Night Song

03/12/19 • 52 min

Night Song by Beverly Jenkins - this is the first book by the First Lady of African American Romance, from 1994. Cara is a schoolmarm. Chase is a Buffalo Soldier. They do it. A lot. All over the house, y'all. All over the house. Also there are some murders.

There is no sexual assault in the present of this book; however, several characters tell the traumatic stories of their pasts under slavery and one does include rape. There's also a romance novel-y rape threat by the villain but it doesn't actually happen, and an equally romance novel-y miscarriage (no vivid details.)

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Silver Angel

Silver Angel by Johanna Lindsey is evidently a book about a troll doll with boobs. There are, let's see. Twins. Harems. Corsairs. A public fight about pubic waxing. Assassins. Eunuchs. Poisonings. A vizier.

As usual, you're definitely going to want to get a vintage copy with an older cover. What is it with these publishers reissuing these with the worst covers?

The trigger warnings on this are... complicated. There is no sexual assault actually happening in this book, surprisingly. (I did forget - there is one of those gross virginity test scenes.) But there is a lot of talk about it, a lot of it has happened in other places, there are a lot of threats, and it's just a general atmosphere of sexual fear. There's also... lord I don't know how to describe it, there's some... it's kink shaming and a deeply disturbing failure to understand the psychology of sexual violence and it's all very weird and upsetting.

Next Episode

Star Trek: Imzadi

We're going where we won't slut shame you if several men, a few women, and the odd salt vampire have gone before! We're talkin' bout Darmok and Jalad between the sheets! That's right - we read Imzadi!