I have been a Beverly Jenkins fan since I first picked up Indigo many years ago at a young-ish age. She is arguably one of, if not the, most prolific writers in African-American fiction today.
I’ve never been disappointed with one of her books. At worst, I’ve been a bit underwhelmed, but I still have enjoyed each one I have read. And Forbidden, was no exception.

It’s been years since I read Through the Storm, and I’ve misplaced the physical copy of the years so I haven’t had a chance to re-read it. So, I don’t remember Rhine and it was like reading a new character. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised with the reference to Sable when it came up in the book. Reading about him here was therefore a fresh experience as well as an interesting one. The premise of this story really intrigued me, since ‘passing’ is something a lot of mixed children from the master/slave unions did after the Civil War since it made their lives marginally easier. So, I didn’t have a bad or low opinion of him on that. I felt Jenkins did a good job of explaining why he did it since he felt he could help Black people a lot more passing than as a light skinned. I also enjoyed Eddy. All of Jenkins heroines are headstrong, proud, and try to be self-reliant which is always nice to see. I also enjoyed the slow steady way their relationship grew. Yes, there was attraction that was there from the start. They even admitted it, and Eddy was the one to point out why it was pretty much impossible for anything to come from it because of what she thought were the differences in their races. There was also the fiancée that Rhine had at the beginning of the story.

What I liked about this one especially was that it was heavy on the development of the relationship while being light on the physical aspect of it. There were no overly explained scenes, which was surprisingly in a romance. Personally, I think this helped to showcase Jenkins talent in writing though since that meant the story was mainly historically and plot based. There were no holds barred on the lines that were between the races around that time, even between Blacks and Abolitionists. Even in ‘progressive towns’ like this one seemed to be, at least comparatively, there was still a lot of prejudice that was experienced, and Jenkins didn’t shy away from shining that light on it. One thing that is always enjoyable about Jenkins books is that you also give a history lesson about things that you do not and likely will not learn about in school.

I won’t go into too many details for fear of giving away spoilers about the story which is something I never really like to do. This was a sweet romance, with a slow steady development of the relationship between Rhine and Eddy, which was nice. I would recommend it and look forward to reading the others in the series as well as they are released.