Review: Celina a Creole beauty, a Scarlett O’Hara with a heart.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 18, 2014
B.J. Robinson proves the old adage, “write what you know about.” She certainly knows her Civil War history and Old South plantations. Romance Under the Oaks is a larger-than-life romance of epic proportion, a saga that will surely become a Civil War classic, complete with plantation life, slavery, wealth, high society grand balls and belles, and after the war, the loss of it all. The love story of Jacques and Celina Roman interweaves throughout and survives even death.Jacques builds a plantation fit for someone as lovely as his Celina, hoping she will love her new home enough to give up parties and society. He is perfectly happy to live in and work Live Oaks Plantation circumventing all else, but Celina can’t leave the social life behind. She jostles her time between Live Oaks, Jacques and their children, and her old life in New Orleans. Her yearning for the city life doesn’t dissipate, but her love for Jacques is greater. When the war comes and she is called upon to defend her plantation, she rises to the occasion, even learning to shoot a gun.B. J. Robinson brings the characters to life. She shows the rarely portrayed spirit of faithful slaves toward their masters. She also shows how slave owners differ. Many masters use whips and sell off family members.  Jacques and Celina treat their slaves well.  Celina even secretly teaches them to read. But humans still owned other humans, and Celina and Jacques offered their slaves freedom which some chose and others stayed. The war ended and so did the identifiable life of Old South.