Historical Romance

Review: The Sugared Game by KJ Charles

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Title: The Sugared Game (The Will Darling Adventures #2)
Author: KJ Charles
Genre/Themes: Historical, MM romance, Mystery
Release Date: 26 Aug 2020

Author's links: Website / Twitter / FB Group / Goodreads

My rating: 4.5 Stars
Blurb 

It's been two months since Will Darling saw Kim Secretan, and he doesn't expect to see him again. What do a rough and ready soldier-turned-bookseller and a disgraced shady aristocrat have to do with each other anyway?
But when Will encounters a face from the past in a disreputable nightclub, Kim turns up, as shifty, unreliable, and irresistible as ever. And before Will knows it, he's been dragged back into Kim's shadowy world of secrets, criminal conspiracies, and underhand dealings.

This time, though, things are underhanded even by Kim standards. This time, the danger is too close to home. And if Will and Kim can't find common ground against unseen enemies, they risk losing everything.

Review 

I liked the first book in the series just OK but thoroughly enjoyed this one. We get to see more character development here, both for Will and Kim but also for Phoebe and Maisie.

The suspense plot is engaging and kept me guessing to the very end. I had great fun following Will and Kim on their journey to figure out the mystery together. The final part of the story was action packed, very movie-like with a very high death toll (something that can be consider a staple of KJ Charles' romances :)

I admit I wasn't a big fan of Kim in the first book, rather,I didn't like the way he treated Will - the lack of trust and outright lies really bothered me. In this book I got to see more of the reasons for him acting the way he did and this helped me understand him better. 

Will was just great as a partner of Kim and as a friend to Maisie and Phoebe. His moments of doubts and sense of loneliness and unworthiness felt real and made me very emotional. 

I liked how Will and Kim acted like adults with regard to their relationship. It was not an easy thing for both of them to put into words what they felt/wanted, they made their fair share  of mistakes but they were open and willing to talk, to ear  each other out and ultimately they stood by each other when it mattered. 

The story ends with a HFN ending, a promise to try, a hope to make things work, to build something good together. There were no easy solutions, some hurts are too deep to heal overnight and this is OK. 

On a side note, the Bright Young Things are a big thing in this story and they are as insufferable as you can imagine (I fell down a rabbit hole reading about them in Wikipedia :).

In short, this was a lovely read on all levels and highly recommend it!

Note (16.09.2020) I have added a clarifying note to my review on GR under a spoiler tag and I encourage you to read it before picking this book.

Add on Goodreads / Buy on Amazon 

Historical Romance

Review: Slippery Creatures by KJ Charles

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Title: Slippery Creatures (The Will Darling Adventures #1)
Author: KJ Charles
Genre/Themes: Historical, MM romance, Mystery
Release Date: 13 May 2020

Author's links: Website / Twitter / FB Group / Goodreads

My rating: 3.5 Stars


Blurb

Will Darling came back from the Great War with a few scars, a lot of medals, and no idea what to do next. Inheriting his uncle’s chaotic second-hand bookshop is a blessing...until strange visitors start making threats. First a criminal gang, then the War Office, both telling Will to give them the information they want, or else.

Will has no idea what that information is, and nobody to turn to, until Kim Secretan—charming, cultured, oddly attractive—steps in to offer help. As Kim and Will try to find answers and outrun trouble, mutual desire grows along with the danger.

And then Will discovers the truth about Kim. His identity, his past, his real intentions. Enraged and betrayed, Will never wants to see him again.

But Will possesses knowledge that could cost thousands of lives. Enemies are closing in on him from all sides—and Kim is the only man who can help.
Review

This is the first book in a new m/m historical romance series set in 1920s London. There is a strong suspense/mystery plot that the MCs are involved in and the next books are expected to follow the same couple on more adventures. 

Overall, I enjoyed the mystery plot and found both Will and Kim to be very intersting characters. I am partial to Will, I think we saw more of him, got to know him better - his past as a soldier, his present as a heir to his uncle's bookshop, left with no real support network other than a woman he recenetly made friends recenlty, his uncertain future. Kim, on the other hand, remained pretty much a mystery, I didn't get his motivation and to be honest, I found some of his actions deeply hurtful to Will. 

There is a strong chemistry between Will and Kim but they also have many issues to deal with in order to become a real couple. I was not fully convinced they would end up together in the long term. Actually, at the end of the book, they are tryng to be friends first, with a possibility for something more. I feel Kim needs to do much more to deserve Will and to earn his trust (again). I hope he can do that in the next books.

The suspense/mystery was engaging and I liked following Will (and in some way, Kim) worked to unravel it. I liked seeeing how the different characters dealt with the new times after WW1, the gradual introduction of new technology into the daily life.

There are two big side characters, both female, Will's best friend Maisie whom I loved and Kim's fiance, Phoebe, whom I had difficult time relating to. it's a fake engagement of sorts, and I appreciate her support for Kim (and his relationship with Will), she seemed superficial to me. 

In short, despite some niggles I have with this book, it's a promising start of a new series with intersting suspense plot and great characters.

Add on Goodreads / Buy on Amazon

Author Interview

Friday Favourites with Dal Maclean

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It's time for my Friday Favourites post and today I'm very excited to welcome Dal Maclean, author of m/m crime mystery romance, on my blog. Her second book, Object of Desire, was just released and it's a compelling murder mystery with strong romantic elements (and HFN ending!) which I absolutely adored. Read on to get to know Dal better and learn more about her book. 


Friday Favourites
I’m going to be completely useless at this because I don’t do absolutes well. I just don’t have ‘a favourite’ in most things. So please bear with me while I waffle?

1. Favourite place: Uuuum. This isn’t a good start. I’m shuffling because I don’t have one exactly. It depends? I love London and New York. Anywhere in the US really. Oxford. Singapore (specifically Raffles - yowser). The Dordogne in France. Sydney. Laos. Java. Hong Kong. Tokyo’s brilliant. Or my garden. My garden would be the easy choice.

2. Favourite food and drink: squirming in agony. Ummm. At this second, oranges and dark chocolate. And drink… I’ll go with cocktails of any description.

3. Favourite music/genre/artist/song: It depends -- again. I love bits of just about everything from classical and opera through blues to rock, pop, R& B. I probably like indie/alternative rock best though. I’ll go with what I’m listening to right now which is The Heavy who’re Indie/Blues rock. “Same Old” and ‘Short Change Hero’. But it could be a totally different tomorrow.
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4. Favourite movie/TV series:  I’m going to fail at this one tooooo…. TV - I love old-fashioned British mysteries and also police procedurals like Marple, Poirot, Morse, Lewis and Endeavour. Also harder core stuff like The Fall, Line of Duty, Broadchurch etc. I really love some sci-fi like Firefly. But currently I’m watching Lucifer and its oddly… compulsive. Movies - I like film noir as a whole. I love ‘The Uninvited’ (the b & w one) ‘The Name of the Rose’, ‘Presumed Innocent’, ‘My Cousin Vinnie’... I love the new Sherlock Holmes movies (the R Downey ones) and some of the Marvel stuff for pure entertainment value… I’m no use at this am I?

5. Favourite hobby besides writing, if you consider writing a hobby: I think probably gardening. It’s a mix of creativity, nurturing/science/practicality and hard work (Hey- that was actually a straight answer!)

6. Favourite books:
Argh. This is so hard. Non fiction - I read history books. One I love a lot is ‘The Time Travellers Guide to Medieval England’ by Ian Mortimer. It was such a clever concept to show not tell how alien so many aspects and attitudes of the distant past can be. I’m currently reading something that’s not history though -- “Mistakes Were Made. (But not by me)” which is a superb analysis of the lengths we go to to avoid admitting to ourselves we got things wrong.
In fiction, I read mysteries mainly – murder ones, supernatural ones. I like tension, a puzzle, suspense to keep me hooked -- something to figure out and hopefully a surprise. I’m trying to catch up on the Harry Hole books by Jo Nesbo, which everyone else read years ago. In MM, I read across the genre to see what’s up. So to speak. Theres so much great writing and story telling in MM. But if I have to choose one I think my fave MM of all time ever ever, is probably The Adrien English series by Josh Lanyon

7. Please introduce your latest/upcoming release
It’s called ‘Object of Desire’ and its set in London and in the same universe as my first and only other book to date, ‘Bitter Legacy’. But it’s not a sequel. This one is a psychological thriller/mystery/romance and its much less of a slow build than ‘Bitter Legacy’ in that the core events take place over a matter of days, as opposed to months.
The point-of-view character is a successful model called Tom Gray who finds his life beginning to disintegrate around him after the death of his female boss. And he has to turn for help to the man he cut out of his life two years before.
I'd say the book explores among other things the power of manipulation; the limited returns of celebrity, despite our idealization of it; the psychology of emotional self-protection driven by fear of vulnerability – and the hard reality that we can never be sure we truly know someone else.  Most of all though, I really hope it’s a page turner.

Blurb

Tom Gray is one of the world's top models–an effortless object of desire. Self-contained, elusive and always in control, he's accustomed to living life entirely on his own terms. But when Tom comes under suspicion in the gory death of his employer, his world spirals into chaos.
Someone's framing him. Someone's stalking him. And as old secrets come to light, Tom finds his adversary always one step ahead. 
Will Foster is the only man Tom trusts to help. But Tom brutally burned all bridges between them two years before, and Will paid a bitter price. If he wants to survive, Tom must prove his innocence to Will–and to the world.

  Buy links: Amazon / Smashwords 

Author Bio and Links
  
Dal Maclean comes from Scotland. Her background is in journalism, and she has an undying passion for history, the more gossipy and scandalous the better. Dal has lived in Asia and worked all over the world, but home is now the UK. She dislikes the Tragic Gay trope, but loves imperfect characters and genuine emotional conflict in romantic fiction. As an author, and a reader, she believes it’s worth a bit of work to reach a happy ending. Agatha Christie, English gardens and ill-advised cocktails are three fatal weaknesses, though not usually at the same time.

Her first book, "Bitter Legacy", was a 2017 Lambda Literary Award Finalist for best Gay Mystery and was chosen by the American Libraries Association for their 2018 Over The Rainbow Recommended Books List. 


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Author Interview

New and Debut: Dal MacLean

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I'm really happy to welcome Dal MacLean for the regular New and Debut spotlight. She is the author of Bitter Legacy, mm romantic suspense, which was just announced to be a Lambda Literary Awards finalist in the Mystery category! Read on to see what inspires her to write her stories and what you can expect from her in the future. There is also short excerpt from Bitter Legacy for you to enjoy. 

Meet Dal
1. Tell us about yourself and why did you decide to become a romance writer?

First of all thank you for having me! To answer the question (that sound is me sucking my teeth in a considering fashion)… I don’t think I ‘decided to become a romance writer’ so much as deciding to TRY to become a romance writer. I’m still not really sure I’ve succeeded. I’ve been fascinated to find that romance has a formula and structure that maybe I veer from slightly. Without meaning to. Not deliberately. Or anything. It’s because I don’t know any better. Honestly.

I do know that the kind of romance I love reading, has genuine, believable conflict at the heart of it, which must be overcome to win the happy ending. I think my first (and so far only) book, ‘Bitter Legacy’ was a bit of a 50/50 hybrid really of mystery and romance. Mystery, I discovered (it was my first try at that too) has its own structure that readers expect to see, and trying to wrestle both structures into one coherent, balanced story isn’t the easiest thing in the world. I loved the process though, in a masochistic kind of way.

Before this, my training and experience were in writing, but not creative writing. I hadn’t done any of that since school. I decided, on a whim, to give fanfic a go and discovered that, while I was using, in principle the same basic skills (grammar, punctuation etc) it was a totally different thing. I didn’t do much of it, but I loved the challenge and reward. I think MM is different again from fanfic. 

2. Can you share some of your favourite books and authors?

The person who first got me in to reading (and writing) M/M is still right at the top – Josh Lanyon. I bought ‘Fatal Shadows’ and was blown away because it read like a top-of–the-line mainstream mystery, but with gay leads and a turbulent, charismatic romance at its core. I thought it was incredible, and then I bought the rest of the Adrien English series and I became A Fan. A Fanyon in fact. She writes so beautifully and intelligently and she’s not afraid to make her characters genuinely flawed, and her conflict genuine and not easily resolved. I crave that in romance, and, really, in any book I read. It’s that ability to make what’s probably essentially wish fulfillment feel believable and real that gets me every time

Harper Fox, Nicole Kimberling and Ginn Hale are such superb, skilled writers they kind of knock me on my arse every so often, with sheer envy. I think we’re incredibly lucky to have them in this genre. I recently discovered and love Elin Gregory & Roan Parrish. I loved the Captive Prince series by C P Pacat – that felt like something a bit different. And because I like historicals (history was what I studied) KJ Charles. And I still want to read Alexis Hall, Rhys Ford and CS Poe because so many people have told me how good they are. But right now, if I read, I don’t write, so…

3. Who/what do you consider your writing influence/inspiration?

I don’t know, to be honest. I read and a watch mainstream mystery and detective fiction – mainly UK stuff, though I love US TV as well. But I also love historical books and TV –– medieval to Elizabethan is my favourite. And I like sci-fi and fantasy too.

I’ve always admired Agatha Christie particularly, as a mystery writer, not just because she emphasized characterization with actual flaws included, but because she was never afraid to make an unpopular decision for the good of the book. By which I mean, sometimes the culprit was a person you liked and understood. That made her work more messy, far less predictable, and far more exciting, and I think it’s one reason it’s had such longevity. I also love Hollywood film noir and Raymond Chandler etc -- laconic humour, lovely use of language and flawed larger than life characters.

In MM, possibly Josh Lanyon, because I love what she does so much. But also because I’ve never been taught to write formally (as in taking a course or anything) having an editor as skilled and insightful as Nicole Kimberling at Blind Eye Books was a real revelation. Nicole’s taught me such a lot.

4. What kind of stories can the readers expect from you (contemporary/historical/sci-fi, adult/NA/YA, etc)

I think probably contemporary and for the time being anyway, mystery, though, as I said, mystery was a genre I never tried before Bitter Legacy. I have an MM ghost story/romance, shoved down the back of the sofa, but it’s not a traditional romance structure so I’m not sure what I’ll do with it. I don’t have the nerve to try historical because I research everything so obsessively I’d spend months identifying historically accurate curtain fabric. So contemporary it is.

5. Please, introduce your latest/upcoming release.

Ah. I can’t really because I’m still writing and forming it. But at this point I can say it’s in the ‘Bitter Legacy’ universe, but not a sequel. It’s set in present day London, and the main protagonist/narrator is not a policeman. That may all change tomorrow if I panic and throw it in the bin.

In the meantime though, there’s Bitter Legacy. It’s a fairly complex police procedural/whodunnit on the one hand (set with the Metropolitan Police in London) and a focus on a challenging romantic relationship on the other. Everything is seen through the eyes of the narrator, DS James Henderson, but bear in mind that, just like all of us, Jamie sometimes gets the wrong end of the stick when it comes to interpreting other people’s behaviour. If you read it, I hope you enjoy it!

BLURB

London...

Detective Sergeant James Henderson’s remarkable gut instincts have put him on a three-year fast track to becoming an inspector. But the advancement of his career has come at a cost. Gay, posh and eager to prove himself in the Metropolitan Police, James has allowed himself few chances for romance.

When the murder of barrister Maria Curzon-Whyte lands in his lap, all that changes. His investigation leads him to a circle of irresistibly charming men. And though he knows better, James finds himself enticed into their company.

Soon his desire for photographer Ben Morgan challenges him to find a way into the other man’s lifestyle of one-night stands and carefree promiscuity. At the same time his single murder case multiplies into a cruel pattern of violence and depravity.

But as the bodies pile up and shocking secrets come to light, James finds both his tumultuous private life and coveted career threatened by a bitter legacy.

 Purchase links: Amazon


AUTHOR BIO AND LINKS

Dal Maclean comes from Scotland. Her background is in journalism, and she has an undying passion for history, the more gossipy and scandalous the better. Dal has lived in Asia and worked all over the world, but home is now the UK. She dislikes the Tragic Gay trope, but loves imperfect characters and genuine emotional conflict in romantic fiction. As an author, and a reader, she believes it’s worth a bit of work to reach a happy ending. Agatha Christie, English gardens and ill-advised cocktails are three fatal weaknesses, though not usually at the same time.



EXCERPT


The door on the left at the top of the first flight of stairs appeared identical to the one on the ground floor—paneled and freshly glossed white. But though James knocked on it, ignoring the intercom-man’s instructions, and though he definitely heard voices behind it, it remained stubbornly closed. He knocked again. The door didn’t open. The man had meant what he said.

James had no real reason to feel as pissed off as he did. The man inside couldn’t know he was a detective investigating a murder. He wasn’t purposely disrespecting the police. Yet, as James lurked, frustrated, in the plush hallway, stealing irritated glances at his watch, he found himself almost deliberately pushing himself to conclusions.

The visitor in there had an appointment. And the man who’d answered had said there’d be another right after James.

So. What kind of men were most likely to have serial “appointments” at expensive residential addresses? High-end hookers.

He glowered at the pristine door, copper’s imagination running with it.

Fuck—the last thing he needed was a vice collar right now, but he couldn’t exactly ignore a high-class prostitute operating under his nose.

Or maybe—he could. He really didn’t have time for this.

He frowned fiercely, slumped against the opposite wall. Then, without warning, the door to the flat opened with a shocking blaze of light, and a man slipped out into the hall.

James, as he straightened, could hardly fail to notice the guy was flamboyantly good looking—all extravagant cheekbones and pouty lips, like a catwalk model—and to all appearances, extremely pleased with himself. As he strutted past, he gave James a quick once-over and a knowing smirk, then he trotted down the stairs and out of sight.

James stared after him. He didn’t look like the kind of man who paid for it, but, if police-work had taught him anything, it’d be that people rarely obliged by fitting their stereotypes. Whatever the guy had been there for, he’d emerged appearing very satisfied indeed. James’s suspicions solidified.

“Sorry about that, mate. Overran a bit.”

James snapped his head back to stare at the figure now standing in the open doorway of the flat, assessing him in turn.

The man was startling. Caucasian, round about James’s height, but with a more slender build and thick, dark, shoulder-length hair in silky, loose curls. He had a fine bone structure, straight black brows and large, dark eyes whose color James couldn’t determine in the dimness of the hall. If the guy fucked for money, James thought in those first moments, he could fully understand how he could afford to live in Selworth Gardens.

Suddenly James felt very aware that, while he was wearing a very nice Paul Smith suit from his old life, it needed a good pressing. And after only three hours’ sleep, he could do with the equivalent himself.

The man smiled brilliantly, which rendered him even more startlingly attractive.

James found himself fighting not to blush. It was his fatal emotional tell and he hated it—a lifetime of self-discipline, and he still colored up like an adolescent.

“Hey,” the man said. “Come in.”

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