Historical Romances by Black Authors
Aphrodite wishes to escape the marriage mart but will a second chance with the elusive Duke of Everely change her mind?
Aphrodite Du Bell is a diamond of the first water and a favourite of the queen. But her renowned loveliness didn't stop the love of her life, Evander Eagleman, from jilting her and marrying another woman four years ago.
Aphrodite has been in self-imposed exile ever since. However, when her formidable mother summons her back to London Aphrodite has no choice but to acquiesce.
Upon her return, Aphrodite learns that the newly widowed Evander is in town and, despite her best efforts, the grand society events of the season repeatedly push them together. With each encounter, Aphrodite's traitorous feelings make it perfectly clear that the Duke still holds court over her heart.
Why did Evander cast Aphrodite aside all those years ago, and now that they have a second chance, can the couple make strides to mend past hurts?
Ailsa Connery has waited three long years to finally escape her enslavement at Stirling Castle and reunite with her clan. But her carefully laid plans are completely destroyed by the arrival of the infamous Highland warrior known as Dubh Mahoun, the Black Devil…who has plans of his own.
Kallum MacNeill's fearsome reputation has long allowed him to keep hidden his secret double life of freeing enslaved captives across the land. It's only when he kidnaps a servant lass—quite by accident—that he finds himself facing a wee predicament. He must accompany the lass home or risk her exposing his true identity. It'd be easy enough…if the feisty hellion didn't fight him at every turn.
As they make their way to the Highlands, the perils the two must face are surpassed only by their constant sparring. Soon, their heated sniping sparks heat of a totally different kind. The kind that ignites a hunger that could consume them both. Yet the difficult journey is no match for the dangerous secrets they're about to uncover.
The first novel in USA Today Bestselling Author Beverly Jenkins’s compelling new series follows a Northern woman south in the chaotic aftermath of the Civil War . . .
Valinda Lacy’s mission in the steamy heart of New Orleans is to help the newly emancipated community survive and flourish. But soon she discovers that here, freedom can also mean danger. When thugs destroy the school she has set up and then target her, Valinda runs for her life—and straight into the arms of Captain Drake LeVeq.
As an architect from an old New Orleans family, Drake has a deeply personal interest in rebuilding the city. Raised by strong women, he recognizes Valinda’s determination. And he can’t stop admiring—or wanting—her. But when Valinda’s father demands she return home to marry a man she doesn’t love, her daring rebellion draws Drake into an irresistible intrigue.
A fun and feminist Regency romp from a master of the genre hailed as "a delight" by Bridgerton author Julia Quinn.
Nothing happens in London without Graham Wynchester knowing. His massive collection of intelligence is invaluable to his family’s mission of aiding those most in need. So when he deciphers a series of coded messages in the scandal sheets, Graham’s convinced he must come to a royal’s rescue. But his quarry turns out not to be a princess at all… The captivating Kunigunde de Heusch is anything but a damsel in distress, and the last thing she wants is Graham’s help.
All her life, Kuni trained alongside the fiercest Royal Guardsmen in her family, secretly planning to become her country’s first Royal Guardswoman. This mission in London is a chance to prove herself worthy without help from a man, not even one as devilishly handsome as Graham. To her surprise, Graham believes in her dream as much as she does, which makes it harder to resist kissing him…and falling in love. But how can she risk her heart if her future lies an ocean away?
Jane Austen meets The Princess and the Frog
For as long as Prairie can remember, living in paradise has been boring. Her days are filled with helping at her family's resort, sewing, daydreaming, and observing fashionable guests from the sidelines. But when a fairytale-Esque opportunity arises, she does something out of character and agrees to marry a man she's never met. Suddenly, she's navigating a new life that is a world and an ocean away from everything she's ever known. Her new husband, Wright, is decidedly Mr. Wrong. If there's a schedule, he'll ignore it. If there is a rule, he'll break it. If there's a risk, he'll take it. Has the girl who has always had a plan finally met her match?
If you're a fan of TV shows like 'Vanity Fair', 'Bridgerton' and 'The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina' or enjoy reading comedies of manners, you'll love 'That, My Dear, Is Love.'
This is a full-length, standalone novel featuring a diverse ensemble cast, whimsical magic, and hilarious misadventures. This is a clean romance with a HEA.
Featuring some of your favorite tropes:
Marriage of Convenience
Opposites Attract
Reformed Rake
The Davenports delivers a totally escapist, swoon-worthy romance while offering a glimpse into a period of African American history often overlooked.
The Davenports are one of the few Black families of immense wealth and status in a changing United States, their fortune made through the entrepreneurship of William Davenport, a formerly enslaved man who founded the Davenport Carriage Company years ago. Now it's 1910, and the Davenports live surrounded by servants, crystal chandeliers, and endless parties, finding their way and finding love—even where they’re not supposed to.
There is Olivia, the beautiful elder Davenport daughter, ready to do her duty by getting married . . . until she meets the charismatic civil rights leader Washington DeWight and sparks fly. The younger daughter, Helen, is more interested in fixing cars than falling in love—unless it’s with her sister’s suitor. Amy-Rose, the childhood friend turned maid to the Davenport sisters, dreams of opening her own business—and marrying the one man she could never be with, Olivia and Helen’s brother, John. But Olivia’s best friend, Ruby, also has her sights set on John Davenport, though she can’t seem to keep his interest . . . until family pressure has her scheming to win his heart, just as someone else wins hers.
Inspired by the real-life story of the Patterson family, The Davenports is the tale of four determined and passionate young Black women discovering the courage to steer their own path in life—and love.
411 notes
·
View notes
Out of curiosity, what were Sullivan’s, Amicia’s, and Kara’s backstories? Specifically their time with the Sabbat. Were they any of the ones listed out in the Night Road game or were they original?
... Sorry anon, bad news, but the question you've asked has an answer which is actually a bit complicated.
(Okay it's not REALLY, but you got me talking and I talked far more than you probably actually WANTED. SORRY NOT SORRY)
So basically you gotta keep something in mind: Amicia and Kara were made by @nightingaletrash, and Sullivan is mine. They are all the childer of Millicent Rue, much like the canonical Lasombra courier from Night Road. They were all shovelheads, and after two years and her third surviving fledgling Millicent went "fuck it, I have three kids now, I'm never doing this again." After Millicent basically ditched the three of them, to survive, Kara went into working with artefacts, and Amicia and Sullivan became couriers. Kara would eventually be reunited with her biological daughter, who's a Ravnos named Evie (who you've probably seen me talk about -- Sullivan dotes on her), and at some point Amicia moved to Seattle, started a blood den, and became sexually and later romantically involved with Prince Cross.
That's where the simple bit ends.
In reality it's actually a bit complicated past that because of a few things.
Biggest thing: @nightingaletrash and I both have our own separate continuities. For the most part, 95% of what we talk about happens in both, but I essentially have a copy pasted version of Sullivan running around in her head, and she has one of her lot running around in mine.
The biggest differences in our separate universes are these:
In @nightingaletrash's continuity, Evie was the canon VTMB fledgling and Amicia was the canon VTMNR courier.
In Maddyverse (my continuity), Madeline (thus the name) was the canon VTMB fledgling, and my canon VTMNR courier was someone entirely separate called Elisa Mulgrew, my Gangrel, who is Lettow Kaminsky's childe.
So because of that there's minor differences in backstories. For example, I can't quite remember what Evie's backstory is in Maddyverse, where she's not the Fledgling (I have it somewhere!), but obviously she didn't have to deal with all the bullshit the Fledgling did so while she's still independent she's probably less anti-Sect than she is in @nightingaletrash's continuity. And in @nightingaletrash's continuity, Amicia was the canon VTMNR courier, so in her universe Amicia would've had more money sooner and therefore would've met Prince Cross and become influential over there a lot faster than she would have in Maddyverse.
We don't actually talk about the differences much, we just talk about what each universe has in common and if I've had to I just slightly adapt it in my head to fit Maddyverse, and I've always assumed she did the same thing for hers. I've never asked her her explicit thoughts on it but the way I see it, her version of Sullivan is just a duplicate copy that she can do whatever she wants to because my Sullivan is over here in my head, hers is an AU version of mine. She can do whatever she wants to her version of Sullivan because it doesn't have any effect on my (Maddy)version of Sullivan.
I don't do whatever I want with Kara or Amicia though because we've never actually explicitly discussed this and I don't want to be disrespectful of her ownership of her characters, as I know my interpretation is pretty laissez-faire compared to how most people feel about other people playing with their OCs. In any case, both universes have so much in common it's never had to come up, because they're all Millicent's childer, Amicia always ends up in Seattle, Sullivan always ends up working for Amicia -- the only thing that really changes between our heads is when it happens and what Amicia was up to and what Evie's backstory is.
(Am dying to know what Elisa'd probably be up to in her universe, though -- she'd have never diablerised Aila, and presumably wasn't able to come back to Tucson in 2019 because Lettow explicitly requested her as courier just so he could have his estranged childe close by to keep an eye on her. If Elisa was working in Tucson at the time, she'd have been given all the assignments, not Amicia, so there's no universe where Amicia is the VTMNR courier where Elisa could have been present. And given the Tucson court went tits up in @nightingaletrash's universe when Amicia betrayed them to the SI, either Lettow was destroyed before he could ever be reconciled with Elisa, or he went on the Beckoning before they were ever reunited. Which makes me really sad to think about because Elisa was struggling, and VTMNR was when the hardest part of her life as a vampire was finally put behind her. SO THAT GIVES ME THE SADS. Damn, now I've got a plotbunny biting...)
But if we look at their Doylian backstory it gets even more complicated lmao.
Because like. as a character. Sullivan actually started off as an AU version of another character.
(and feel free to tune out at this point because I realise this actually has nothing to do with your actual question of his IN-UNIVERSE backstory, AT ALL, lmao, sorry, it's more his out-of-universe backstory)
So. Maddyverse is Maddyverse because the fledgling is Madeline Jones, my first ever vampire OC. She had an identical twin sister called Meredith. Meredith went on to marry a Welsh trans man named Jonathan Grey and opened a pharmacy in Seattle. Here's a picture I made of him with Artbreeder before everyone realised how fucked up using AI was:
Meredith was walking home in December 2019 when she got involved in the mass Embrace. She is my canonical VTMB2 main character, although that may change by the time it finally fucking comes out.
I played with Jonathan a bit. I decided after Meredith's disappearance he closed their pharmacy and moved back to the UK, taking their twin daughters with him.
As he was a pharmacist, eventually he got the attention of a Brujah who wanted drugs, and was ghouled. Yeah, Jonathan had a fucking meth lab. He absolutely hated being a ghoul and as he got older and didn't age, he was forced to distance himself from his daughters and basically be a disaster father figure to protect them and also himself.
His Brujah domitor had a Lasombra enemy, who, while fucking with the Brujah, noticed that her ghoul seemed to be pretty resilient to her fuckery. Jonathan was pumped full of Brujah blood, so had a huge "FUCK YOU" streak. Lasombra got distracted trying to fuck with Jonathan and eventually tried to Embrace him.
It took her four attempts, that's how fucking stubborn and how much a fighter Jonathan was. But she managed it. Ended up being a bad idea, though: the first thing Jonathan did when he woke up from his Embrace was stake her ass and leave her out for the sun. And then go back to running his pharmacy.
Problem with this backstory is... Meredith was Embraced in 2019. With the amount of time that passed, by the time Jonathan was finally Embraced we're looking at it being after 2050 in the timeline. So I adored Jonathan and was itching to play him, but I'd never be able to in a modern game because he's too far ahead in the timeline.
But I wanted to play him in VTMNR. I wanted to play him badly. So I tweaked a few things -- he still has the wife that went missing, still has twin daughters, still trans, still Lasombra... but he was Embraced in 1994 instead. He doesn't become as bitter and hateful towards Kindred because he didn't spend thirty or so years as a ghoul, and he had his sisters show up shortly after his Embrace, so he never lost that goofy part of his personality (even if there's very few people who are aware of it).
Given their near-identical appearances, Sullivan is now Jonathan's biological uncle who went missing when Jonathan was very young, almost too young to remember him. The two of them later would meet, towards the end of the 21st century, in Seattle, and Sullivan would attempt to take Jonathan under his wing, but by then Jonathan utterly despised every Kindred he'd ever meet and barely tolerated him. While I haven't decided for certain Jonathan will probably, at some point, be destroyed at Sullivan's hands for Embracing a powerful-ass vampire hunter and siccing him on the vampire populace of Seattle. Even as a Lasombra, given that he was Embraced as a Brujah ghoul, he still has a lot of Brujah traits -- and I don't see Jonathan ever fully toeing the line as a Cainite.
Jonathan might get away alive. Ultimately, he's still got that Brujah in him, and Sullivan doesn't like to physically fight unless he really has to so has few physical skills. But if Prince Cross, his beloved sister's lover, tells him to put him down, then he intends to finish the job. They might end up chasing each other all across the US for decades, who knows... depends if I want Jonathan to live or not I guess, or if I want to keep playing with a story that's nearly a hundred years away and will probably never get to write out (how many VTM fanfics take place in the far future like that?).
UH. ANYWAY. As for Amicia' and Kara's backstories, I'm sure @nightingaletrash will add those on when she can!
6 notes
·
View notes