by Alyssa Cole
“I’m sorry,” Elle whispered.
“I am, too,” Malcolm replied in a low voice. “But I’m not the only crafty McCall. If there’s a way out of that place, Ewan will find it.”
They shared a dour dinner after that, and Malcolm was unusually quiet when she joined him in bed.
“Do you think things will ever be put aright?” he asked. “All of this devastation, all of this loss?”
She sidled up against him beneath their warm blanket. “I don’t know,” she said. “I want to tell you yes, but I can’t see into the future. The only thing I know for sure is that I love you, and I think I always will.”
He shifted in the darkness and the warmth of his lips pressed against her brow.
“You aren’t going to search that brain of yours for an appropriate quotation right now?” he asked.
She pressed into his palm as it smoothed over her body, the luxuriant caresses that signaled that the rest of the night would be spent making love, again and again.
“I did,” she replied peevishly. “No one’s ever written anything that captures how I feel about you. My paltry words will have to do.”
“Paltry?” he asked, shaking his head. “Perfect. I love you, too.”
Thoughts of the world and its struggles fell away as his lips feathered against hers and her fingers pressed into his shoulder blades. They were together, and that meant they could weather everything to come.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, I’d like to thank Esi Sogah, Michelle Forde, and the entire Kensington team for believing in this book and, just as importantly, for always letting me know that. Working with all of you is incredibly fulfilling!
I’d also like to thank Victoria Adams for loving Malcolm and Elle so much and inspiring a certain chapter in this book (you know which one).
My wonderful, tireless, and incredible agent, Courtney Miller-Callahan, for always knowing what to say, for being a fellow GIF lover, and for just being a damned awesome human being.
Katana, Derek, and Krista: my Brooklyn writing Squad and the best critique group I’ll ever encounter.
My raptors, for always pushing me forward with their gentle, yet razor-sharp raptor claws. You guys complete me, like various animal genes in a genetically modified dinosaur DNA strand.
My husband, Nicolas: Je t’aime, même quand je suis trop oc-cupé pour faire le lessive. Pleins de bisous!
Beverly Jenkins, for clearing the path for writers like me and for tirelessly representing POC in historical romance—and American history.
Finally, thanks to Ta-Nehisi and the Golden Horde/Black Republicans, for creating a space where I could lurk and grow into a historical romance author.
Loved An Extraordinary Union?
Keep an eye out for more from
Alyssa Cole
Coming soon from
Kensington Books
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I wasn’t supposed to write this book. When I first became serious about my writing, I decided that, although I loved reading historical romance, I’d best stay away from it. It would lead to too many feelings to untangle, too much unfairness to wrap up with a happy ending, given the kind of heroes and heroines I enjoy writing. Eventually, as I learned more about the history I’d never been taught in the classroom—beyond the simplified stories of George Washington Carver loving peanuts and Rosa Parks being tired—I realized it was important that more people write about the experiences of POC and marginalized people in historical settings, and that I’d like to be one of those people. But I’d never write about THAT.
The Civil War, that is. It’s still an open wound in this country—is it even history, really, when the effects of it still vibrate beneath the surface of American life? Too fraught. Too hard. Too draining.
But, it seems that once I decide something is off limits, it’s destined to happen. (I also told myself I wasn’t interested in dating French men, so you can already guess my husband’s nationality.) The more I learned about American history, 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. I also saw the possibility of extending the tropes of the Civil War beyond “brother fighting brother” and “swooning Southern belle,” two categories that conveniently left out a whole swath of people, generally of a darker hue.
Many things fed into the ideas that formed this book, but first and foremost was Ta-Nehisi Coates’s blog on The Atlantic, where he discussed the Civil War and its relation to American society in a series of blog posts spanning the end of 2008 until 2014. The blog posts, as well as the contributions of the commentariat that would come to be known as The Horde, deeply influenced my decision to write historical romance and to write specifically about the Civil War.
Many of the characters in this book are based, in part, on real-life historical figures. Elle is based on Mary Bowser, a former slave with an eidetic memory who was placed in Jefferson Davis’s White House to funnel information to the Union. Malcolm is based on Timothy Webster, one of Pinkerton’s top detectives during the war. Mary’s husband, Robert Grand, is based on Robert Smalls, a slave who was a brilliant river pilot and used this to his advantage. After stealing a Confederate war ship and codes, he led an illustrious career, which I will hopefully get to share with you later in this series.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following is a selection of the books used to research this novel:
Brock, Sallie A. Richmond during the War. New York: G. W. Carleton & Co., 1867.
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Boston: The Anti Slavery Office, 1845.
Jordan, Robert Paul. The Civil War. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 1969.
Lause, Mark A. A Secret Society History of the Civil War. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2011.
McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Pinkerton, Allan. The Spy of the Rebellion: being a true history of the spy system of the United States Army during the late rebellion, revealing many secrets of the war hitherto not made public. New York: G. W. Carleton & Co., 1883.
Pratt, Fletcher. The Civil War in Pictures. Garden City, NY: Garden City Books, 1955.
Van Doren Stern, Philip. Secret Missions of the Civil War. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1959.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
AN EXTRAORDINARY UNION
Alyssa Cole
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The suggested questions are included
to enhance your group’s reading of
Alyssa Cole’s An Extraordinary Union.
Discussion Questions
1. The lives of African-Americans during the Civil War are often presented as a single story: slaves who either escaped or were liberated by Union troops. Did the historically accurate portrayals in this book make you rethink some of the history you learned in school?
2. Elle is part of a society of African-Americans who aided the Union throughout the Civil War. Do you know of any African-American spies for the Union outside of Harriet Tubman?
3. Historically, the idea of the Southern belle has been seen as something to strive for. How does this An Extraordinary Union’s depiction of this archetype, based on several stories from the historical record, conflict with other pop culture representations?
4. Elle is reluctant to give in to her feelings for Malcolm because of the structure of society. Although consensual interracial relationships did exist at the time, discuss some things Elle would have had to take into consideration.
5. Malcolm’s relationship with his father colors much of his feelings about love. How does he overcome his hesitancy?
© Katana Photography
ALYSSA COLE is a science editor, pop culture nerd, and romance junkie who recently moved to the Caribbean and occasionally returns to her fast-paced NYC life. Her writing has been featured in publications including Vulture (New York magazine’s entert
ainment blog), Heroes and Heartbreakers, and The Toast. When she’s not busy writing, traveling, and learning French, she can be found watching anime with her real-life romance hero or tending to her herd of pets.