The Davenports: More Than This by Krystal Marquis
A Novel
Title: The Davenports: More Than This
Author: Krystal Marquis
Narrator: Joniece Abbott-Pratt
Publisher: Listening Library
Publication Year: 2024
ISBN: 9780593864494
Rating: 4 stars
I previously reviewed the first book in The Davenports series and have been anxiously awaiting this sequel. It came out on the 12th, so I’m moving away from Native American Heritage month reads to catch up on this series. If you need a refresher about what happened in the first book, you can read my original post here.
At the end of the first book, the three Davenport siblings find themselves dealing with heartbreak: Amy-Rose has left for New York with Mrs. Davis after John didn’t stand up for their love, Washington DeWight has moved on to continue to fight for Civil Rights without Olivia, and Helen found out that Jacob Lawrence wasn’t completely up front about his financial situation and she told him to get out of her life. A letter had arrived for Amy-Rose from Georgia and it sounded like the siblings were about to hit the road to deliver the letter and get their loves back.
However, that doesn’t happen. With very little explanation, this book opens three weeks later at Ruby and Harrison’s engagement party. Everyone is still in Chicago. John is writing to Amy-Rose who is making a name for herself and her products in New York before returning to Chicago to open her hair salon. Olivia is writing to Washington, but his letters are getting fewer and farther between, which is complicated because her parents are trying to make a match between Olivia and Everett Stone, a young lawyer who works for the company. Helen is just trying to put off her society debut and working on convincing John and her father that Davenport Carriages needs to transition into making automobiles. Ruby and Harrison are engaged, but the mayoral election that Ruby’s father has sacrificed everything to win is still looming and Ruby’s parents are still less than thrilled about the match because of Harrison’s mixed race (Harrison’s parents are very much in love, but his white father did enslave his black mother at one point).
One of the biggest developments in this book is that Mr. Davenport is called to London on business and is gone for over a month. His absence allows all of the Davenport children to make moves without parental interference. That is not to say that it is smooth sailing for all involved.
When Amy-Rose and Mrs. Davis arrive back in Chicago, Mrs. Davis dies. She has her affairs in order, so seemed to know she was sick, but this comes as a shock and a blow to Amy-Rose. She opens her salon and works on her haircare line because she knows that is what Mrs. Davis would have wanted, but she feels like she has lost her mother all over again. Things are further complicated when Mrs. Davis’s estranged daughter arrives to claim her inheritance and throws Amy-Rose out of the house necessitating her return to Newport—the Davenport’s mansion. Living at Newport puts Amy-Rose back in close proximity to John. She hasn’t read his letters to find out that he stood up to his father for their relationship so she is still hurt but still attracted to him.
With Washington gone and out of communication, Olivia starts to question what her purpose in life is. She still wants to be involved in the Civil Rights, suffrage, and workers’ movements, but she feels like her identity makes her stick out in a negative way in those spheres. Her mother suggests just using their money to fund activism, but that doesn’t sit right with Olivia either. She continues to volunteer and attend meetings in her area, but she knows she wants to stay in Chicago and doesn’t want to be traveling all over for protests. She thinks of Ida B. Wells and soon starts to publish articles anonymously in her local papers. She is also dismayed to find that she really likes Everett Stone since he was her parents’ choice. He is handsome and kind and in his spare time, he does pro-bono legal work for people who can’t afford a lawyer. Thanks to this work they care deeply about a lot of the same causes. However, when Washington comes back to town and resumes their courtship, Olivia is torn between the two.
With Mr. Davenport away, Helen and John decide to move forward with the automobiles. They want to build a sample car to show their father when he returns. Their carriage sales are down and it seems to everyone but Mr. Davenport that the writing is on the wall: automobiles are the future and if they aren’t on the front edge of the trend, they will be left behind. Helen dreams of having an exhibition for their car and not just an exhibition—a race. To that end, she recruits Ransom Swift, a very attractive stock car driver with a good reputation in racing and a bad reputation in society to be their driver and spokesperson. As she, John, and Ransom work on designing and building the first Davenport horseless carriage, she can’t help but notice how much she and Ransom have in common. Her feelings are complicated when she hears that Jacob Lawrence is back in town and has seemingly brought a new wife with him. If this isn’t enough stress, Olivia, Mrs. Milford, and Mrs. Davenport are all working overtime to prepare Helen for her society debut, an event she’d rather skip altogether.
It seems like Ruby and Harrison are the only characters who got their happy ending at the end of the first book, but they shouldn’t count their chickens before they hatch. While the two are happily engaged and planning an August wedding, things are thrown into disarray when Mr. Tremaine loses the mayoral election. One of the big reasons cited for his loss are rumors about morally loose behavior on Ruby’s part. While Ruby did start spending time with Harrison to try to entice John Davenport back into their assumed engagement, Harrison is the only man she’s interested in and the only man she’s ever courted seriously. Unfortunately, despite this, both her parents and Harrison’s put stock in the rumor and work to delay the wedding. When some of Harrison’s old friends move to town, other strange things keep happening and Ruby has to get to the bottom of it to save her relationship. Like Olivia, Ruby also realizes that as much as she loves Harrison, she needs her own calling and passion in life, so she embarks on a mission to design her own clothing lines.
On the whole, I thought this second installment of the Davenport series was a little more predictable than the first. I guessed at many of the surprises and twists before they happened, but I still found the book enjoyable and the characters lovable. There were multiple love triangles in this book for several of the characters so I eventually got a little tired of that plot line, but with the way the couples were so neatly wrapped up at the end of the first book, there wasn’t much else that could be done without killing someone off.
I did like how all of the female main characters moved past the marriage plot in this installment. While marriage was a huge deal for women and especially for wealthy women at this time in history, I really liked how the characters all realized that they would want a hobby and an identity outside of their marriage. They want to contribute and enact change in their own right and find a way to spend their days that feels fulfilling and meaningful to them. Plus they are all in the class where they will have domestic workers to do most if not all of the cooking and housework, so why shouldn’t they find something else to do with themselves? In the first book Helen and Amy-Rose had their passions and were doing what they could to follow them and make their dreams possible, but Olivia was only starting to discover hers and Ruby was so caught up in the election and romantic intrigue that she hadn’t had time to consider it. I enjoyed getting to see Amy-Rose and Helen progress with what they want to do and Olivia and Ruby more firmly figure out what makes them happy.
Unlike the last book, this book doesn’t really end on a cliffhanger, so I’m not sure if there will be more books in the series. I think there were still a lot of loose ends I’d like to see wrapped up, but I’m not sure that there were enough to make an entire third book out of. Either way, I look forward to reading more from this author.