Release Date: 01/11/2016 | 173 pages | Indie | The Wright Brothers #1
Last year, Jess told me about the Girl, Have You Read Podcast and I was introduced to the world of black indie romance– romance novels written by and primarily for black women. I’m ashamed to say I had no idea this corner of Romancelandia existed and after reading this one I’m ready for more.
This book is sort of an enemies to lovers romance between graduate assistant Reese Bryant and one of her students, Army veteran Jason Wright. They aren’t really enemies, but they have to fight preconceived notions of each other to admit they are attracted to each other. Reese thinks Jason is insolent and pretentious, he thinks she is a bougie princess. On the GHYR podcast, the author says she writes hot headed heroines and she was not kidding. Reese and Jason go head to head right up to the very end.
Jones mentions some people don’t like her hot headed heroines, but I really like Reese. She is smart and up front but she also has her days where she just wants to hole up in her house and eat chicken wings–by the way the way CCJ described chicken wings made me so hungry !
My favorite thing about this book is the world building aspect. This story takes place at the fictional HBCU Blakewood College and I could see the world she was creating. Not to mention all little nods to the other books in her series. There is an offhand remark about BSU football players going pro and I think that is a reference to her recently released Connecticut Kings series.
SIDE NOTE
We also get a little bit of what I’ve heard referred to as seasoned romance. Reese’s mom is actually the professor for the class she grad assists for and in a pretty prominent subplot she has a romance with Jason’s Dad.
By the way, one of the biggest differences I picked up between a black indie romance like this and something like a Kimani is that you could never see the n-word used colloquially in Kimani.