Happy (Early) Thanksgiving!

This is will be a short, cheesy post. I just wanna give some love to all the authors of African American, multicultural, and interracial romance. You write the stories that I’ve always wanted to read when I was a teenager (back in the 80’s…shut up). All I had were my $1.49 (or was it $2.00?) Harlequin or Silhouette paperback romances with the glossy, portrait-like covers of a clean cut Barbie and Ken to keep me warm.

So, somebody told the big shots at Harlequin that “Hey, black women read romance too! Maybe we should start publishing books featuring black romance (in all it’s shades of glory). But see, they didn’t publish the books under the big umbrella, noooo…they gave us a little umbrella, and in 2006, Kimani Romance was born.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I discovered my first romance featuring an African American woman through Kimani, and I was overjoyed to finally see women who look like me on the cover, but I still felt the books were, um, what’s the word? Safe? Cookie-cutter? “Respectable?” I don’t know if these are the right choice of words, but the Harlequin footprint is what I call “family friendly” for lack of a better word. I’ve admittedly not read one in years, so I don’t know if they’ve changed or not, but this is what rocks my world now:

 

Thank God for the indie author. I love y’all! You bring it with each and every publication, and this is one of the things that I am thankful for. Sounds trivial, but books matter. Representation matters. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

 

•