Cover Image: Hamilton's Battalion

Hamilton's Battalion

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Hamilton's Battalion is a collection of three romances that take place during Hamilton's time. It would take me too long to recap but if you're a fan of swoony romances that feature compelling characters and Hamilton, I highly recommend this collection.

While the authors in this collection were all new-to-me, I utterly adored the stories and the writing and I can't wait to pick up some of their backlist titles. The romances were all wonderful and I definitely teared up at some points. I was so invested in all of the characters and I loved seeing the small ways the stories all connected.

Overall, Hamilton's Battalion was an utterly wonderful diverse collection of 3 short novellas that were all super swoony and definitely well-written. I highly recommend it!

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Positive things first: 3 authors that are famous for their social commitment have found a clever way to surf the Hamilton wave and create a common frame to deliver 3 well written historical romances filled with interesting issues about feminism, role of minorities in the forging of the USA as a nation, same-sex relationships, racial issues, etc. so if you like your chick lit to be something more than just a few hours escapism, this is your read. Plus the Hamilton/Turn touch, however very light, does not hurt.

The down side of this very challenging endeavour is that it sometimes sounds more like a political pamphlet than a romance anthology, with the overlapping of multiple issues (e.g. Judaism AND feminism, racial issues AND same-sex relationships) being a bit overwhelming for such short stories, however well structured. Furthermore, readers with more traditional tastes may not wish to buy a book where two thirds of the pages they pay for are dedicated to same-sex romances, which represent 2 out of the 3 stories in the collection. At least the present blurb is honest in that respect and everyone can make their informed choice.

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I was over the moon to get the ARC and it did not disappoint. On the contrary.

First of all, it's a really strong collection. I love that it combined m/f and two different queer romances (m/m and f/f). I enjoyed the way in which the stories worked with together to create a whole that was surprisingly coherent despite the very different tones of the separate stories. And I found the afterwords interesting and illuminating. And now, onto the three separate novellas.

The volume begins with Rose Lerner's Promised Land: a second chance romance between Rachel, who cross-dresses for the sake of taking part in the Revolution, and Nathan, a man from her past. The description suggests something lighter and more frivolous than what we actually get, which is a bittersweet, profound and heart-wrenching story full of emotion. It had amazing depth and the protagonists were even better than in the previous novel by Lerner I've read. They were extremely relatable, deeply sympathetic and yet completely human and imperfect. I loved how their conflict and relationship were depicted: I think second-chance can be a balancing act between trying to show that characters made a mistake not being together, so the hurt they'd wrought wasn't quite their fault or that deep, and yet making it believable that they didn't stay together in the first place, and often the result is that the cause of the break up may feel trivial. In this case, the past hurt is real but the affection is real as well. It was impressively filled with angst but done just right: I rooted for the characters and for the romance a lot, because of how hurt they were rather than despite it.

In addition, I can't not gush about the way in which Lerner wrote the physicality of the characters. The desire was believable and palpable and yet utterly non-gratuitous. There was so much eroticism with no objectification. It was beautiful, and I particularly liked how Lerner managed to actually subvert cliched attractiveness tropes (rather than, say, writing about a supposedly not beautiful character who, as we are told at every turn, is actually very conventionally attractive with a single flaw that's not really a flaw) and write features like bodily hair with love and without othering.

Finally, I loved the way Lerner wrote Jewishness in the story. It was integral, rounded the characters and the world they lived in well and was given so much care and attention and affection. Overall, this was one of my favourite Rose Lerner stories and one of the best romances I've read this year.

The second novella was by Courtney Milan. In Pursuit Of was much funnier and lighter than I'd have expected from the description or premise. Its story about Henry, a privileged, neuroatypical [I think?] white British aristocrat who can't stop talking (or lying) and John, an insightful and witty former slave, utterly unimpressed but amused despite himself, was delightful, gripping and just so adorable. It also featured some of the best unresolved sexual tension I've read in ages, and I don't say that lightly. The pining, it was real. I found the structure of the story a little uneven towards the end, and the way we got to the resolution didn't quite work for me, but it's a minor quibble - it's absolutely Courtney Milan at her very, very good if not necessarily best (that, for the record, would be The Suffragette Scandal, for me).

Also there was cheese. The cheese, it was amazing. (Must have been goat cheese, right?)

The third novella, by Alyssa Cole, entitled That Could Be Enough, unfortunately didn't impress me quite as much. There was a lot to love in it, but the pacing and the way in which information was revealed didn't grip me. The story follows an excellent pair of characters, reserved Mercy and glamorous Andromeda, two free Black women in post-Civil War New York. The way their life in New York and the social advancement and their emotions - anger and hope - are written felt really interesting and believable. I enjoyed how their struggle against upbringing and past hurt in Mercy's case, and present discrimination in Andromeda's, was an integral part of the story. But - and your milage may absolutely vary here - for me the romance was strangely abrupt, the conflict fabricated, the love a little flat. In addition, it was the only novella where I felt there were some editing issues (one scene had a strange shift in POV that I suspect was simply a mistake in names in chapter 8 - unless I'm very confused by what is happening in the flashback and whose parents are doing what - and a minor typo or two - but of course I'm reading the ARC, so this may be gone by the time the final version is published).

All the same, there were some lovely similes and turns of phrases in this novella that I enjoyed a lot, particularly in Mercy's POV, when she uses her literary talents to think about her own feelings; it's just that the romance didn't tug on my heartstrings like I'd wanted it to.

My final verdict is a sincere recommendation: if you don't really care about Hamilton all that much, a historical romance reader will still find a lot to love in this collection. And if you love Hamilton the musical / Hamilton the character, like the authors clearly do, I suspect you'll enjoy this even more than I did.

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Novellas are tricky, little beasts. They are flashes in a pan, and the sparks can be beautiful or oh, so flat. Add to that the complexity of reading American historicals (why are they complex, you ask? I have no good answer for that. And that answer alone challenges me to continually revisit them) and many a reader could perhaps view this mini-anthology with trepidation. But please, give this a shot. You won't regret it.

Courtney Milan- Her historical novels are my favorite. Her characters, both main and supporting, brim with a depth that's just glorious. Plus, she tells a damn good story. She switches things up here with a Male/Male romance, 2 soldiers trekking home after the battle of Yorktown. She applies the same rigor to these characters as she has to all of her other historical couples and- no surprise here- I loved it. The banter between John and Henry was superb. Everybody NEEDS to read this story.

Alyssa Cole- In my opinion, Alyssa Cole's novella "Let It Shine" is, hands down, the best historical novella I've ever read and reading the latest from her here, a Female/Female romance between Eliza Hamilton's maid and a seamstress reaches similar heights. In fact, while I adore her long form novels, I am now convinced that Alyssa Cole does something magical when confined to a short form length. Something that no other author seems to do, and I don't know what it is. But I'll never not read a novella from this woman.

Rose Lerner- She writes about politics, religion, valets ... all the non-traditional themes I adore. A lot of people I respect love her... Yet, I always leave her worlds feeling like I've been poked, like it's full of hard edges. I know that's rather vague, but it's a feeling I've always associated this author. Her story here wasn't much different, for me. I love stories where the heroine dresses as a boy. I love that there was no annoying story lines about the heroine being caught while bathing or offensive storylines of fellow male soldiers being attracted to her and feeling uncomfortable with their attraction. She gave us a relationship of people we don't often see featured as protagonists (New York Jews) and beautiful world building. Still... it's the first story in the collection and while highly enjoyable, had my least favorite pairing.

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These meaningful love stories fill a gaping hole in historical fiction as these marginalised voices present diverse characters navigating relationships no less dangerous than civil war itself!

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Nice historical Revolutionary War era romance anthology.

This review is based on the ARC provided by the author and/or the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

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