The Taming of Jessi Rose

3.5 stars, rounding down. This book is 20 years old, and it definitely shows in a couple of areas - some of the language used to describe the Native American characters is a little questionable, especially early on, and also two of the hero's friends basically torture a suspect into confessing to murdering the heroine's father (and the suspect says something like "I'd have confessed to anything to get out of there," which, yikes.) Also the Texas geography isn't great (Blanco County is much closer to Austin than it is to Dallas or Fort Worth), but that probably wouldn't bother normal people.

I thought the setting here was fascinating - I'm a native Texan, which means I took Texas History in seventh grade, but I don't ever remember learning about black Texans, particularly post-Civil War. It sounds like an insult to say this book was educational, but I absolutely learned a lot from it, while also being entertained. Jessi was such a unique, interesting character, and I loved the little community she'd been able to make for herself after being shunned by the “respectable” town society. (Side note: this cover is hilarious after reading the book. Jessi is described as having pretty dark skin, short-cropped hair, and wearing jeans almost exclusively. So, not so much the swooning damsel here.) Westerns haven't really been my thing before, but Beverly Jenkins Westerns might need to be an exception to that.

(2019 summer romance bingo: “cowboys”; could also count for “title includes character's name.”)