The Davenports by Krystal Marquis
A Novel
Title: The Davenports
Author: Krystal Marquis
Publisher: Listening Library
Publication Year: 2023
ISBN: 9780593634776
Rating: 4 stars
I try really hard not to judge a book by its cover, but the cheery yellow of this cover caught my eye and pulled me right in. I’m glad, because this turned out to be an engrossing historical romance.
This is a YA romance novel set in 1910 Chicago. The Davenports are a rich black family. William Davenport, the patriarch of the family, escaped slavery and moved north to to start the Davenport Carriage Company. His hard work and skill have paid off and the Davenport family is now one of the wealthiest in Chicago society. They are close with the Tremain family, while Mr. Tremain runs for election to be the first black mayor of Chicago.
The story centers around four young women: Olivia Davenport, Helen Davenport, Ruby Tremain, and Amy-Rose Shepherd.
Olivia is the Davenports’ youngest daughter who was raised to be a perfect society lady. She is beautiful, wealthy, and knows how to run a household and throw a perfect party. She didn’t marry the year of her debut, but she is confident that her second season is going to lead to her finding the man of her dreams and making a great match. When Mr. Jacob Lawrence, a supposedly wealthy, British man comes to Chicago looking for a wife, it seems like a match made in heaven. However, when Olivia meets Washington DeWight, a dashing but nomadic lawyer who is spearheading the Civil Rights Movement, Olivia starts to question if the life of privilege and frivolity she has been trained for is really what she wants.
Helen Davenport dreads her society debut. She is a tomboy that wants nothing to do with society and is much happier working on her brother John’s Model T and thinking of ways to improve the family business than she is laying out place settings and trying on gowns. However, Jacob Lawrence, her sister’s fiancé, makes her realize that there might be room for love, even in the mechanic’s shop. The problem seems to be whether that love can be realized without breaking her sister’s heart and causing a scandal.
Ruby Tremain is Olivia’s best friend and has grown up almost as part of the Davenport family. Both the Tremains and the Davenports have long assumed that Ruby and John Davenport will one day be married. The problem is that John doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to get engaged, but the Tremains have fallen on hard times trying to fund Mr. Tremain’s bid for mayor. Ruby and John need to be married quickly to give her family the influx of influence and cash they need to make it to election day. Her parents aren’t shy about putting the pressure on Ruby to seal the deal. Ruby starts spending time with Harrison Barton, a wealthy bachelor from Louisiana to try to make John jealous. Society is wary of Barton because his white father once owned his mother, but as Ruby learns the truth about Barton and his family history, her engagement to John seems like less of a priority.
Finally, Amy-Rose Shepherd is a servant in the Davenport home. Her mother worked for the Davenports and Amy-Rose grew up alongside the Davenport children. While their circumstances have set them apart as they grew up, Amy-Rose and the Davenport children are friends. Amy-Rose has dreams of opening up her own beauty salon to sell beauty products marketed toward black women and is close to being able to strike out on her own. When the salon she is saving up to rent is rented to someone else, she finds herself unsure of where to go next. When her nascent relationship with John Davenport is dashed when William issues an ultimatum: Amy-Rose or John’s inheritance, she realizes she may have to leave town to achieve her dreams.
This book reminded me a lot of Bridgerton: the opulence, the dresses, the balls, the large families and complex web of character relationships all felt familiar. Like with Bridgerton, keeping all of the characters straight can be difficult at first, but once you get firmly into the story the unique personalities of each character shine through and it is easy to keep them all straight despite all the intrigue and interconnectedness.
Each chapter follows a different one of the four main characters. That too put me a little off balance at first, but once I was into the story and was familiar with the characters, it worked extremely well to build suspense. Just as I got too engrossed in one woman’s story, that was put on hold and I was immersed in another set of circumstances. I know some people find that narrative structure unappealing, but I think it’s fun if it’s done well and Marquis does it well.
I also loved the historical setting. The Davenport family is based on the Patterson family, a real black family that made a fortune in Chicago in the early twentieth century. Amy-Rose and her dreams of her salon are based on Madam C.J. Walker a black entrepreneur in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. In the author’s note at the end of the book, Marquis discusses how stories of the wealth and progress of black people after the Civil War are often forgotten and replaced by stories of inequality and segregation. She feels that these stories of following and achieving dreams are important to share because the contributions of these individuals are often left out of history books. I definitely see what she means. I think Madam C.J. Walker was a sidebar in my history book and the stories I learned about the progress, wealth, or achievement of black people were few and far between. It is crucial to understand the violence enacted against black people and the inequality built into society both throughout history and still today, but Marquis highlights the power of also sharing stories of the achievements and joys of the black community as well.
The sorts of Civil Rights marches and activities that Olivia takes part in with Washington DeWight are a bit of an anachronism, as Marquis does point out. The Great Migration didn’t begin until 1910 and the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement didn’t occur until after the Great Migration began. However, I don’t think that slight change to the flow of history harms the novel. I think these events are necessary to help Olivia look critically at her life and question how she can best use her privilege to help people. Marquis is open about the authorial license she has taken and I think it helps put the importance of the era in the bigger context of the history we did learn about in school.
The bittersweet thing for me is that this book is the first in a duology. That means that this book ends on a cliff hanger for all four main characters. This book just came out in the last couple of weeks, and I can’t find a set date that the next book will be published. I’m just going to have to sit, not knowing what happens until then.
This was a fun and informative read. Perfect for Valentine’s Day and Black History Month. Just make sure you’re ready to accept not yet knowing if anyone gets their Happily Ever After before you get started.
I made my sister buy this book based on another review I read, but your last sentence makes me think that I made a mistake! She likes everything to be tied up at the end! Yikes.