Belle Josephine Books in Order

The Belle Josephine books are Beverly Jenkins’s young adult duology set against the backdrop of the Underground Railroad and the Civil War. Aimed at teen readers but warmly received by adults, they follow two young Black women in Michigan as they wrestle with freedom, family, and first love.

In Belle, sixteen‑year‑old Belle Palmer escapes enslavement in Kentucky with her father, only to be separated from him during their dangerous journey north. Hiding near a country road in Michigan, she’s discovered by siblings Daniel and Josephine Best, whose free Black family operates a station on the Underground Railroad. Taken into their home, Belle has to learn what freedom means—schooling, choices, simple kindness—and at the same time tamp down growing feelings for Daniel, who is already engaged to someone else.

The book explores the inner workings of an abolitionist household: secret routes, coded questions, tense planning around slave catchers, and the moral weight of choosing who can be helped and when. Belle’s longing for news of her father and her struggle to believe she deserves a future give the story its emotional core.

Josephine jumps ahead several years to focus on Josephine “Jojo” Best. Seventeen and already an Oberlin‑educated business owner, Jojo runs her own hairdressing shop and cherishes her independence. Marriage, to her, looks like the end of hard‑won freedom. Two men complicate that stance: steady soldier George Brooks and Adam Morgan, a childhood tormentor turned war‑weary charmer who returns home wounded.

As Jojo tends injured soldiers and keeps her business afloat while the war rages, she has to sort out which man—if either—fits the life she wants. The story quietly spotlights subjects like Black education, women’s work, and how free Black families in the North navigated a country at war with itself.

Together, the Belle Josephine books give readers a gentler, youth‑focused entry point into Jenkins’s historical world. They keep the romance sweet while still acknowledging the dangers of the era, making them a strong pick for teens or anyone who wants coming‑of‑age arcs wrapped in rich Black history.