Freedom’s Epilogue: Love as Freedom in Alyssa Cole’s Historical Novellas

Here's the description from the introduction to the special issue in which this appeared:

“Freedom’s Epilogue: Love as Freedom in Alyssa Cole’s Historical Romances,” the fifth essay in this issue, continues the focus on Black love in historical romance fiction. Nicole M Jackson argues that Alyssa Cole’s “politicization” of Black love in her novellas Be Not Afraid and That Could Be Enough compels readers to focus on the interiority of enslaved people’s complex inner lives, which are filled with love, pain, and hopes for freedom in whatever form it comes during the Revolutionary era. Therefore, Cole’s historical romances act in contradistinction to traditional historical narratives that have represented enslaved peoples as one dimensional, dehumanized and devoid of joy and love.