RaveSmart Bitches Trashy Books\"When No One Is Watching is a fantastic example of how much a reader can learn about history from a work of fiction when a skilled author bases an engaging story in historical facts ... a thrilling read, filled with a dizzying sense of paranoia that infects the reader as much as it does Sydney. Come for the thriller, stay because you’ll learn more than you expect, I promise.\
Jasmine Guillory
RaveSmart Bitches Trashy BooksThe Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory had me smiling from page one and kept me delighted all the way through. My joy was so palpable that I had coworkers asking me during my lunch break what I was reading because I don’t usually spend my lunch so lovingly enraptured by my cell phone ... Both characters acknowledge that they are in a space that makes them more aware of their Blackness and, in particular, the former British empire’s own historical relationship to race and oppression. But, they also refuse to bound by that history. It was a fun surprise to see hints of this double consciousness ... What Royal Holiday gave me was an opportunity to not have to bend over backwards. The story lets two Black people engage in silly historical romantic tropes and simultaneously acknowledge why their Blackness means they would have never been able to engage in such practices in the past while also refusing to have that be a reason to limit the choices they are making in the present.
