads (it’s full of euphemisms, though, be forewarned). I loved Maggie - she is fiery and takes absolutely no sh*t - while Ian is a man of few words who lets his actions speak for themselves. It is gritty and violent and it does have several racial slurs on page (challenged, of course). It reads like an action movie and would be an amazing miniseries.

👍🏻Recommended! If you like Westerns with lots of plot and you’re interested in the American West as well as diverse historical romance, get into this one!
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