The standout of the for novellas was "Let Us Dream" by Alyssa Cole, about Bertha, who owns a cabaret in Harlem in 1917, fighting for women's right to vote in New York state when the white and/or more "respectable" supporters of the cause don't necessarily want her in the fight. Amir Chowdhury, an Indian Muslim chef, is in the country illegally, so washing dishes in the cabaret's kitchen is the best job he can get. Both of these two are survivors who have become used to having the world set against them, and the time that it takes for them to learn how to let another person into their lives is believable. I also liked how they recognize each other's struggles and learn from each other. After some initial head-butting, Amir teaches Bertha how to make her Indian dance performances more authentic and Bertha teaches Amir about American government. When ultimately, women's suffrage passes and Bertha can vote but Amir (due to his immigration status) still cannot, he only says that means he'll have to try harder to win her over to his positions. Since many of the most ugly conflicts over suffrage in America came between marginalized groups when it became clear they wouldn't all get the right to vote at the same time, I particularly appreciated this point.
My second favorite was "In the Morning Sun" by Lena Hart. Madeline believes that her beloved Jimmy was lost in the Civil War. She joins a missionary group and heads west to Nebraska, where she teaches freedmen. By chance, Jimmy, who has been building homes and advocating for veterans, discovers that Madeline is in Nebraska and still unmarried. He searches for her in hopes they can pick up where they left off, but they've both been through so much since they last saw each other. Although I saw many of the revelations as well as how the final conflict would be settled coming, I found this to be a good, solid read.
Then there's "A Radiant Soul" by Kianna Alexander which I wonder if I might not have liked more if it weren't for Courtney Milan. I can explain that but I'm going to have to come back to it. Sarah returns from the Wyoming Territory, where in 1881 women have the right to vote, to her parents' home in North Carolina to celebrate her mother's birthday. Owen has been hired by Sarah's father to build her mother a gazebo as a birthday present. Her father's hoping that they'll hit it off. Sarah's passionate about the right to vote and spreading it throughout the country; Owen's intent on working against the suppression of the black male vote. He's not sure about women voting and he definitely doesn't think they should get suffrage when it can't be protected for those who already have it. By the end of the novella, he's come around enough that he'll tell his fellow men that maybe they should stay out of the women's suffragists' way. Here's where Courtney Milan comes into it, at least in my head. Milan has a book called The Suffragette Scandal which, when she first announced it, was going to be called The Mistress Rebellion. Now, I can't remember exactly where I read her explanation of the evolution of this book. It might have been in the author's note, but I don't have it with me at the moment, and it might have been online but if so I'm not tracking it down with a cursory Google search. But the way I remember it going was that originally her heroine Free was going to meet a man who opposed women's suffrage but they have this amazing chemistry and he comes around by the end, but eventually she realized she couldn't have the moral of the story be that if the sex is good enough maybe a man will eventually see you as human. I can like "guy who hadn't really thought about women's suffrage is enlightened by a woman he falls for," but I don't think I can ever get on board with "guy who actively opposes women's suffrage is turned around by the love of a good woman" after reading that.
Second in the book but least in my affections is "The Washerwomen's War" by Piper Huguley, about Mamie Harper, the daughter of famous poet Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Gabriel Harmon, a minister she'd met at Milford College. She has always been determined not to marry a minister. Their paths cross again when she takes a semester off to teach adult female students in Atlanta. I was initially put off by this book when I saw it was in the first person, a perspective that works for me in other genres but not really in Romance. To make matters worse, Gabriel's against women's suffrage and not apparently for any reasons of the shaky nature of black male suffrage like Owen had. He's just not sure that it's women's place. And although he supports the Atlanta washerwomen's strike, we never hear him go back and say that he supports women getting the right to vote. Maybe we're supposed to assume that. I don't think it's safe to.
This collection is a mixed bag but I'm glad I read it. The strong stories on their own would do far better than the overall grade.
Overall: B-