An Extraordinary Union

Show Notes

In An Extraordinary Union, published in 2017, is the first in Cole’s The Loyal League series, both main characters are attempting to shape the politics of their time through espionage. Elle Burns is a freedwoman who has been living in New England with her parents after their enslaver died and his son freed them. She has an eidetic memory that has been treated somewhat as a party trick for most of her life, including by well-meaning, but thoughtless white abolitionists in the North. Elle joins the Loyal League, a network of spies aiming to aid the Union in the Civil War, to try and use her gift to help the cause. While Elle is working she meets Malcolm McCall, who has been sent by the Pinkertons to collaborate with Elle. He is also undercover—though he lives as a Rebel soldier, using his easy charm and good looks to ingratiate himself into Southern society. Cole takes a setting that has a history in romance, but one that ignores the people most subjugated by it and gives us a story that is part espionage thriller, part slow burn adversaries to lovers, part he falls so hard first.

Books Referenced

Kindred by Octavia Butler

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

Uncertain Magic by Laura Kinsale

 For the Earl’s Pleasure by Anne Mallory

Forbidden by Beverly Jenkins

Akayna, Sachem’s Daughter by Mildred E. Riley

Yamilla by Mildred E. Riley

Works Cited

All About Romance Review of An Extraordinary Union

A Black Romance Author Timeline by Steve Ammidown

NPR: “Beverly Jenkins Wraps Bitter History In Sweet Romance”

Transcript

Coming soon!

 [00:00:00.000] - Emma

Welcome to Reformed Rakes, a historical romance podcast that's skeptical of Walter Scott. I'm Emma, a law Librarian writing about justice and romance at the substack Restorative Romance.

[00:00:08.610] - Chels

My name is Chels. I'm a book collector and the writer of the romance Substack, The Loose Cravat

[00:00:12.730] - Beth

My name is Beth, and I'm a grad student, and I write at the Substack Ministrations.

[00:00:18.680] - Emma

Alyssa Cole has written in a wide variety of genres, from sci-fi romances between a woman and a highly-developed AI, to thrillers about gentrification in Brooklyn. But she said in an interview with Vulture magazine in 2018, "There's always generally something political. There's generally some form of activism or involvement with the government or with programs to better the community." In An Extraordinary Union, published in 2017, the first of Cole's The Loyal League series, both main characters are attempting to shape the politics of their time through espionage. Elle Burns is a freed woman who's been living in New England with her parents after their enslaver died and his son freed them. She has an eidetic memory that has been treated somewhat as a party trick for most of her life, including by well-meaning but thoughtless white abolitionists in the north. Elle joins the Loyal League, a network of spies aiming to aid the Union in the Civil War to try and use her gift to help the cause. She has been installed undercover at the house of a Confederate family as a mute enslaved houseworker so that she might better hear to gain information about Confederate movements that she can pass on to fellow loyal League members that know the truth.

[00:01:15.260] - Emma

While Elle is working, a rebel soldier starts courting Susie, the daughter of Elle's enslaver. Quickly, Elle realizes that the soldier is actually Malcolm McCall, who has been sent by the Pinkertons to collaborate with Elle. He's also undercover. Though he lives as a rebel soldier, using his easy charm and looks to ingratiate himself into Southern society, he is loyal to the Union and is disgusted by the behavior of the people he must associate with, including their mistreatment of El. Cole takes a setting that has a history in romance, but one that ignores the people most subjugated by it and gives us a story that is part espionage thriller, part slow burn enemy to lovers. Elle and Malcolm are both used to putting their work and lives above all else to serve the cause, but after they meet, they must consider new priorities.

[00:02:00.920] - Emma

Does anyone have... I don't know what anyone's relationship with Alyssa Cole is, as far as reading. This is my first of her books. I think both of you have read other ones by her?

[00:02:12.650] - Beth

Yeah, I read one other book. It's the first in her Runaway Royals series called How to Catch a Queen. I really liked it. It's a contemporary, but it feels fresh because it's set in this fictional African country. The main character, she is trying to be a queen, but it feels much more like a job. But I feel like Cole's really interested in power, and I think that works really well as a romance writer because you can interrogate that on the individual level and in the setting. And I think she's just really interested in both. So it just, again, it really works. I really like that book, so I recommend it if anyone wants to read it.

[00:03:00.530] - Chels

Yeah, I've only read her historicals, but I find them really interesting because she's just very, very talented in the way that she... I like what you said, Beth, about depicting power. I think she's very intentional and thoughtful, and She's also writing settings that a lot of people don't want to touch anymore. And it can feel like threading the needle sometimes. But she does a fantastic job. I'm always really interested to learn more about her and what her process is like.

[00:03:33.830] - Beth

Yeah, it's crazy to me that she wrote Thrillers, too. I feel like she's just like, I'm going to do whatever, which I love.

[00:03:40.840] - Emma

That was my sense in interviews, is that while she's a huge fan of romance, and she talks about that in her author's note, that she's a fan of historical romance and wasn't sure if she could write historical romance. My sense is that she doesn't really care about conventions or what other people are doing, for example, the Runaway Royal series. When I was doing the Duke project, a lot of people gave me these explanations of why it had to be Dukess because it couldn't be princes and like, Kings or anything. It doesn't have to be England. That's the thing. It doesn't have to be real. All these things we love about romance, even historical romance could happen in a setting that is an alternate universe. We could have some of these tropes and factors in a different setting. Alyssa Cole is one of those people who's doing that, where she's moving things in a a different direction. I feel like we see that borne out in her historical series. She has this series, which is set during the Civil War, but she's also written a series set during the Civil Rights Movement in the '60s, which again, it's a lot of people don't write things that late as historicals, but then also it's similarly touching things that I think a lot of people are scared to write about or feel like they're not capable of writing about.

[00:04:52.970] - Emma

She goes there, but she has the talent to handle both the romance and the politics and the power dynamics all within in these books. I'm grateful that she's doing something different. Seemingly, all of her genres, I don't mostly read readers, but it seems like the way people talk about her readers are also... She's doing something other people aren't doing, which is exciting that people But just there's someone who's writing in all these different genres and doing something new. Okay, I will do plot summary here.

[00:05:30.310] - Emma

Elle Burns working undercover as a safe person in the home of the Caffreys, a Confederate family, for the Union spy group, the Loyal League. Elle mostly waits on Susie Caffrey, the spoiled daughter of the family who is the town gossip, but she's equally interested in the goings on of Senator Marse Caffrey's business meetings. In this house, Elle is pretending to be mute to both other enslaved people and the Caffreys in order to protect her identity and to more easily overhear information.

[00:05:58.050] - Emma

She has some friendships in the house, including with Mary, the head house servant who is married to Robert, an enslaved river pilot. But these relationships tend to be one-sided since Elle can't speak to anyone. Elle is loyal to the Union cause and highly motivated to recover information, but she has an eidetic or photographic memory, which makes her very useful when it comes to looking at maps or remembering conversations. One day, while working in the Caffrey house, she finds herself alone with a visiting rebel soldier. The soldier speaks to her kindly, but Elle remains on high alert at being alone with him, fearing he's going to hurt her. He flirts with her but apologizes when he realizes he's making her uncomfortable. Elle rushes out of the room, knocking Susie in her hoop skirts over. Elle puts on a show of forgiveness, and the rebel clocks her game and helps her getting out of trouble for the accident. El's one loyal lead compatriot in the house, Timothy, tells her she has a package incoming soon that will help her on the mission. The package turns out to be Malcolm McCall, the rebel soldier from the house, but he's also undercover.

[00:06:49.800] - Emma

Malcolm is a Pinkerton agent sent to aid the Loyal League's mission. He's also incredibly loyal to the Union, partially driven by his family's expulsion from Scotland during the clearances where his mother was raped and beaten by English and because he sees the Confederacy as an evil institution. When they reveal their identities to each other, Elle is skeptical of Malcolm's seriousness. He flubs the revealing code, for instance, but Malcolm looks forward to being able to flirt with Elle and hear her voice. He immediately sets out trying to impress her, but quickly realizes that her memory means she just knows more than he does about things he considers an expert, like the poetry of Sir Walter Scott. Malcolm sets her at ease by making fun of Susie Caffrey's accident earlier and by his earnest interest in taking actions to ensure equality for people in the country. Elle also tells Malcolm her backstory, including being bored and slaved while living most of her life as a free woman in the north where their parents. She also discusses her trip to Liberia to explore her repatriation and her disinterest in that project, as well as details of her strong memory.

[00:07:42.060] - Emma

When they hear someone making a noise during their clandestine meeting, they have to hide in close quarters, and they overhear some news about a plan involving Caffrey. As they're sitting close to each other, Elle realizes she recognizes Malcolm from an earlier encounter in her spy work. As she's recognizing him, Malcolm is flirting with her, and she calls him out for his prudent thoughts, which he cops to. She puts the kibosh on his attention quickly, reminding him of their shared goal. Later in town, Malcolm secures an invitation from Susie to watch Confederate soldiers run drills, a useful thing for a Union spy to see. So Malcolm, Susie, and Elle take a carriage to the demonstrations. Susie, trying to impress Malcolm, narrates the details of the battery and the ironworks. While Susie's laying on sexual innuendos to Malcolm, the horse drawing the carriage gets spooked and breaks the carriage. Another carriage comes but only has room for one seat and one in the front. So Susie and her driver return with that group, leaving Malcolm and Elle together. While alone, they're able to discuss the information they've gleaned. Elle keeps prodding Malcolm, suggesting he's more aligned with the rebels than he suggests.

[00:08:37.860] - Emma

Eventually, he takes her knife and puts her hand on it and points it at his belly, telling her to get it over with if she's going to keep questioning his loyalty. He points out she needs to trust him if they're going to work together, and they make plans to meet at a grocery the next day. At the grocery, Elle helps Malcolm send a message about his suspicions about Caffrey to the Pinkertons in the north. They agree to let the other person read their official correspondence so they can have the same knowledge base as each other. The couple discusses the war and Elle's experience as a Black woman and her desire for equality in the United States over revenge. In her heightened emotional state, she allows him to hold her and kiss her, but as they're about to hook up, she points out that someone could walk in on them at any moment. Malcolm's response of, Well, we better re quick, has her turn on him immediately and leave the embrace. He's confused, but she insists she will not have him. Back at the house, Timothy reveals to Elle the information that she and Malcolm had discussed had been leaked to the Confederates.

[00:09:24.530] - Emma

She confronts him with a gun in the grocery store room at their next meeting. The information led to the death of 20 men, and Elle feels guilty and assumes Malcolm is the leak. Malcolm helps her see that it was either bad luck or their information came from a chain of sources that led to the ambush. Elle is still distressed over the death of the men and asked Malcolm to comfort her, and she allows him to get her off. But immediately after she's able to put together the pieces of previously gained information and realized the Confederates are planning on building an iron-clad ship that could be used to break the blockade. Their access to the social scene at the Caffrey should be able to give them gossip that will confirm the details. But Malcolm has to continue his flirtation with Susie, which makes Elle jealous. Malcolm attempts to prove his sincerity to her by telling her about his father's death by suicide after the trauma of the clearances. Back at the house, Elle sees a list of enslaved people for sale in Richmond, and on the list is a description that mentions her first love, Daniel, who proposed, and she turned down so that she could work during the war.

[00:10:13.760] - Emma

Malcolm is at the house for a social visit to the Caffreys, and she's able to tell him the details of her and Daniel's connection and her guess that he's going to auction. Elle realizes she can't take action without endangering the plan to uncover information with the ironclad, but Malcolm offers to try himself. Mary happens upon Elle and Malcolm and assumes the worst about Malcolm's intentions. Downstairs, Malcolm is introduced to Elton Dix, an engineer responsible for the Ironclad plans. Dix is a "kind" enslaver, with scare quotes, treating Ben, who's cousin, with one of the Caffreys' servants, benevolently, and he seems charming to Elle, who struggles with the cognitive dissonance that he does not appear so blatantly evil as the Caffreys and is still an enslaver. Elle also meets Ben, and he speaks highly of his position in Mr. Dix's home as a confidante and trusted advisor. Elle uses her sign language to get him to tell her some information about the Ironclad. Ben aids Elle in getting back to her home, a hotel, which makes Malcolm jealous, and when she arrives at her hotel, he's sitting on her bed. After apologizing for his jealous outburst, he gives her a letter from an ally that says, Daniel, her friend, will be free.

[00:11:12.380] - Emma

He promises he won't ever leave her again, and Elle asks him to make love to her, though halfway through, her anxieties about his intentions get the better of her. To calm her down, Malcolm asks mundane questions about her as they have sex. The next day, they go undercover to get information about the ironclad following Mr. Dix, with Elle dressing up as an enslaved boy named Earl. In their disguise, Malcolm is her flavor, so they'd have to discuss that he might have to treat her cruelly to keep up the ruse, putting into focus their relationship perception to the outside world. Two soldiers have it upon them in comments on their backtracking, repeating locations. Malcolm plays the part of the Confederate well, and Elle's good memory helps them give a fake backstory that covers their tracks. After they get away, they talk more about their history and hookup in the woods. But when they are returning, they're besieged by bandits. They are trying to steal Elle to sell her, but Malcolm refuses to leave her. She tries to encourage him to go, but he refuses. Ultimately, the bandits discover that Elle is a woman. In the confusion, Malcolm is able to get her away, though she's grazed by a bullet, and they kill two of the three bandits, but they let one live.

[00:12:05.560] - Emma

Malcolm secrets Elle back to his hotel and cares for her there. Timothy helps Elle get new clothes and makes the connection about Elle and Malcolm's relationship. Mary has her suspicions, too, but Elle silently wages her anxiety about the white man taking advantage of Elle. The Caffrey Ball is that day, and both Elle and Malcolm intend to get information from it, but Susie visits Malcolm at his hotel early, seemingly offering herself to him. He attempts to kindly rebuff her, but she suggests that she's close to breaking at his false intentions. At the ball, Mary reveals she and Althea are attending to escape that night and want to take Elle with them. Ben is also considering leaving. Elle ends up in a meeting between Caffrey and Dix as a servant, and she's kept on to attend to them, so she ends up overhearing plans of the Ironclad. Meanwhile, Susie is trying one last attempt to get Malcolm to sleep with her, and he refuses. So she accuses him publicly of attempting to rape her, so he's locked in the basement of the house. Elle sees him being taken to the cellar and tells Timothy to contact McTavish, the grocer, but he's been arrested for public drunkenness and is not able to help.

[00:12:59.860] - Emma

Timothy wants to escape with Elle and leave Malcolm behind. Mary happens upon them, and Elle reveals all to her, including that she can speak. Robert, Mary's husband, is involved in Mary's plan to escape, planning to steal a ship, and go to the Union Navy. Benz decided not to go with the women, and Elle comes with a plan to get Mary, Althea, and Malcolm out of the house. She sets a fire as a distraction, absconds with Malcolm. They first take a carriage and then have to abandon it and walk to a rowboat. On their way, they see the slaver who they let live. He intends to steal the woman, but Malcolm smooth talks them out of that plan, giving him false promises of money in an that he can access. They use a rowboat to get to a stolen ship captained by Robert, but as they're climbing in, Malcolm is shot by a man on board. He's still wearing a Confederate uniform. He falls over the side of the ship into the river, and Elle thinks she's lost him. Robert is able to find Malcolm since he knows the river currents so well, he knows where a body would turn up.

[00:13:46.700] - Emma

He's injured but not dead. When he's recovering in the boat, he immediately asks Robert to perform a marriage ceremony between him and L. They're able to take the ship out of the south and deliver the information about the ironclad into Washington, DC.

[00:13:58.560] - Emma

First, I wanted to talk about the setting. This is the first book, I think, that I've read, set in the south during the Civil War, because I think both of the Beverly Jenkins that we've talked about on the podcast are not in the south, even though they have some connections and references to the war or to the slavery. I know Indigo is set before the Civil War. Cole writes about how she chose the setting in her author's note. I just wanted to read a quotation from that. She's wondering what setting she's going to be writing, and she says, "The Civil War. It's still an open wound in this country. Is it even history, really, when the the effects of it still vibrate beneath the surface of American life? Too fraught, too hard, too draining. The more I saw it as the staging ground for stories just as entertaining and epic as the Regency Dukes and Viscounts romance readers swoon for.

[00:14:42.530] - Emma

I also saw the possibility of extending the tropes of the Civil War beyond Brother Fighting Brother and Swooning Southern Bell, two categories that conveniently left out a whole swath of people, generally of a darker hue." In this author note, Cole mentions tropes from Civil War romances, and I just wanted to acknowledge this uglier precedent in romance. The ways that slavery and the Confederacy come into romance for a while is white characters, many of whom enslaved people or directly benefit from the economics of slavery. Many of these books that I found when I was just looking for the history and titles about the setting in the genre were romances between a white Confederate woman and a white Union soldier, especially those that were set in the South. The Union soldier comes and the white Confederate woman has qualms about letting him into her home, and they do an enemies to lovers romance. I haven't read any of these books, so I can't speak to the presence of Black characters in any specific one. But I wanted to give both credit to Cole for writing a setting in a way that is novel. But also, I also didn't want to obscure a fact that she points out herself that there's a big history of Civil War romance books.

[00:15:43.880] - Emma

They're just at best inconsiderate of the trauma and evilness of the institutions that creates the time period, and at worst, actively romanticizing and justifying them. Just sometimes I saw in interviews about Cole or articles about Cole were saying that she was doing something totally new, which I think we should give her credit for. But I also think when you say it's totally new, you're able to ignore the fact that actually we do have a lot of history of romance that are set during the Civil War. It's just stuff that maybe people don't want to talk about. So I wanted to acknowledge that. We can talk about other either 19th century American books that we've read, or either Beverly Jenkins, who Cole cites as a precedent, or this history of Civil War romances that I think a lot of romance would prefer if we just were able to sweep under the rug and pretend that we had never done

[00:16:31.100] - Chels

So, yeah, I collect older books. I read a lot of older books, and I do avoid Civil War romances because it's from what I've seen, they are written by white authors, like the ones in the '80s, and they're typically enemies to lovers with a Confederate supporter or soldier, and then a Unionist. And that's always going to be a story about softening the edges of an evil ideology. But, yeah, they were very popular in the '80s. Some of them even have the Confederate flag on the cover. It's very open, very like It is what it says on the tin. American historicals by white authors have gone out of fashion in general. So not just Civil War, but Westerns, too. But this gross fascination with the Confederacy still lives on. If you think of the phenomena of vampire TV shows and movies in the 2010s having sympathetic Confederate characters. So I see it not as like, white people are getting more enlightened, but just it's shifting somewhere. I think white authors are like, this is something that I maybe don't want to deal with or I don't want to interrogate. So I'm going to write Regency or Victorian, where I don't have to think about the injustice that is indirectly happening in those stories, because a lot of the times they will give their, like something that you bring up in the Dukes project a lot.

[00:17:55.190] - Chels

White authors, when they're writing like Dukes or aristocrats, will give them radical political politics, so that you, which is, I think, really troublesome sometimes, because it's like you're giving the great ideas and the people's movements to the people who are putting the boots on other people's necks. So it's just this thing to be thinking about when you're thinking about historical romance, is that it's always going to be fraught. And I think some authors are really willing to interrogate power, injustice, and race, and other authors just really never want to think about it at all. And Cole is, of course, making you look at it, making you think about it in a variety of ways, which is, I I felt like I took away so much more of it the second time I read this book than the first time. I think just understanding more about the genre and the history has been really enriched my experience with this book.

[00:18:57.940] - Emma

It does feel like books set in England, sometimes you feel like they don't to deal with the slavery problem. But it's like where... Especially when I was doing the Dukes project and I was reading historical Dukess and where did money come from? It's all plantations in the Caribbean. That's where these people are getting money from. They're not necessarily having enslaved people in their house, but they are gaining money. They're extracting wealth from people that they are exploiting. Even people who are sometimes radical or characterized as radical or characterized as liberal politics or that they're advocating against slavery. These are people who are also in court arguing for reparations for slave owners. Those politics go hand in hand. They're saying, I want to end slavery in the British Empire, which is also an empire still. But also we want to make sure that the people who owned enslaved people were made whole again. And so then people then get this windfall of money. This is how William Gladstone's family had money. It's like how his inheritance is reparations from his father's slave holdings. It's just always there. I don't want to say it's weird because it's this habit of ignoring things.

[00:20:11.030] - Emma

I don't think you have to confront it every time, but don't think that you're You're not... By moving the setting, you're not avoiding the problem. You are ignoring it. And it's like, that's part of the function of what you're doing when you write a wallpaper regency.

[00:20:26.020] - Chels

Well, what annoys me so much is that the framing of the of our historical romances that do this as being specifically progressive. That's what bothers me, because I'm like, you can't give progressive ideologies to an aristocrat, have no conflict where nobody has any uncomfortable or weird things that'll make you feel bad. Because even in this book, Alyssa Cole, Malcolm is a great hero, but also Malcolm fucks up a lot of the time. And Cole is acknowledging that there's this reality that he's not privy to. There's a way where he can consider himself a good guy, but still do things that are just really fucked up that he should have thought about better. But it just seems like there's a lot of the framing of feminist historical romance that's set in the Regency or the Victorian area. Feminist, I'm saying in scare quotes. A lot of what I'm seeing in that is just people oversimplifying the rough edges of these people that they're writing about. If you're going to write about a suffragette, I expect you to talk about racism because the suffragets were very racist. And that's something that I don't see as often.

[00:21:48.070] - Beth

I feel like there's this tendency in these, again, scare quotes "progressive" romances, where it's like the author will have their characters say all the right things, but then their actions are not matching up with that. They're not really interrogating the setting, like what you're saying, Chels. They're not really looking at their holdings and be like, Oh, I'm making a lot of money from slavery. Do you know what I mean? Not that I expect characters to be like, You know what? I'm going to solve all the problems that are currently plaguing by time. Obviously not. But just I think some authors feel like they've done their due diligence if they just have their characters signal to the audience things that we would be like, Oh, that's a progressive guy. He cares about women's education or whatever.

[00:22:36.690] - Chels

But like...

[00:22:38.030] - Beth

You know?

[00:22:39.540] - Emma

And I think with Cole in this story, I think it's like there is a... Maybe I've not written a historical romance novel. I've never tried to get one published. But to me, there's a solution here where it's like, write stories about people who've not had their stories written before. If you write a Duke that has progressive politics, you're having your cake and eating it, too, because there are people in the Regency who are advocating advocating for the abolition of slavery. There are people in the Regency who are advocating for labor unions. All these things that they want to ascribe to people who have lots of holdings, who probably obtained their money through the empire in some way or another. All those things existed in this period. It doesn't have to be this fantasy that this person who is not divested from the aristocracy has those beliefs. These people have these beliefs. With Cole, she writes... There's this great scene where they talk about the way she contrasts It's Susie's gowns versus what Elle is wearing. I was just so aware of like, Oh, yeah. Anyone who has a new gown at every event that they're going to...

[00:23:39.420] - Emma

Susie is lamenting her lack of access to find goods because of the war. But anyone who has new clothes all the time in a regency book is someone who is so much wealthier than anybody else. But then Malcolm looks at Elle. She has a slightly nicer dress, and it doesn't quite fit her, but he's like, I still love her, and she looks so beautiful right now, and she's wearing a rag as a snood. And he's still able to have that moment of describing her outfit that is so classic romance novel scene. But it's now a dress that's worn down and faded, but it still works. It's still romantic. And it's like, that's the thing that could happen if people were interested in writing books about people who just aren't benefiting from these systems that they're so disgusted by. Cole also mentions Beverly Jenkins in her author's note, and I thought we talk about just the context of Beverly Jenkins. We've done one episode on Beverly Jenkins novel, and then I think we brought up Forbidden in our Taxonomy of Raikes episodes. Those are the Reformed Raikes canon of what we've talked about Jenkins before. But Cole cites her directly.

[00:24:44.270] - Emma

I just thought we could remind people who Jenkins is, though I think you should know who she is because she's great, but also what her relationship or what Cole's relationship to her work is.

[00:24:54.010] - Chels

Yeah. So Alyssa Cole mentions Beverly Jenkins in her author's note. Jenkins is just very, very influential in historical romance at large, but also specifically to Black romance authors and Black historical romance authors. So Jenkins told Julie Moody-Freeman on the Black Romance podcast that she had difficult getting her first book, Night Night Song published because the feedback that she was getting was that the two main characters should be enslaved if they were set during that time period. And that's not the book that she wrote with Night Song. So according to Jenkins, she had a champion, her champion, like Stevens helped her get Avon's Eyes on Night Song. And then Ellen Edwards, Avon, ended up publishing it. So that's the origin of this book. But getting back to that feedback, I think this is one of the many, many examples of historical accuracy just being unfairly wielded against Black authors by readers who are like, ignorant of Black history. Jenkins does tons of research. Her books are more historically accurate than 98 % of Regency writers out there. But we hear less of that critique about them because White readers have this perception of the American South because they didn't learn about it.

[00:26:09.910] - Chels

They didn't learn about it in the correct way. So they either have to do the work on their own to get outside of public school or they just don't know. And Beverly Jenkins is one of those authors who's like, Yeah, you got to you got to do better. You have to keep up a little bit. And then also When I first read An Extraordinary Union in 2021, I was googling it and I found this All About Romance review that's really critical, and specifically about the historical accuracy of Elle's experience undercover as an enslaved woman. And that just made me throw my hands in the air, that this is just a circular thing that never really seems to go away, is that historical accuracy is a weighted critique, based on on who you're writing about and what. Because the suspension of disbelief is something that we can only do. I don't even want to talk about a suspension of disbelief, because as we talked about, we talked about this before, I think maybe in Caribbean Heiress. But the historical accuracy critique is often given to books that are very, very accurate. Like Herrera, just like Jenkins, has all of these receipts of the research and stuff.

[00:27:35.960] - Beth

Yeah. You look at the end of Extraordinary Union, it has a bibliography like Jenkins books, too, where it's like, Here's all my reading and the sources I pulled for this book.

[00:27:49.230] - Emma

Right. The stuff that I think people were taking issue with historical accuracy, like a Black woman being undercover, which is like, It's very easy to actually find the sources that Cole is using. If you know it, she both cites it in her author's note, the woman that she's basing Elle on. It's like you can Google her very easily. But also, I think anyone If you're wielding this like, Oh, it's not historically accurate. I think it also doesn't have to be. That's the thing. Even if this precedent didn't exist, if Cole didn't cite Mary Bowser, who we're going to talk about in a second, as this precedent, it's like, Why couldn't this be a thing? Why? Because people talk about romance as a fantasy or as an excuse for why we're okay with a Duke marrying someone who's not an aristocrat. It's like, if you're okay with that and you've ever made that justification, the historical accuracy does not need to be there. So if you're finding yourself poking holes in a book that has a Black character in it, it's like you stop reading the book and meditate for a second and think, Why are you doing that?

[00:28:55.570] - Emma

Because you just don't need to. And there's that piece of it. And like what Chels was saying, these All these authors do all this work for the bibliography. They put it at the end of the book where it's both and. But also you just don't need to fact check these books if you're enjoying these Regency wallpapers, because you've certainly read a book that is less historically accurate and probably enjoyed it.

[00:29:16.850] - Beth

Also in narrative, I find... I'm not critiquing Cole here for doing this. I really feel like because she's aware of her audience and preparing herself for this critique. But in the narrative, sometimes Elle will have this thought of Again, she's reminded of how complex the institution of slavery is. I'm thinking of this moment when... So Ben, as a character, I think at the end of the book, he doesn't want to leave without his enslaver or something. And Elle has that thought like, oh, again, she's reminded of... I feel like Cole has to be a little bit more heavy-handed with these things because of white readers, basically, that we wouldn't believe it. Do you know what I mean? Unless she explicitly has Elle have a thought about it. Whereas I feel like it's just... She doesn't have to have that thought. I feel like if I were an editor, I would ask to cut that out. But I know why she's doing it, because we get these kinds of criticisms levied at Black authors.

[00:30:19.690] - Emma

Yeah. So I wondered about that metacognition that Elle does as a structure of the narrative. And I wondered if she does it in the other Loyal League's books, because I thought it actually really worked as a character choice for Elle for a few different reasons.

[00:30:31.480] - Beth

I'm not trying to be like, this was a bad choice. I just feel like maybe she wouldn't have felt like she had to do that, maybe. But we'll see.

[00:30:40.190] - Emma

I would be interested in reading the other two books in the series to see how it changes about the narrative voice, because I wanted to talk about how Elle uses Elle's... I wanted to talk about how Cole uses Elle's memory, even as the couple is employed in this espionage plot. But I also think, to Beth's point, I think how Elle's mind works, I think works as a narrative function. That handholding that I I think Cole is probably doing for some white readers is actually to serve Elle's character in a way, because I think how Elle's memory works is one of the things that surprised me the most. Cole has Elle's eidetic memory be one of the things that Malcolm finds really attractive about her. He's just pretty much immediately overblown by this skill that she has because I think he has some anxiety about his utility as a Pinkerton and as a spy, and he just sees someone who's able to do this thing that he thinks is the hardest part of their job very easily. But for her, It's a burden and a tool simultaneously. And so it reminded me of books that I'd read where the heroine has a supernatural ability.

[00:31:37.040] - Emma

I was thinking of For the Earl's Pleasure by Anne Mallory, where the heroine can see Ghost, or Uncertain Magic by Laura Kinsale, where the heroine can hear other thoughts with the exception of the hero. It's this thing that makes her different. It's this thing that people have used as a party trick before that they made her recite things. I think there's an added layer of that where I think the people who were making her recite things were especially delighted by the fact that it was a young Black woman who was able to do these things. And so there's this connection between her skill and her race that is fraught. So Cole cites this woman Mary Bowser, as a historical reference for Elle. So Bowser was born enslaved by the Van Lew family in Virginia. But one of the daughters of the Van Lew family was Elizabeth Van Lew, who helped free her. The phrases that I saw were a de facto freedom because I guess the laws in Virginia made it so that women couldn't undo the property rights of There's not documentation of Mary Bowser ever becoming a free woman until the emancipation. But it's the de facto freedom.

[00:32:40.600] - Emma

But Elizabeth Van Lew, Van Lew, allowed her to work and let her have her freedom, even though she was still in Virginia viewed as an enslaved person. Then Bowser worked for Van Lew's Spy Circle because Elizabeth Van Lew was a Union spy and an abolitionist. She was sending messages to the Union from her high society position in the Confederacy. So Bowser supposedly had an eidetic memory like Elle, but her biography is really trace and hard to substantiate. And so some historians have acknowledged that this eidetic memory attributed to Bowser may be this how Elle's memory is used in the book as this propaganda to white abolitionist. So I just wanted to acknowledge that the story of Mary Bowser also serves white people being delighted by the idea of a Black woman being able to do this. So her biographical details sometimes contradict each other and seem to have been shaped or altered to appeal who she was speaking to. So she also is one of the reasons why we don't know much about her biography, because when she's speaking to people, she sometimes tells different stories about herself. And so this reminded me of how Elle's memory was being used as a party trick.

[00:33:49.300] - Emma

But the undercurrent of Elle's talent is that she also has the skill to use it. And this is one of the things I liked about the book, and also Malcolm's relationship with Elle, is that the ability to parrot things that she's heard is definitely not her only spy skill. She's very good at being a spy for other reasons. I don't even know it's the most useful one we see her. At one point, she picks a lock and Malcolm's like, How do you know how to do this? She's like, Well, I saw someone do it once. But also, I don't think I think someone with an eidetic memory may be able to explain what they saw, but the ability to do it under pressure is a different skill that Elle has. I think also we see her connecting pieces of information, which doesn't necessarily come with just remembering things. I just wanted to talk about Elle's gift and how Cole worked both in into the plot of both the romance, because it's a big... It's an important part of how she relates to Malcolm and how Malcolm sees her. But also it obviously plays into the espionage plot as well, because we see Elle using it in her work.

[00:34:44.280] - Beth

Yeah, I think it's important what you said about how she pieces the information together. And it's not just that she's really good at memorizing things, because I think if it was just about memorization, she would have been killed early on, because having a good memory is not going to enough to keep you alive in that situation. She's also a very good actress. There's, as you would be, constantly having to shield your emotions and stay alive in that scenario. But I feel like the white abolitionists who sawElleas a party trick in society, we're fascinated by people with idetic memories. They show up in our movies and shows a lot. Thinking of Rain Man, who is based on a real life person and Kim Peek. And to your point, Emma, Kim Peek, he didn't have a corpus callosum, which is what divides your brain, allows your different brain has to speak to each other. So he could read two pages simultaneously with either eye, which is crazy. But he just memorized information. I don't know how well he would synthesize it and be like, okay, I read this book now, and this is my thoughts on it.

[00:35:59.510] - Beth

It was just more repeating back that information. I don't know if you guys are fans of Suits, which is not a good show. There's just people throwing file folders at each other. It's based on a law firm. But Mike from Suits, I don't know if they ever classify what his memory is, but he just remembers everything he reads. So he can read a 300-page document and then in court and be impressed. People will be like, Yeah, and on page 26, you Like blah, blah, like lawyer stuff. Shawn Spencer from Psych. I've never seen this show, but I know it's really popular. He uses his memory and then he pretends to be a psychic, and he works with the cops. And then according to the FandomWiki, Superman has an eidetic memory, Which I didn't know, but I was googling characters. I thought that was interesting. So I think this is a thing that creative people use where it's like, it is interesting to have your investigative character have an eidetic memory when you're trying to piece together clues. You remember everything you saw. So when you see something new, you could be like, Oh, that tracks with that thing I saw in the office two weeks ago.

[00:37:12.120] - Beth

But as far as the romance goes, I feel like it'd be hard to date someone with a memory like that. They remember everything you did, word for word. Like your worst fights or your bad days, this person remembers it all. I guess team, like forgetting might be a little good in relationship. I feel this way because I saw some news spot years ago where this boy had a calendrical memory. So it's like you remember... You could be like, What? On February 12th, 1988, what day was that? And you'd be like, Tuesday, right? And then also for your own life, I think you're just really good at remembering what you did exactly on that day. So this father was speaking about Like his son who had this calendric memory. And he talks about how his son came to him and be like, today is a bad day because a year ago, you yelled at me on this day for X thing. And I was like, that sucks. Sorry, that's tangent.

[00:38:18.890] - Emma

Malcolm doesn't have a quip about that when he's proposing and he's like, We can do this as long as you promise never to... You don't throw my words back at me exactly. Which I imagine that will be the conflict between them is that Malcolm, if he ever changes his mind or has- She could just be like, Actually, you said three years ago.

[00:38:37.330] - Beth

You said this.

[00:38:39.570] - Emma

Which, yeah, that is... But I think that I think it's a cute problem for them to have because he's still so enamored with her. I just thought it was interesting. But yeah, it's like, you can imagine what their conflicts will be like.

[00:38:53.410] - Beth

Right.

[00:38:54.880] - Chels

Yeah. Because Malcolm is still like... If you froze Malcolm at at the beginning of the book, that's not really a romance hero that you want. But also, Elle is going to remember all of his stages of thought and different... So that is pretty interesting. I have read another eidetic memory in romance. It was The Spymasters' Lady by Joanna Borne.

[00:39:17.680] - Beth

Investigative character. Yeah, yeah.

[00:39:19.830] - Chels

I love it. Yeah. The heroine not only has a memory that means she can remember and recreate maps, but she, like Elle, has a host of practical knowledge and skills that are extremely useful spy work. So the memory is cool, but she's doing so many other things that I think at points I'm like, oh, right, she has an eidetic memory. It's just not the most impressive. But yeah, that series is really interesting. It's like the Napoleonic War Spy series. What I thought was really brilliant is how Cole uses Elle's memory for romantic purposes. Like, Elle can quote from The Art of War, but she also remembers all the poetry she read. So Malcolm is trying to impress her with a Sir Walter Scott deep cut, only to later find out that she has more knowledge of his work than him. And then, like, towards the end, they're quoting passages to each other. And she's thinking, she's remembering these times where she used to recite for white abolition audiences. And it was just recitation, the party trick thing. But here it's coming from real emotion. And so it starts to feel very different. And I thought that was really moving.

[00:40:29.470] - Chels

I really liked the romantic element. It's like when you were talking about Kim Peek and the synthesizing information, it's as like Elle is synthesizing it. She's interpreting it. She's thinking about it. But it's also like, these love stories are just words to her until she meets Malcolm.

[00:40:56.570] - Beth

Which I think is a very true-to-life thing. I like what you said. I like when a character keeps doing an action over and over and that it doesn't have meaning until later. I'm thinking specifically of Galaxy Quest with Alan Rickman's character. He has to cite that line, recite that line he hates over and over until his friend dies. And then he says it so movingly because he's out.

[00:41:20.530] - Chels

By Grabthars Hammer, you will be avenged. Oh my God, I didn't think Galaxy Quest would come up in this episode. It's one of my favorite movies.

[00:41:32.780] - Beth

It's okay. Anyway. But yeah, I do like... I feel like sometimes authors will reference other quotes or books, how... I like when an author can do it in an interesting way or in a way that moves the plot forward or just what motivates a character. I do like that Elle constantly was thinking about the art of war, which seems like a book that you wouldn't be thinking about a lot, but it had a lot of applicable moments throughout the narrative. Where you can find a moment of opportunity and chaos. And there was often a lot of unplanned things that would happen, and she'd have to think on her feet.

[00:42:21.140] - Emma

Yeah, so that's the part... In order to get into the Loyal League, she has to memorize the art of war, right? And so I think that's also the... Even And this institution- Also, was anyone else doing that?

[00:42:33.100] - Beth

Why was it just her that had to do it?

[00:42:34.910] - Emma

This institution that she has this extreme loyalty to, it's still treating her like a party trick. It's like she has all these other skills that would get her into the Loyal League, her adaptability, her ability to act, her ability to read people, that do not come from her memory. But it's like that's the threshold for her. I don't know if Elle is doing metacognition about that as an unfair practice, but I do think it's like, I don't think the other Loyal League members had to memorize it the night before, which is basically her test to get it. And it's like that they're only seeing her as the skill. And I think even in some of Elle's inner thoughts, she thinks of herself as like, this is her. She thinks about it in terms of like, this was my burden, and now it's a gift that I can use for a cause. I don't know if she thinks about herself in terms of all these other things. And I think maybe Malcolm viewing her as a whole person, both as like, viewing her as a whole person, not just seeing her as an person, but also not just seeing her as this party trick, helps her get to that point.

[00:43:33.920] - Emma

Because even I was expecting when we got the eidetic memory as such a big plot point, that something about her memory would be the thing that automatically saves them. But it's actually just them working together and her love of Malcolm and all these things. It's a very all these different... There are lots of moving pieces in the escape plan. Even in the escape, Elle makes mistakes, and she has to acknowledge that she had asked Mary and Althea to wear really big hoop skirts so that it could cover Malcolm on the carriage. But then when they have to abandon the carriage, they're walking through the forest and she's like, Oh, I should have asked them. I should have thought of this ahead of time, and I should have asked them to wear pants. It's slowing them down because it's something I asked them to do. She's not infallible, especially on those judgment call things. But I think that actually makes it... It works better for her to be that way. See, I don't have a question for this. My favorite scene... I liked the whole book, but my favorite scene, I think, it's only in the second chapter where Malcolm and Elle first meet.

[00:44:32.900] - Emma

It's Malcolm's first POV chapter. Or I guess that's when we switched to his POV and we get his insight into what's going on. But they meet earlier. It's like Elle thinks that this rebel soldier has just come to court Susie Caffery, and he is doing all these things that Elle is raising his red flags as something that is different. I just love this gap of information between them because I think for most of the book, Elle and Malcolm trust each other pretty explicitly, even though Elle has she has some qualms, and she has some doubts about what does it mean to trust this White man, to trust this White man who's so comfortable being a rebel soldier. But they share information pretty quickly with each other because she's so loyal to the Loyal League. But this gap of information she has where, again, we see Elle. I think it's one of the first moments we see Elle do something other than using her memory. She's just clocking Malcolm as someone who's interesting and has different things other than on the surface rebel soldier. But also when we realized that Elle is basically afraid of him as well, because she's been there alone and she's not able to talk, he's enamored with her very quickly and is looking at her almost like a A way that she reads is lecherous, but he is moon-eye for her.

[00:45:49.700] - Emma

Then he has to apologize later and say, Just so you know, I would never hurt you. She has to think, Why would a rebel soldier feel the need to explain that to me? That's one of those Those are the first moments, again, where she's thinking, Oh, this person is more interesting than he seems to be. She is ultimately surprised that he ends up being the package that's delivered to her from the spies. But I just think it works so well to get these characters' relationships down. I also love any I love a moment where the guy is like, Oh, this is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. We just get to see that with Malcolm. He's gone there for a mission to seduce or to romance Susie Caffrey. Then he's like, Oh, no. I have a distraction because I'm immediately enamored with Elle, who he doesn't know she can't... He does not know that she can talk. He doesn't know her name, all these things, but he's immediately taken with her.

[00:46:40.890] - Chels

Yeah, I really thought that scene was very interesting. I was very annoyed and frustrated with Malcolm from the get-go because he's... I mean, he has these realizations later, but it seems to me a little bit too late for someone who considers himself a very logical and thoughtful person. And this is Malcolm's journey throughout the whole book. It's like, you're alone in a room with this woman, and you are flirting with her, or you think you're flirting with her, but you can't really flirt with someone who's enslaved, because what is she going to do? What is she supposed to do? Right. It's no... And so Elle is just scared. She's like, okay, what do I do? Is this really how it's going? How am I going to get out of here? So it's It's not like in his mind, he's trying... It's like a little bit of this romantic meet cute. He doesn't understand the terror and the fear that will happen. And this is something that happens as he further ingratiate himself with other people involved in the Confederacy or other enslavers, is that he becomes more aware of the way that they talk about the women that are enslaved in a way that's very explicitly like, We think it's fine to to rape them, and we think it's fine to attack them and to subjugate them, and to talk about them as if they don't exist right in front of them.

[00:48:07.380] - Chels

That's something, I guess because he maybe has not spent as much time around enslavers, he wasn't prepared to be grouped with them, even though that's his whole thing, he's supposed to be. I think this is the big conflict of the book, is that Malcolm's ego and his mission are diametrically opposed. He wants this reassurance from Elle that she's flattered, and he's a good guy, and he wants her to like him so bad. And that he's... That's not... But the first thought that he should be having is like, how do I... What do I do for her safety? And so this is him putting his foot in his mouth first. I do think that was really great for character arc, because we see him, we see his intentions and who he wants to be, who he wants to be perceived as. And then we know right away what Elle thinks of that and how Elle is going to respond. And I thought that was a really, really brilliant writing by Cole.

[00:49:17.360] - Beth

And that's a scene that happens in romance books, where it's like, you're so enamored of someone you forget yourself. You forget who's a spy. That woman shouldn't be flirting with this woman who's not his mark. But Like, yeah, it is sinister, but from Alice' perspective. If you know anything about slavery and how basically all Black women were raped or at risk of being raped, it's not It's interesting how that could have easily been such a romantic scene in another book, but this one, it walks the line a bit. I'm not surprised Cole writes Thrillers. I was on edge this whole book of just her being posing as an enslaved person. I just thought, I'm like, what if anything happened? They forgot she was there. Do you know what I mean? Her risk of being trapped in this life, it just felt very high. I don't know. But it was just a very fraught.

[00:50:18.400] - Chels

Yeah. There were parts of it that reminded me of Kindred a little bit.

[00:50:21.460] - Beth

Yes. I was literally thinking of that. I'm like, I feel like she read Olivia Butler. I could definitely see that.

[00:50:30.330] - Chels

Yeah, it's just also just the interracial relationship, too. Like the the the the realities of the couple in Kindred and also the realities of like Elle and Malcolm here. Like, I definitely was... It was really interesting how Cole could instill that fear and tension. And it's also still, still a romance novel. You know the HEA is coming, but that doesn't... And you also know, you also know Malcolm's intentions. But she builds that fear with Malcolm so that when these other characters who aren't Malcolm, who aren't undercover, who aren't pretending, you know what's at stake.

[00:51:15.400] - Beth

Yeah, I feel like with... It's like, especially with Kindred, it's like, Dana is married to a white guy in the '70s. And there's times when she's hopping back and forth between time, where she... Her husband says things that the enslavers have said. And he's like a white abolitionist, basically. So I think Butler plays with that line, too. And I see Cole mimicking that, but she has Malcolm go on a character journey. It uses it a launching pad for that. How could this couple conceivably be together in this intense situation?

[00:51:56.990] - Emma

I think also the first scene is echoed every time that Elle has doubts about Malcolm's intentions with Susie because he's so convincing with his flirtations with Susie. As a reader, you're reading it. There are other romances where it's like there as a hero who has another woman that he has to entertain, and there's jealousy over that. But for L, it goes beyond jealousy. It's like, what if he's a double agent? What if this is real? I'm the fake thing, and he's using me. I think one Malcolm's journeys is to understand that, that it's like, he knows he has to do the job. If he's doing the job, Elle would want him to do the job. But also she is going to have feelings and trepidations about how convincing he is at seducing Susie... Because this is someone who's been making Elle's life like a living hell. And he also sees her be... It's just like he can't defend her in the moment. And Elle has these very human feelings where it's like, I'm falling in love with this person. When I'm being insulted in front of people, I would want him to stand up for me.

[00:53:05.660] - Emma

But she also knows that he can't do that. But she also gets to have the feeling of, I really wish he would do that. That feeling doesn't go away just because she is focusing on the mission or because they're in such different places in society. Just the reoccurring. But I think setting up that so early. Also, I think with her author's note of referencing Regency, Dukes, and Viscounts, twisting that normal jealousy and meet cute, all those things, making them fit into this section. Also having a different reader experience and a different experience for Elle with those scenes works so well for the book. It's romance novel on its head. I don't want to give a section to talk about the side characters because I thought Cole did this very astutely. The number of characters we meet, as I was listing them out of side characters I wanted to talk about, there are a lot of them. I don't think I even mentioned all of them. They all have their own personalities. They all have their own voices. I thought she did a really good job of writing dialog as different characters really well. I could tell...

[00:54:05.230] - Emma

There was just a big cast of side characters. I thought she managed them very well. And so this is not necessarily a problem because I don't want to be prescriptive. But a trend in a newer romance is how often we see heroines who have no friends who are not being set up for their own romances. And reading this book made me realize how different that writing those side characters is. In girl gang books, sometimes it seems like all the friendship bits are really just making sure the reader knows, Well, this is the one who doesn't give a damn, this is the quiet one. And so when you're seeing these relationships between women, it's more like, oh, I have to get enough of this other person's personality to know how she's going to be the heroine in the next book. But Elle has real friends who each have their own personalities and complicated relationships to her. Even when we're seeing her when she's acting as the enslaved servant as a mute woman, we still have these women who are taking care of her and have feelings for her. And I like that. And they're not set up for it.

[00:54:57.960] - Emma

So Mary and Althea, as far as I can tell, Because Mary already has a husband, and I don't think Althea becomes a character. But even when I checked, I felt like I was looking for scenes with Althea. She's not in that many scenes, but it's like I feel like her presence was very clear. I think Mary is the best example of this because Mary cares so deeply for Elle, and we maybe get the most scenes with Mary. She's introduced to Elle when she's pretending to be mute. We see this betrayal that Mary feels when both with Elle's burgeoning relationship with Malcolm, she asks questions when Elle has been missing, like, Were you with that rebel soldier? She's He's worried about Malcolm taking advantage of her. Then also when Elle is not asking for help or is not as suspicious of him, I think Mary feels this betrayal and worry then. But then also, betrayal when Elle reveals that she can speak. Mary is surprised. But then also Mary needs her in that moment because they're escaping. It just Mary is a very complete person. In conjunction with Mary, we have Mary's husband, Robert, who's really important to the escape plot.

[00:56:00.760] - Emma

But I just loved any moment where he had Mary and Robert together because I love seeing a married couple in a romance because they just have this very ease together. We're usually seeing them from Elle's perspective. I think that helps Elle look at a couple and say, That's what could be. There's a romance in these times of war. Even though they've been separated, they're both still enslaved, that there still is this major romance for them. That's available, and I think that helps Elle, especially when she thinks she's lost Malcolm. She watches them. She's devastated when she thinks she's lost Malcolm, and she watches Mary and Robert be together and hold each other. It's a very moving scene on the boat. But I thought we should talk about Mary and Althea and then other side characters as well.

[00:56:42.900] - Beth

I love Mary. I'm like team whoever is like, Hey, is this guy bothering you? Do you need to send me packing? There's a point when Mary is like, Is he bothering you? So I love that. Yeah, I like what you said about the Girl Gang books, where it's We've talked about this before, where it's like, side characters, when you are doing that, it's like they have a reduced function in their current narrative, because it's like you're holding off story because you're waiting for their book for things to happen. And it makes the current book not as good. And I feel like having these side characters makes Elle question things, or she feels like she could have a deeper relationships with these people, but she can't because she's pretending to be someone she's not. And she has this purpose. So she has those thoughts throughout the book. And Mary and Althea and the other people she meets are the genesis of those thoughts.

[00:57:51.600] - Chels

Yeah, I did really like Mary. And yeah, I guess just to echo your thoughts on that, because we do talk about this a lot. It's just like I think authors who are primarily interested in these setups make their characters feel more like vessels for moving the plot forward instead of having them enriched with their own personality. So sometimes, even if they aren't setting up their girl gang books, sometimes they will write a character and like, well, I need this character because I need this thing to happen. And it feels less like a relationship between your main character and the side characters than it is just for something getting from point A to point B. And the way that Cole avoids this is... I mean, there's a lot of ways that Cole avoids this, but Elle is thinking about what's going to happen to Mary? Because Mary is trying to escape, and extending some friendship branches to Elle, that Elle is just not picking up because of her position as a spy. And so Elle is really thinking about Mary, specifically, but then also the other people that she's working with who are enslaved. She's thinking, Mary and I are going to maybe be out of here tomorrow.

[00:59:19.420] - Chels

And what does that does that change the immediate reality for the rest of the people in this household? And it's a source of grief for her. And I think having that moment was really important because, to other people, Elle is exceptional because of these skills that she has. But Elle knows that her humanity is the same as everybody's humanity. It's just the Confederacy that isn't recognizing this. So, yeah, I really like how she did that. And then you also... Did you talk about Mr. Dix?

[00:59:56.240] - Emma

No, not yet. Well, we talked about it a little bit with Ben earlier. But I I think Ben and Althea as cousins in this family and Althea having to leave Ben because Ben won't go, it's an interesting dynamic. And it's one of those moments where we're talking about with El's metacognition, where she thinks about Althea leaving and Ben leaving, and Althea's relationship to Susie, those are two moments where we get these explainer moments from El, but also makes sense that she's reading the situation to herself.

[01:00:27.740] - Chels

Yeah. I thought that was I thought that was really an emotional thing. Mr. Dix is also like this, is ostensibly a nice man, in scare quotes. Both Elle and Malcolm have this moment where they're like, Are you really... You seem to... He's not this caricature of an enslaver that you would expect.

[01:00:54.620] - Beth

Yeah, there's a point where Ben, he's like, I'm just going to give Elle a ride home because it's dark out. And Mr. Dix is like, Yeah, of course. We don't want a woman out walking on her own. And Elle was like, Who is this guy that he would even care about my safety at night? I've never met. He shouldn't feel like this. He shouldn't act like this.

[01:01:18.010] - Chels

Yeah. And then it's one of those complicated things that Cole is showing you, is that Mr. Dix can hold these chivalric intentions, but he's also building a ship that's going to break the blockade. He's working for the Confederacy. He's working to keep people oppressed. So he's holding these two different, ostensibly differing positions. But that's just a thing that people can do.

[01:01:53.710] - Beth

Yeah, I feel like it's good when an author can do that, because we do just have our straight up racist character. There's no redeeming qualities about Susie. It's alluded to that maybe she was better in her past. But I think it's also good that we have a character like Mr. Dix. I think piling all the terrible traits on the bad character. I'm not opposed to just having your villain as a villain, but sometimes I think it is better to mix it up a bit, complicate your readers' feelings about this character, not make it so straightforward for people.

[01:02:27.310] - Chels

Well, yeah. I think because It's what you can do is if you... I guess it's a thing when people are writing Nazis sometimes, where they're just like... If the Nazi character is literally everything evil about them, if you can't recognize some part of yourself in that, then you don't really understand what made Nazis, Nazis. They weren't just birthed from the ground. And I think that's a big thing if you're trying to do do any anti-oppressive work, is that you can't be too married to your own inherent goodness. You have to be able to interrogate yourself. And I think that was why that character was really interesting because to Mr. Dix, he's a great guy. He's nice. He takes care of ladies. But he's also going to break the blockade.

[01:03:26.560] - Beth

Yeah.

[01:03:27.620] - Emma

And Ben chooses to stay with him rather try to escape with Mary and Althea. I think the implication is also that Mr. Dix gives Ben a role that feels important, and Ben is invested in the work. I think Elle doesn't understand it, but she's also like, This is a complicated part where it's like, Yeah, if you've been subjugated your entire life, it's hard to go out, leave the one person who's maybe giving you a little bit more self-worth. It was like, we don't know what Ben would be doing if he left. He feels like he's in this more professional capacity, almost. He's doing things other than manual labor for Mr. Dix. It's all these things that give him a sense of worth and self. We don't know what he would be doing if he was a free person. I think he has trouble of imagining what that would be like and the wolf you know is better. Also, escaping is also dangerous. Mariah and Elle are in acute danger when they're trying to escape. So Ben has to do that, like calculus, and his calculus comes out to a different than Elle and Mary's. And Elle doesn't understand that, but she also has to be like, That's his reality. And I think it's a tough part to read.

[01:04:42.280] - Emma

So we talked a little bit about Susie already, but I wanted to talk about... Because this white woman who is trying to seduce the hero reminded me a lot of Beverly Jenkins's Forbidden, which is what we covered in our Taxonomy of Rakes episode. So in that one, there's a white woman villain who's interested in the white passing hero, and she ends up a source of a violent threat in the story. She tries to kill Eddy the Heroine. But one frustration or surprise that I had in this book, I'm still not sure how I feel about this. I think I need to reread Forbidden to decide how I feel about it. Jenkins ultimately portrays Natalie's jealousy of Edie the heroine, and by extension, her racism as coming from a mental illness. Natalie is pretty vile throughout the book, but then in the last scene that she appears, she tries to kill the heroine, and the action is framed as a symptom of a mental break, basically. I think with Cole, Susie is just unapologetically racist. This is just something that is true about her character. It's not that she is missing information or she's losing sense of self.

[01:05:42.960] - Emma

She doesn't get the softening of her racism or behavior. She's cruel to Elle because she wants to be cruel. She endangers Malcolm because he didn't give her what she wanted. I appreciate that Susie doesn't do this because she discovers Elle and Malcolm or something, which I felt like was where we were going. I assumed that would be the obvious plot point that Susie discover Elle and Malcolm doing something together, even just showing a sliver of affection, and that would cause Susie to betray them. But Susie just decides that she's had enough of Malcolm yanking her chain and is like, I'm going to accuse you of sexual assault because that's how I'm going to get what I want. There are definitely other villains there, but Susie is the one that we spend the most time with. I think the one that's the most interesting, considering that she is the person that might be the heroine in a romance novel in another timeline. This is the character who we could imagine in these Civil War books in the '80s. She's the well-to-do daughter of a Confederate family. The Union soldier comes and they have this enemy-to-lovers relationship.

[01:06:39.490] - Emma

An author who's more interested in romanticizing the Antebellum South would have this picturesque view of what Susie's life was before the Civil War and pair her with a Union soldier. So I just thought to her, explicit racism and also that she's just doing these things because she wants to do them, not because she's suffering suffering. I thought it was good that Cole didn't pull punches with her, and also because she has this precedent in historical romance.

[01:07:09.080] - Beth

Right. So I was thinking of what you were saying about Jenkins and having the racism have an origin in a way. So there's this moment in the book that I see as Susie's origin story, although it's not really that, because it's just over her life, she would have been indoctrinated into believing this racial hierarchy and being racist. So at this point in the book, it's Althea. She's introducing Elle to her cousin Ben. He's just arrived. And she's like, Isn't this cool? Elle pushed Susie, and she didn't even get punished for it. And then Ben responds. They probably looked at Elle's face and they couldn't make her cry because he's complimenting her. Then Althea says, Susie didn't always used to be such a heifer. We used to play together every day. But when she had her debut, she became too much of a lady to talk to the likes of me. The girl tried to say the words breasily, but Elle could see the hurt in her eyes. Althea had lost a friend and gained a calloused mistress. It was a story Elle had heard often enough to know that it was a pain that could never be healed.

[01:08:15.580] - Beth

It didn't always turn out that way, though. Her mother's friendship with the master's son had opened the boy's heart and eventually led to the freedom for her family and the other slaves he inherited. But her family's story was all too rare. So The origin story for Susie is just this lifetime of, Okay, yeah, you could play with these black children when you're young, but now that you're supposed to be a lady and live this certain life, you need to be indoctrinated into this certain belief. I'm thinking of what Chels said, where it's like, We don't want to see ourselves as inherently bad, but I don't think we want to see these people as inherently bad. Susie in another life with another information diet and Like, surroundings probably wouldn't have turned out to be this racist monster. And I don't want to beg. I think someone could live through this life and still maybe become an abolitionist. I'm not saying... She was definitely going to always be this way with that life. But yeah, I just- Wait, just the cause and effect is holistic.

[01:09:24.140] - Emma

It's both Susie's personality that maybe derives pleasure from... I mean, you could imagine her being mean girl and not being super racist. Those two things are different traits, but they're manifesting in the same way. It's like she could have taken the cruelty that her mother enacts on her and say, Actually, I'm not going to do that. But it's all these things together. I think that's the thing with Natalie and Forbidden where it could be that way, but then I feel like in that last scene with her, we get this reason that's too neat. Maybe it works in the narrative, but it's like that's... Unless the context... Susie feels like it applies to more people. There were lots of people in the South who were very racist and owned and saved people and were cruel to them who were not mentally ill. They just were in their circumstances and made the wrong decisions to perpetuate that system. It feels like Susie is a better avatar for a bigger swath of the community that lets this institution continue.

[01:10:23.740] - Chels

Yeah, I guess when I was reading Forbidden, I saw Natalie's main thing as being her racist entitlement. She's seeing this man who she thinks is a white man, and she deserves him. This is her birthright. This is what she deserves. So I think the conflict in Forbidden, the way I saw it, is the escalation, I guess, is maybe the mental illness, the break. But it's throughout the book, it's just dealing with what she thinks that she deserves because of how she was born and her status. And that's... So I don't really see it as that different, maybe as you do. I think that I can see them in conversation with each other. And I think I see what Jenkins was doing there. Although I know it's like it can be tough having mental illness being an explainer for violence. I think that can also can always be something that's a little bit Yeah, I guess I just saw Natalie.

[01:11:30.860] - Emma

It's like I could see her because she's pretty vile throughout the book. I was like, I could see this developing into violence without this being a reason given in the narrative. It's this possession she feels over... What does his name start with an R? Rian. Her possession over him and the extreme jealousy she feels for a dark-skinned Black woman. I feel like that could still... Like with Susie, we see her be violent. I think they definitely are in conversation with each other. I think that's a good way to put it.

[01:11:58.030] - Chels

I found that quite similar in in the way that they were written. I do really like the way that Cole wrote Susie. You have that scene at the beginning of the book where Susie's mom is berating her and eventually slapping her. And then in turn, Susie takes her frustration with that moment on L. So it's this thing. It's this thing that you could be seeing as like, oh, this is sympathetic, but then you immediately see how L, or you immediately see how Susie turns around and externalizes that. And then L, because of this,Elleknows not to underestimate Susie. But this is one of the, again, the big mistakes that Malcolm makes. I think when thinking about Susie, I think Malcolm is just so important in the way that he's viewing the world because he gets so much wrong in the way that Cole draws attention to that, I think it's just really well written. So Susie's white womanhood is the threat, her perceived innocence and vulnerability. But Malcolm doesn't see that. Malcolm starts to pity her, and he thinks that she's just pathetic. So he isn't seeing He understands Susie as what she is, which is like a calculating and ruthless person, and that pity that he feels for her lets him think that she will be more easily manipulated by flirt.

[01:13:09.860] - Chels

He knows it's dangerous to be discovered as a spy. That's obviously going to lead to his death. But what he doesn't know is that Susie's displeasure is just as dangerous. So he lets himself be careless. And that seems like a very rookie mistake for a spy to be making, to not really, to to underestimate someone as a potential threat. Like, And he's capable of seeing L. He's capable of seeing whatEllecan do. But he's not... He's still thinking about Susie as just this helpless, pitiful creature. And because of that, he doesn't think that she's going to take him down the way that she does.

[01:13:52.990] - Emma

Right. Yeah. He's careless with Susie by understanding. Because, yeah, I really thought that it was going to be careless because with his affection with Elle, they were going to get caught, and that was going to cause the conflict. But it's like, he just underestimates her. I don't think anyone in the family ends up knowing Elle and Malcolm's relationship ever. It's like, he burns his last name. They can't use his last name anymore because of the things that were revealed about Malcolm. Malcolm's carelessness is the problem that makes him have to change his identity and take on Elle's last name. He gave us Malcolm Burns because Malcolm McCall doesn't work anymore because he was revealed as what they think is either... I guess because they think he was assaulting Susie. So his carelessness is the one that makes him change his identity. It's something that Elle would not do. Elle would not have underestimated Susie.

[01:14:43.800] - Emma

Okay, so to get back to Malcolm and Elle, and we talked about our side of characters. I want to talk about both his Scottish immigrant identity and Elle's identity as a Northern freed woman, because I think Cole does a really good job. They're both displaced people in a way, but they're also both identifying as Americans and their loyalty to Lincoln and the Union.

[01:15:04.660] - Emma

I think Elle's identity as a Northern freed woman, and the way that Cole writes that is distinct from the people who are not necessarily identifying as slaves, but are not yet freed. She distinguishes that from the people around her. And Elle has to hold on to this freed status in moments of crisis. She remembers her parents. There's a scene where she is waxing poetic about the leaves in New England and how she misses the fall in New England. It's like, yeah, if you were moved to the south and you were invested in the weather where you grew up, those would be different. And so this surface level setting things for her about being from the north, even though she was born enslaved and is free. She doesn't really remember that part of her life. She mostly remembers being raised as a freed woman. I think both have these identities that are displaced works really well. Then also the tension between what Malcolm sees those being in line is like, Oh, we're both displaced.

[01:15:58.300] - Emma

She's like, well, it's It's completely different. There are similarities, and then there's also distinctions. I think that how she has them have conversations about that worked really well. So thoughts about their displaced identities.

[01:16:11.990] - Chels

We talked about this in a Caribbean Heiress in Paris a little bit, but it's not lost on me that authors who aren't white have a much more interesting and complex view of white Scottish historical heroes, who are typically written to be the more ethical version of English heroes because of the oppression that they suffered at the hands of the English. So Malcolm is one of the many Scottish people whose families immigrated to America during the clearances. That's what you were referring to earlier, Emma. This is when people were forcibly evacuated, sometimes with extreme violence, like burning their homes around them by their landlords in order to make room for sheep farming. The clearance has decimated the Highlands in ways that they've never recovered from. If you've heard someone say that landscapes are violent, this is what it means. You can draw and paint these gorgeous, wide open empty spaces because it's privately owned and nobody else is allowed to live there. So Malcolm, as a Scottish immigrant, has this sense of bitterness towards the elite, like the people in power who trot over others. And his interest in preserving the Union comes from defeating these Southern quasi-aristocrats.

[01:17:16.990] - Chels

But Elle makes him question his intentions early on with her criticism of Sir Walter Scott. So we spoke about Scott in our Hold Fast episode. Scott was a Scottish romantic writer whose works like Ivanhoe, Waverly, and Rob Roy Malcolm says that his mother had him recite Scott's works when he was growing up, and then Elle responds that it's surprising then that he fights for the Union. Elle then quotes a piece from Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi. But for the Sir Walter Scott disease, the character of the Southerner would be wholly modern, in place of modern and medieval mixed, and the South would be fully a generation further advanced than it is. So Twain's critique here is that in the early 19th century, the French Revolution, and after Napoleon, recalibrated how we look at people's place in the world. We're breaking up big regimes and putting merit over birth. But then when Sir Walter Scott's books become popular, there's this romanticization of the old world feudal societies. And because of that, Sir Walter Scott was very popular in the American South. The very next line is this from Twain, It was Sir Walter that made every gentleman in the South a major or a colonel or a general or a judge before the war.

[01:18:28.980] - Chels

And it was he also that made these gentlemen value these bogus declarations, for it was he that created rank and cast down there, and also reverence for rank and cast, and pride and pleasure in them. Enough is laid on slavery without fathering upon it these creations and contributions of Sir Walter. So what Cole is doing with this interaction is that Malcolm is using Scott's beautiful romantic words to try to woo El, and then Elle in turn points to the violence in these words that he's not seeing. Like they have completely different experiences experiences and relationship to Sir Walter Scott. And I thought that was a really great way to... Yeah, Malcolm is coming in here and being like, Yeah, we have similar experiences. And then Elle is like, No.

[01:19:15.120] - Emma

I think that's also you could see where... It's like, Yeah, Elle... I guess another frustration I had with Malcolm is that he's like, Oh, Elle knows more Sir Walter Scott than I do. It's like, She knows more Walter Scott, but she also knows more about Walter Scott. That's the thing. It's like, She's also better at interpreting the poems than he is. Initially, he thinks the skill is her ability to continue reciting more, and he's like, Oh, you've read more. You know more of these things. But she also... This ability to interpret it and apply it differently is also a skill that I think takes him longer to recognize. But also, I think it's a skill that Elle doesn't necessarily characterize as a skill. She doesn't realize that that is as much a part of her intelligence as her memory, the ability to contextualize these things together.

[01:20:00.340] - Emma

Okay, so I want to talk a little bit about the history of the Pinkertons. I think this is the first book we read that has a Pinkertons because you don't do that many books set in America. Because especially when I heard that there was a Pinkertons in this book, I was like, Oh, I think of Pinkertons as one specific way.

[01:20:15.450] - Emma

I read a little bit more about the history of them, what they were doing during the Civil War, because this word has a shorthand for something that isn't really part of what's going on in the novel here because of when the book is set. So Pinkertons, I think, are most infamous for their actions in the late 19th and 20th century as a private security hired by businesses to infiltrate unions and strike break. So if any listener has seen the Gilded Age, where the workers in the Pittsburgh strike, I think it's in the first season, George Russell, who's the big billionaire who lives in New York, has hired security to go break up the strike. Their security does two warning shots, and then it's very tense for a second, you think someone's going to die. But then George Russell, benevolent billionaire, appears and balks as the owner before there's actual violence. But the strike that this is based on is the Homestead Strike of 1892, where the strikers actually fought the Pinkerton strike breakers very violently, and there are quite a few Pinkerton strike breakers died. But then the governor of Pennsylvania calls in the National Guard to side with the Pinkertons, and they shut down the strike.

[01:21:11.110] - Emma

This strike is seen as a huge blow to the movement to mobilize and unionize steelworkers, and it's a real embarrassing low point in the history of the United States suppressing labor movements. It just turns the tide against public opinion against a lot of unions. This is the most infamous Pinkerton strikebreaking, but they do it all the time. They're hired as private security by billionaires like Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, to go suppress strikes in unions. And also they would go undercover to be in unions so they could get information about unions. But Malcolm's involvement in the Pinkertons is in their early days. So Alan Pinkerton was a Scottish immigrant, and which we see referenced in the book, and saw the need for a National Investigative Service in the United States as trains became a bigger part of transportation in the United States in the 1850s. So they investigated things like train robberies, and then were also somewhat for businesses controlling their employees at this point, but that becomes less of a... It's not as codified as later, and I think it's maybe less explicitly evil because I mostly think of Pinkerton as shorthand for very evil private investigators.

[01:22:13.410] - Emma

But when the Civil War started, Pinkerton was In communication with abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and John Brown, he takes credit for giving John Brown the clothes that he died in. Though, Pinkerton also took credit for lots of things that maybe he didn't actually do. He ends up being appointed the head of the Union Intelligence Service. As a referenced in the book, he helps prevent an assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the so-called Baltimore plot. The actual threat of this plot is contested. It seems like some historians think that Pinkerton is maybe overstating them or overstated things to Lincoln to give him this buy-in with the Union and the intelligence service. But whether it was true or not, Lincoln did take this threat seriously and acted based on Pinkerton's recommendations. While Pinkerton's name is primarily associated with strike-breaking, his detectives and agents did serve as Union agents during the war, undercover like Malcolm. But I also wanted to talk about how the espionage works here. I think when it comes to secret keeping plots, there's a level of trust that is usually the source of conflict. That isn't quite what is happening here. Malcolm, in particular, never has a reason not to trust Elle.

[01:23:14.030] - Emma

But even as Elle is acknowledging that Malcolm is suspect because of his race and, again, some of the mistakes that he's made that we've talked about, and his ease that he fits into the Confederate family she's serving, and the possibility of him being a double agent, she has those thoughts and then still mostly trusts herself to judge him appropriately, and also acknowledges that in order to do what she needs to do, she has to work with him because he is able to move through the group that they're in easier than she is. And so they work together and they share information. And while we're obviously big miscommunication defenders here, I liked that the third act conflict wasn't like, Elle misinterprets Malcolm's actions and feels betrayed by him. That felt like sometimes where we were going, that she would earnestly think that he was a double agent in a moment or something. So I thought we could talk about both Malcolm's role as an agent and how Cole shapes the conflict with the undercurrent of espionage while having this pretty quick rapport and trust between the couple.

[01:24:08.660] - Chels

Yeah, I think there's a lot of tension between their roles as spies that they're forced to play. Like, Elle is undercover as an enslaved housekeeper, but being undercover does not negate the material reality that she's being treated as and expected to react as someone who's enslaved and therefore, demanded subservience from. And then Malcolm is undercover as a Confederate soldier. So not only does he have to ingratiate himself with these horrible people in order not to blow both of their covers, he needs to disrespect Elle, which he repeatedly does in front of her. So no matter how much Elle knows that this is for her own safety's benefit, it still stings. And she gets upset seeing him flirt with Susie, her tormenter, while he has to publicly treat Elle as a non-entity. And then Malcolm also has feelings about this, too. But the problem is that he wants Elle to assuage his guilt around the role. So he wants to put another burden onto her in order to make himself more comfortable in this role that he's got. So she already has a lot to do. She can't take on his feelings as well. So there's this conflict where Malcolm realizes the undue burden put on El, but has trouble stopping himself of asking more of her like you would from a partner.

[01:25:25.790] - Chels

But it's like, he's jumping the gun a little bit. And so I think that's where a lot of the conflict in this book comes from, at least between Elle and Malcolm in their role as spies, is just what do we owe of each other? What do we expect of each other? And then having to recalibrate both for their personal safety and then also just to communicate their value to each other.

[01:25:50.640] - Beth

Yeah. I like what you mentioned about that Malcolm is constantly in a situation where he has to disrespect Elle. And I felt like that was even Just on its face is a bad thing that they both have to go through. But then I thought with her memory, when you're trying to fall asleep at night and you review all the worst things that you've ever done. I can't imagine. What if that was a thing? You're happily married, but then you had that random thought of that time he disrespected you when you guys were spies. It's just a weird thought I had, but I was like, it'd be like the stakes are higher because she like, does remember things so well. She won't forget it.

[01:26:36.560] - Emma

She won't soften it either. I think sometimes you have a memory, you're like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to replay this in my mind and change little bits, and that will be the new memory. But I don't think she has access to that ability. She's always going to remember the real thing.

[01:26:51.010] - Beth

Yeah, I just feel like it up the stakes a bit. And I do love that Cole has them fall for each other quickly. And that also still raises the stakes because they're spies. I feel like I say this every other episode where I want this book to be a movie or a show, but I feel like the tension of just... Or the scariness of, what if you just gave each other too significant of a look in public? I probably would fast forward through it, if I'm going to be honest, because I wouldn't be able to handle it. But I want this book to be a show. Malcolm poses a threat to Elle. And even when they start to get to know each other and she starts to understand his intentions, even when she knows they're on the same side, he still poses a threat to her. So near the beginning of the book, Elle is questioning Malcolm, why is he doing this? Why is he fighting for abolition? And then she says she knows why she's doing it. And then she has this thought. Many of the abolitionists Elle had encountered during her time on the anti-slavery circuit had been kind people, but just as many hadn't viewed her any more highly than a slave master would.

[01:28:09.490] - Beth

Slavery was a cause to them, a crusade, and they couldn't be bothered to care about the spoils of war. Some of them only objected on the basis that slavery led to the corruption of the white race and could give two figs what happened to the slaves once the institution was demolished. Although any help was better than none, her chest tightened at the possibility Malcolm fell into that category. So, yeah, I don't know. I feel like there's just so many layers of fraughtness. Even when you feel like you should feel comfortable with someone, it's just, it's never how it's going to be for Elle in that position.

[01:28:47.380] - Emma

Do they come back in the other Loyal League book? I was interested to see how their relationship manifests, what it looks like when they've been together for a longer while, because we don't get them Like together, together until the very end. Because I know Daniel is the third book, and so I imagine that Elle is there a little bit. Daniel is her first beau who we haven't talked about, but he proposes to her, but he insists that she leaves spy work in order to do this. At that point, she's like, I'm not willing to do anything to risk my job. My job is more important than anything. It's not until she meets Malcolm that she... I think she still lands on that idea that the cause is more important than even their individual relationship. But I think Malcolm is the first person that makes her question that. But Daniel is the hero, I think, of the third book. So I imagine they come back a little bit for that because he's betrayed by Elle's marrying a white man.

[01:29:41.150] - Chels

Yeah, I don't... Sorry, it's been so long. I don't remember. I know. I know that. I know they're probably, they're referenced at the very least.

[01:29:49.780] - Emma

I know we do. In the epilogue, we see her meet his family. And again, in the family, we see his mother is very willing to accept Elle immediately while his sister is a little bit more standoffish. It also implies that his sister is just standoffish. It may not matter that Elle is Black. It may just be that Donnella is... She's a hoiden. She wears pants. She's stealing her brother's clothes.

[01:30:12.790] - Chels

The second book is Malcolm's Brother.

[01:30:15.540] - Emma

Right. Who's been imprisoned. Yeah, the book ends with a letter from Ewan who's in a Confederate prison, but we don't know which one. And that will be the second book. So any other thoughts about this book? It was great. I really enjoyed I know I'm always like, anti-reading American books, but this one I would read more Alyssa Cole American books. I also I would be interested in reading her civil rights era books because that's just like, I like when things are in different time periods. And I think I feel like that may be singular. I know Cat Sebastian has written some 20th century ones. I know. But I think any 20th century is just is rare.

[01:30:53.020] - Chels

I'm not anti-American books. I'm anti-gilded age that is a Victorian because I think that's a lot of the gilded I've read, I was just like, what's the point? Yeah.

[01:31:02.780] - Emma

I can't read something set in New York.

[01:31:04.220] - Chels

Patricia Gaffney has a gilded age in New York. That's really... I mean, it's mostly about domestic violence. It's good. It's got some flaws, but it's Gaffney. It's really emotional. It's basically in the Gaffney, she's married to this extremely wealthy titan of industry who can't really... Who's like, he wants... He marries this like a aristocratic woman to ingratiate himself with these certain circles, but it doesn't end up working. And he's very abusive. And so this is... It's actually a cheating book. Oh, oh. Because she falls in love with the architect who's hired to build his make a mansion.

[01:31:41.780] - Emma

That's very sexy.

[01:31:44.500] - Chels

It's really, it's really tense. It's really fraught because she has a son. But yeah, no, I've been reading a lot more American set romances this year.

[01:31:56.660] - Emma

I would like to read more Western. Because I did like the Janety Dailey, like epic family Westerns. But those, I think, those were interesting. I guess when I say, I don't want to read something American, I don't want to read a Regency set in America, which I feel like is what the Gilded Age is. I'm like, this is something for me.

[01:32:15.550] - Chels

That's literally my feeling. I'm just like, whenever I see Gilded Age, I'm like, boo. I don't know. It doesn't feel like it's materially different enough for me because there's a lot of American history that's fascinating. I don't know. There was one Gaffney I read where it had a lot of stuff about the Audubon Society in there. And I'm like, that's so fun. I don't know. There's a lot that you can do with it. It's just I think that... Yeah, I don't know. If you're going to write an American set. I want to read about different people, different organizations. Maybe something that I didn't know. I think that would be more exciting to me. Or even Westerns, because Westerns have their own feel and flavor to them. Like But yeah. So I don't know. I think what I'm against is the collapse of all historical romance into Regency/Victorian, which I think is what we're seeing now. I don't enjoy that.

[01:33:16.140] - Emma

Well, it's like, even when we talk about the way we talk about wallpapers, it's like you can write a Regency wallpaper because there are lots of Regency books. It's hard to write a non-Regency wallpaper or non-Regency Victorian wallpaper. But then what happens with the Gilded Age is because of similar gowns ballrooms and things. It's like you get those wallpaper qualities, and it's like, well, you could set it in the Gilded Age and talk about things that are different than the Regency, but it's still effectively a wallpaper. It's like, well, I could just read a Regency wallpaper that's probably going to be more of that. If I'm reading a wallpaper, I want to read a wallpaper that is a good wallpaper. It's good of being a wallpaper. It has those functionalities and connections to the genre and the history of the regency genre. While a Guided Age wallpaper is just a wallpaper displaced. Or we Or we could just say, If you're to write a book in America, it has to be good. Which is like, I feel like what Alyssa Cole is doing. It's like she's writing good books. Okay. I think that's it for An Extraordinary Union, which was fascinating and wonderful.

[01:34:13.280] - Emma

Thank you so much for listening to Reformed Rakes. If you enjoyed the podcast, you can find bonus episodes, recommendations, and more on our Patreon at patreon. Com/reformedrakes. Please rate and review us on Apple and Spotify. It helps a lot. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram for show updates. The username for both is at Reformed Rakes. Thank you again, and we'll see you next time.