Indigo
Jenkins's historical romance set during the post-Civil War era features Hester Wyatt, a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and the fugitive she shelters. Jenkins pioneered African American romance and brought meticulous historical research to the genre. She is credited with transforming what mainstream romance could look like.
History lessons keep interrupting the courtship; Jenkins did the research and wants you to know it, sometimes at recitation length. Galen is a fantasy with no edges, handsome, principled, and rich beyond any obstacle money could pose, so the plot reaches for slave catchers to manufacture stakes the romance never generates on its own. The history outclasses the love story.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
