Destiny's Captive

3,5/5

It turns out all I really needed this week was a pirate romance. Pilar and Noah were GREAT foils for each other while also being perfect for each other, and I just loved his whole family so much that I'm gonna need to read the books about the other sisters-in-law, particularly Billie. Also, baby jail for the toddlers! Love it.

This one was longer and more complex than most of the romances I've read lately, but it allowed for beautiful character development and quite a few subplots about the Spanish colonization of Cuba, Cuban rebellion, segregation in the southern U.S., and the business of being a woman in the 1800s, to name a few.

There's sex, of course, but it's not explicit most of the time; more of a setup then fade-to-black. And, you know, sword-fighting as foreplay, because pirate romance. :)

TW: pregnancy (healthy), rape of male character (off-page).

Suffers a little bit from being the last in a series, especially since the first quarter or so has a detour back to California and Noah's mom getting remarried. Not bad, though, especially since I'm going back and reading the first two books in the series now (so, mission accomplished, I guess!). Marriage of convenience, a little bit of enemies-to-lovers, some fun piracy and a focus on history that you probably didn't learn about in school. An excellent end to summer romance bingo!

Content warnings: sexual assault (in the past, but discussed, though not in detail), segregation/Jim Crow, attempted murder of a character.

(2020 summer romance bingo: I'm on a boat. Would work for set on island, secret identity, and maybe bootleggers.)

I probably should do a no star review because anyone reading this needs to know 1. romance novels are not my cup of tea 2. this is probably an excellent example of one, and it is MY FAULT for not being able to recognize that.
So, that said, I read this simply because I'm trying to expand my reading by not reading white, male authors. Beverly Jenkins is held up by many fans as a master of her genre, so I picked this one simply because it involved pirates. And....I got through it.
The story came alive for me when I saw how people treated them based simply by the color of their skin. Humans in cattle cars? I wanted to be sick.
Where it failed for me, historically, was in everything else. Nothing is described in detail. I learned NOTHING about the Spanish/Cuban war, ships or gunrunners. I learned nothing about San Francisco in 1887. I mean nothing.
There is a fiercely modern woman (too modern?) and a hero suffering from PTSD (which of course no one understood then). There was many, many happy endings. And a shopping trip. This is fluff I can't get behind in these kinds of novels.
This is a story not about pirates but of a super happy, super successful family. Pull out the sex scenes and it's borderline a children's chapter book.
So, no, I wont be reading anymore romance novels. I've tried, People, I've tried and they just aren't for me.

The history of Cuba and american race relations was interesting. The story was not terribly compelling and the sex was pretty badly written. The family relationships were humourous and engaging (and twilight-style rich family fantasy) I laughed.