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.
Several reviewers say the plot is overstuffed, Underground Railroad danger, Hester's ex-fiance thread, and Galen's New Orleans family history all competing for space, and more than one suggests “this book could have easily been broken into a duology.” One reader reports the story “started off really strong for me and then fizzled out,” adding that the “plot suffers from a lack of direction in the second half.” A long-simmering threat gets resolved in a few swift paragraphs rather than the payoff the buildup promised, and once the courtship settles in, one reader complains the “romance didn't have any real obstacles.” Hester herself reads thin to some, criticized as painfully innocent for a woman running a station alone, and Galen's habit of using a nickname against her stated wishes reads as possessive rather than romantic to readers wary of the pattern.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
