Wild Sweet Love by Beverly Jenkins
Author Note
During an event for the Lincoln branch of the Peoria Public Library, Angel Carson approached me with an idea for a book. She wanted a story involving a female outlaw. I paused to consider the idea. Recently, she confessed that she thought my pause meant she’d offended me, but that was not the case. Out of that encounter came Teresa July, who made her first appearance on the BJ stage in Something Like Love, published by Avon in 2006. Madison Nance made his debut in A Chance at Love (Avon 2002) and played a small but pivotal role in the story featuring lady gambler Loreli Winters.
I had a good time bringing the irrepressible Teresa to life in SLL, but had no idea who to pair her with until a talk with another sistafan, Dee Dee Graves, solved the problem. Many thanks to both Angel and Dee Dee for helping bring Wild Sweet Love to life.
One of the most famous female outlaws in the Old West was Belle Starr, who, according to sources, wore “buckskins…tight black jackets, a man’s Stetson with an ostrich plume and twin holstered pistols.” She managed to elude the law for many years but was finally brought to trial for robbery, and sentenced by Hanging Judge Isaac Parker in 1883. Belle served her time in the House of Corrections in Detroit, Michigan. She only served nine months, however, having earned a reprieve for good behavior, and returned to her home in Indian Territory. For the next six years she continued her outlaw ways, but a shotgun blast to the back ended her life on February 3, 1889, two days short of her forty-first birthday.
I chose Philadelphia as the setting for Wild Sweet Love because of the important role the city played in the race’s history. The battle between the Radicals and the Conservatives was very real and ultimately led to the formation of the NAACP. For more information on the issues and events of the day, please consult this partial list of sources:
W.E.B. Dubois. The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1899.
Mitch Kachun. Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808–1915. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst and Boston, 2003.
August Meier. Negro Thought in America 1880–1915. Ann Arbor Paperbacks, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1963.
Lane, Roger. William Dorsey’s Philadelphia and Ours. Oxford University Press, New York, New York, 1991.
In closing, let me say thanks again to my readers for all the support, love, and prayers. Without you all, I’d be nothing. The best way to get in touch with me and to receive a response is to e-mail through my Web site at www.beverlyjenkins.net. Until the next time, stay blessed everybody.
Sincerely,
B.