Shelf Love: Romance Novel Discourse

017. An Unconditional Freedom by Alyssa Cole with Katrina Jackson

Episode Summary

Katrina Jackson, erotic romance author by night, historian by day, joins the podcast. We read An Unconditional Freedom by Alyssa Cole, about reluctant spy partners working to bring down the Confederacy in the Civil War. Katrina shares her thoughts from her own research into love as an integral part of radical Black politics, the definition of “diaspora” and “interwar,” as well as all sorts of things you probably didn’t learn in history class. CW: We talk about the treatment of enslaved people in the Civil War, including a character’s PTSD as a result of being enslaved. This character has suicidal ideation.

Episode Notes

Sign up for the Shelf Love newsletter for bonus content!

Kat on social media:

Twitter: @KatrinaJax

Instagram: @KatJacksonBooks

Goodreads

Kat’s new books:

• Every New Year: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZS3ZL3P/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
  • (Andrea’s Twitter review: “High-heat contemporary m/f. For fans of that Keanu Reeves/Sandra Bullock movie with the letters in a mailbox. 2 Emotional Idiots (TM) (with believable character development) circle around each other for 18 years annually around NYE. Sex on top of a teddy bear A+”
• Grand Theft N.Y.E.: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Z268N51/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1
  • A con woman who is stealing. She meets a rich man who steals her heart so she steals his car.

Alyssa Cole

• Alyssa Cole’s episode: “Alyssa Cole Wants You to Use Your Power, Be An Emotional Badass - Wolf Rain by Nalini Singh”

Kat’s Formative Years in Romancelandia

• Ashwin by Kit Rocha: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30291044-ashwin
• Anne Rice’s Erotica: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sleeping_Beauty_Quartet

Kat’s influences:

• Rebekah Weatherspoon
• Alyssa Cole
• Beverly Jenkins
• Kit Rocha

An Extraordinary Union - first book in the Loyal League Series

History

Kat’s specialty is the African diaspora as a social movement historian.

#FallsOnLove Podcast (with Nicole Falls), where Kat said she doesn’t want to write historical romance.

Historical romance is really white/European.

Familial bonds: love as a particular Black radical organizing impetus

Students’ expectation of African American history = trauma

I think the article I was thinking of about change in social attitudes about LGTBQ people because “love was in place.”

But I think I was also drawing on listening to this Hidden Brain podcast episode about how selling same-sex marriage was key to the strategy for LGBTQ rights.

What this book does: Centers the story of the Civil War on the marginalized POV

Discussions of enslaved people in the book:

• Agency existed even without freedom/ability to truly consent (just because people used their limited choices to make their life better does not mean that “slavery was not that bad.”
• Janeta’s mother: Melancholy of freedom/separation from her community
• PTSD

You are worthy of being loved, not just because of how you serve other people’s needs.

You should read White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

WTF was up with working class white people at this time?

• Race and Class is the US
• Class doesn’t matter (as much as): Race does, in America
• This was one of the articles I read as I tried to understand the perspective of poor white people in the south (and why they felt invested in slavery):

Andrew Johnson = The Worst

Reconstruction is the roots of the public education system in America.

Rebel by Beverly Jenkins covers reconstruction/early public education. Discussed in episode 3 of Shelf Love.

The journey each goes through makes them able to enter into a healthy relationship = Kat wants more of this.

Reluctant Spy Partners:

• Kat Recommends:
  • Beverly Jenkins: Midnight (m/f - historical. The father is a Tory, the FMC is a spy for the Rebels) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7935443-midnight?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=jiJfji8PWm&rank=2
• Lust + Found Reads
  • Hither, Page - Cat Sebastian (m/m - historical)
  • Think of England - KJ Charles (m/m - historical)
• Felicia Davin recommends:
  • Ada Harper: A Conspiracy of Whispers (m/f - scifi/fantasy)