The Expert Book Smuggler

In late 2023, author Tillie Cole became the point of discussion on Booktok as users began discussing the contents of her book, Darkness Embraced The book received criticism for featuring a Mexican woman as a redemptive figure for a male character closely connected to the Texas Ku Klux Klan. This discussion sparked mass outrage in Cole’s fan base, who organized to silence the marginalized creators discussing the book. This led to further criticism of the author, who failed to adequately handle the situation that led to her critics deactivating or making their accounts private due to the level of harassment they received from her fans.

The KKK Romance

Fuckin’ beautiful, darlin’. Pure Aryan too, blond hair and blue eyes, Hitler’s fuckin’ ideal bitch. A Klan brother’s living wet dream. Hell, if I weren’t been paid a bucket load of cash to deliver you unharmed to those freaks in bumfuck nowhere, I’d be taking you back to the ranch with me, showing you what it’s like to be fucked by the pure race.”

Darkness Embraced by Tillie Cole

The Hades Hangmen series is a collection of intertwined dark romances focused on a biker gang and their love interests. Darkness Embraced, the 7th installment of the series, centers on the love story between Tanner and Adelita as they fall in love despite the odds. Those odds? Tanner is the heir to the Texas KKK and Adelita is a ‘Mexican Cartel Princess’.

The synopsis of Darkness Embraced describes Tanner as a man who “kills for his cause without remorse” as he was “fed nothing but hate, violence, and intolerance from the day he was born.” This description sets the stage for Tanner’s redemption by situating him as someone who never stood a chance due to his upbringing. His plot line centers on the idea that he was raised to fear other races, but realizes his error by falling in love with a Mexican woman.

Written within the context of the ‘Magical Minority’ Adelita’s character serves as a vehicle for Tanner’s redemption through her love and the healing powers of her Mexican breasts. The Magical Minority character is one who lacks their own agency and is used as a device to bring the white character to their full potential, often at the expense of their own people. In this case, Adelita finds herself excited about Tanner murdering other Mexicans. The excuse provided in the book is that those Mexicans were her enemies and therefore their murder at the hands of a white supremacist is exciting instead of horrifying.

Tanner hissed as I pressed harder. “You’re covered in the blood of my enemies.” I smiled. “It suits you, White Prince. Tell me…” I ran my fingertip up over his arm, slowly, gently… tenderly, until it reached the blood-covered pulse that was beating wildly in his neck.

“How many times has it been Mexican blood on this skin?” I tipped my head to the side, watching the anger rise to redden his skin, “Blood like mine? Of my people?”

Tanner lurched forward, catching me off guard. My words and breath were cut off as he launched from the chair, hand around my neck, and drove me back into the nearest wall. My back hit the con- create, but all I could see was Tanner.

Darkness Embraced by Tillie Cole

Cole reveals in a personal review of the first installment, It Ain’t Me Babe, that her inspiration for the Hades Hangmen series came from a class on new religious movements, cults, and sects during her undergraduate studies. Her fans use this review to silence Cole’s critics, disregarding the fact that the KKK is a terrorist group, not a cult.

Many excerpts throughout the book display the extreme level of white supremacy that Tanner is involved with, including a moment where Tanner admits to lynching.

“Yeah,” he rasped out. “Been there when blacks, spics, yellows, Jews, gays, pope worshippers-you name it-been fuckin’ hung, drawn, and quartered then dragged behind trucks until there was nothing left but their torsos.”

Darkness Embraced by Tillie Cole

Adelita’s response to this admission is to conclude that Tanner does, in fact, have balls.

The book romanticizes the KKK through the descriptions of its members and their activities. Here, Tanner’s involvement in lynching is softened by Adelita’s respect for his audacity to admit to it. The members of the group are often provided with subtly positive descriptions, such as Tanner describing his brothers as ‘highly trained’ and ‘strong’- capable of bringing on a race war.

Romanticizing Tanner’s involvement in the KKK is inevitable; a romance novel about a member of the group will always romanticize the group. This is required to make Tanner a palatable love interest. The novel excuses his violent racism by attributing it to childhood fear, ultimately portraying him as a hero without ever exploring or addressing the violence he has inflicted. It’s ridiculous to think one woman’s love could erase so much hate, and it’s disturbing that anyone would write a book redeeming such a character.

It is not uncommon for racist white men to marry Black or brown women. JD Vance didn’t stop being racist (and violently so) after marrying his wife. The racism may shift and take new forms, but it continues to exist and perpetuate harm. It is clear that Cole lacks the understanding of these situations and writes from a white perspective.

Tillie’s Fans Target Marginalized Creators

Cole’s fans reacted with immediate and hostile backlash to the discussions surrounding Darkness Embraced, a common response when popular white authors face criticism for problematic content. Many users discussing the books found their comment sections flooded with users calling them disgusting, hateful, and ignorant. Many told the Mexican creators discussing the book that the issue had nothing to do with them, despite the book’s focus on a Mexican main character.

These users, who were majority white, rallied in Cole’s Facebook group (for which she moderates) to mass report creators discussing her books. This display of white women working together to silence Black and brown creators in defense of a KKK romance is unsurprising. As often happens in these situations, they are more angered by the idea of being called racist than with actual racism. Further, an author who writes racist work is likely to attract racist readers. Those readers then feel personally called out, as they read and enjoyed the book.

Quotes from comment sections included items such as:

• “Snowflake sheep.”
• “Tillie wrote a book with a CHARACTER who used to be in the KKK she’s not supporting them!!!! So stupid!!
• “You disgust me! Read the book and do your research. That’s not the focus of the series.”
• “It’s FICTION ffs”
• “It’s not racist fantasy. Ugh you’re all gross and ignorant. The author literally shows you the other side of having to grow up with extreme racism-“

While these people may be readers, it seems that they have failed to grasp the impact that literature has in real life. The ideas that are included in books often normalize those ideas in real life and the fiction we read has an impact on how we view the world. After all, their love of a book that romanticizes the KKK led to them organizing to attack Black and brown women.

Authors Weigh In

Fans of Tillie Cole were not the only ones seeking to put a stop to the criticism. I myself posted a video about Darkness Embraced and provided insight as the daughter of a racist white man from Texas and a Mexican woman. In that video, I explained how racist men who marry Mexican women don’t stop being racist once the marriage certificate is signed. Dark romance author Bink Cummings stitched my video to defend both Cole and dark romance.

Bink’s perspective was that those who were offended by the book should, “-steer clear of dark romance, including biker romance, if you’re easily offended’ and noted that authors should never be ‘shackled’ by someone’s personal triggers, offenses, or their ‘pitchfork carrying PC brigade.’ Myself and other creators involved with the situation found the verbiage used in the stitch particularly interesting.

While Bink removed the video, she also posted in defense of Cole on Facebook where other authors began weighing in. Author Lilian Harris, who regularly posts Zionist content, stated, “As long as he isn’t racist once he is reformed, I see no issues.”

Author Erin M. Trejo attempted to bring book banning into the conversation while author Sam Mariano attempted to avoid the issue by claiming people were simply canceling dark romance authors for writing dark romance.

Amy Jennings, leader of RARE, used the RARE24 Edinburgh group to drum up support for Tillie Cole. In her post, she states that Tillie has been canceled and that her books have been removed from Amazon. She goes on to call the Black and brown women discussing the issue ‘vile’ and accused them of attacking Cole to gain followers. All while Cole fans were driving these creators off of the app for the crime of speaking up against racism.

What is clear is that these authors are deeply offended by the idea that there are stories that are not theirs to tell. Further, it is interesting that they speak on people staying out of places that don’t ‘fit them’ as if Tillie Cole wasn’t writing a book dealing with subjects she was ill-equipped to write about in the first place. While authors are free to write what they want’ that does not place them above criticism.

White women are not the authority on what is harmful to Black and brown women and dark romance is not an excuse to perpetuate racism.

Tillie Fails to Put a Stop to the Harassment 

Eventually, Cole issued an apology that thanked those who had supported her and announced that she would be taking a break from the internet. By doing this, she further positioned herself as a victim and emboldened her fans to continue attacking the creators who had spoken up about Darkness Embraced.

This apology came nearly two weeks after the harassment began, despite many creators repeatedly reaching out to request she put a stop to the attacks. Attacks she must have known about when we remember that these fans were organizing in the Facebook group Cole moderates. That she allowed her fans to continue this behavior unchecked indicates to many that she was likely okay with the behavior displayed by her fans.

This behavior continued on in the comment section of her apology with one user stating, “FUCK THE MINORITY.”

Where does this leave readers?

As Cole elected to remove the series from stores, readers aren’t likely to continue to promote Darkness Embraced. Many fans have already turned away from Cole due to the book and the controversy surrounding it, while others will continue to defend the author. While enjoying her books is one thing, it is another thing entirely to defend Cole for work that has romanticized a hate group and allowing her fans to harass reviewers. The fiction defense falls flat when one remembers what Cole allowed to happen under her watch.

While it seems easy to discount Darkness Embraced as a work of fiction, doing so exposes a distinct lack of understanding in the ways we continue to uphold white supremacy. Many of Cole’s readers have likely never had to confront the stronghold that white supremacy has on the world and how it seeps into our day-to-day lives. It influences books, TV, movies, government policies, medical care…

I would encourage readers who have read this post and remain baffled, offended, or upset to visit whitesupremacyculture.info to further educate themselves on the subject.

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Note: What’s the deal with? is a series that explores reasons why others dislike your favorite author. An author’s inclusion in this series is based on Patron votes. This series is intended for informed readership ONLY. This post is subject to updates and expansion.