Black Historical Romance Quotes

There's much more to black history than pain and hard times, and romance authors, more than anyone else, know it. A writer friend told me that's what he thinks some people outside of the culture don't get about blackness: the sheer joy of it, especially given so many are only fixated on the struggle. Black romance thrives on complexity and nuance, on black solidarity and achievement, on the triumph of everyday life lived well, in spite of the odds.
-Black Romance Novels Matter Too. Shondaland 2/22/20 ~ Carole V. Bell

Katie shook her head in dismay. "I thought being poor was the worst thing that could happen to a girl."
"No, Katie," the countess said in a clear voice. "The worst thing is to be in love with one man and have to marry another."
Katie O'Reilly to the Countess of Marbury in "Titanic Rhapsody ~ Jina Bacarr

Strange how a tiny hand could make the weight of his new responsibilities feel like a boulder on his chest. ~ Margaret Mallory

Turn around and I'll help you with your mask."
He secured the ribbons, and when Annella spun around to face him, he brought her gloved hand to his lips. "You look beautiful. And you do not look like a twelve-year old girl. Make sure you stay close because you're too young to have a suitor, and I don't want to have to dissuade any men from pursuing you. ~ Victoria Roberts

Happy? Most of the time? Happiness is always a fleeting thing," he said, "It never rests upon anyone as a permanent state, though many of us persist in believing in the foolish idea that if this would just happen or that we would be happy for the rest of our lives. I know moments of happiness just as most other people do. Perhaps I have learned to find it in ways that would pass some people by. I feel the summer heat here at this moment and see the trees and the water and hear that invisible gull overhead. I feel the novelty of having company when I usually come here alone. And this moment brings me happiness. ~ Mary Balogh

technology should never be allowed to outrun morality. ~ Lina J. Potter

We always have to go backward to move forward. Whether it's to face our own missteps or reach the end of our lives with a final mistake... We always have to go back to pull ourselves out of ignorance or cast ourselves deeper into revenge. ~ Amy Rachiele

[A]ll these years, I had been telling myself that my feelings for you were a juvenile infatuation; a dream inspired by my secret hope that somewhere there could be a creature who could love me. ~ Kellyn Roth

Caught the Viking looking at this. He's wife hunting." He winked at Frey before glancing down at Trudy. "Better than trying to capture one."
Frey sent Seth a mock scowl. "I left my battle axe at home. ~ Debra Holland

Oh! my dearest love, why are our pleasures so short and so interrupted? How long is this to last?
Know you, my best Mary, that I feel myself, in your absence, almost degraded to the level of the vulgar and impure. I feel their vacant, stiff eyeballs fixed upon me, until I seem to have been infected with their loathsome meaning
to inhale a sickness that subdues me to languor. Oh! those redeeming eyes of Mary, that they might beam upon me before I sleep! Praise my forbearance
oh! beloved one
that I do not rashly fly to you, and at least secure a moment's bliss. Wherefore should I delay; do you not long to meet me? All that is exalted and buoyant in my nature urges me towards you, reproaches me with the cold delay, laughs at all fear and spurns to dream of prudence. Why am I not with you? ~ Michael Kelahan

He drew her into his arms, gathering her close, and dusted kisses over her cheek, her hair. Wrapped in his embrace, Laurien closed her eyes, murmuring a sigh of exquisite satisfaction. A delightful drowsiness overtook her and she gave in to it, snuggled securely against Darach's chest, lying on a stolen wolf pelt, in the hold on a ship of thieves. ~ Shelly Thacker

Before her, with sharp blue eyes and perfectly coiffed blond hair, was Josephine Marie Elizabeth Cavendish, Her Grace, the Duchess of Durham, widow of the fifth duke, and aunt to the Cavendish siblings.
One did not call her Josie. Amelia had asked. ~ Maya Rodale

We men had a meeting a long time ago, and we all decided, 'It's trousers'. And that's what we've worn ever since. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I'm mostly a historical romance reader, but I never miss a Susan Elizabeth Phillips book. Her characters are larger than life and heartbreakingly real at the same time. I don't know how she does it. ~ Julia Quinn

My outlook has changed, Antonia. Last year this time, I'd bemoaned the ruined hay." He shrugged. "Now I know what real loss is. So I'm seeing things differently. ~ Debra Holland

Except I was hoping someday to see you standing on a ship's deck in your shirtsleeves with a cutlass between your teeth."

"Maybe it can be arranged ~ Melanie Dickerson

She strove for poised composure, despite feeling like a powerless pawn in a despicable game of human chess, played for the amusement of those who enjoyed tragic endings at the expense of someone else's happiness - no - their very existence. ~ Collette Cameron

You are a lusty laddie, are you not?" She rocked her hips beneath him, mewling softly. "Show me how lusty you are. ~ Amy Jarecki

I should never have expected loyalty from a Douglas," he spat out. He turned his back on her and went to the window. ~ Margaret Mallory

Men fight like men. Women fight like unchained demons. ~ Heather Blanton

A hand stole around her mouth, silencing her, then his lips parting her tumbled hair: "The walls have ears."
She blinked, and for the first time, looked around. A thin beam of light beneath what may have been a door. That was all. When he released her, she endeavored to match his own, barely audible tone. "Do the walls understand English? ~ V.S. Carnes

This was raw. This was primal. This was real. ~ Angela Quarles

What have I done to her?" Gabriel muttered to himself as he crossed the room to crank open a window. Cool air washed over his skin. "What the devil did she do to me? ~ Olivia Parker

Her gaze collided with the duke's. His eyes were a clear, pale green. Why was he staring so intently when there was hardly another woman less interesting than she? ~ Carolyn Jewel

Beware, lion's lady, for your predator is hungry tonight. He may not wait long before devouring you." "Devouring me?" she asked, challenge gleaming in her eyes. "What if I devour him first? ~ Shelly Thacker

And there are no words left, try as men may, to describe that little death, that incandescent instant when, transacted with mutual love, there is no difference between sweet submission and exquisite conquest. ~ Isolde Martyn

And then she fell into his arms. It was what he'd dreamed of on sleepless nights, holding her, feeling the press of her breasts to his chest, the flare of her hips in his hands. He forgot all about where they were, why they were alone together. He forgot the risk of his dishonor and her ruin. There was still a corrupt beast inside him, waiting for this chance. All that mattered was that they were alone, and she was with him, and he wished he never had to let her go. ~ Gayle Callen

A witty vicar once said that a good marriage is like a pair of scissors with the couple inseparable joined, often moving in opposite directions, yet always destroying anyone who comes between them. The trick is for the blades to learn to work smoothly together, so as not to cut each other. ~ Mary Jo Putney

Bernard was to remember this moment for the rest of his life. As they drank from their water bottles he was struck by the recently concluded war not as a historical, geopolitical fact but as a multiplicity, a near-infinity of private sorrows, as a boundless grief minutely subdivided without diminishment among individuals who covered the continent like dust, like spores whose separate identities would remain unknown, and whose totality showed more sadness than anyone could ever begin to comprehend; a weight borne in silence by hundreds of thousands, millions, like the woman in black for a husband and two brothers, each grief a particular, intricate, keening love story that might have been otherwise. It seemed as though he had never thought about the war before, not about its cost. He had been so busy with the details of his work, of doing it well, and his widest view had been of war aims, of winning, of statistical deaths, statistical destruction, and of post-war reconstruction. For the first time he sensed the scale of the catastrophe in terms of feeling; all those unique and solitary deaths, all that consequent sorrow, unique and solitary too, which had no place in conferences, headlines, history, and which had quietly retired to houses, kitchens, unshared beds, and anguished memories. This came upon Bernard by a pine tree in the Languedoc in 1946 not as an observation he could share with June but as a deep apprehension, a recognition of a truth that dismayed him into silenc ~ Ian McEwan

Ned seemed so different from any other man of her acquaintance, and, certainly, the antithesis of the rake she had set her sights on. She had chosen DeVere as her best prospect, yet after only this short time in Ned's company, she couldn't help fervently wishing that he was DeVere. She should feel triumphant that her goal was within easy reach ... In truth, it was as if her appetite had been whetted for beefsteak ... only to be served liver instead.
-A WILD NIGHT'S BRIDE ~ Victoria Vane

She was dangerous. I'd heard the rumors, that she had a history as a wild woman, that she'd been married to a gambler, maybe even been one herself, that her past was scandalous at best. But who was I to judge? My past was littered with scandal. ~ Margaret Madigan

It didn't take long for her to help him remove his armor.
She gestured to the pallet. "Lie down."
"Not yet." He pulled her into his arms and held her against his chest. This is what he was fighting for. Not just for himself, but for all men to hold their women in their arms - and to raise families free from tyranny. ~ Amy Jarecki

And the only hope-perhaps the real hope he'd been missing all along-was found in God. ~ Jody Hedlund

My composition often goes toward the black middle class or the black super-wealthy or strong historical black figures. ~ Rashid Johnson

It was not an unusual site to see Negro tenant farmers crossing the intersection of Spring and Barbrick on the way to the cotton warehouse ~ Nancy B. Brewer

I followed the curious intensity behind those dark blue eyes and the moment his eyes changed. Suddenly, my world felt terribly small, like I'd experienced merely a handful of what it had to offer. ~ Abigail Wilson

A woman on the verge of moral downfall ought to be well dressed. Claire's particular transgression was gartered to her thigh, a paper hidden by yards of silk. She walked through the empty alley, confident in one comforting truth: no one dared ask a lady what her skirts concealed... ~ Gina Conkle