(no subject)

[skygiants]

SCENE: MY OFFICE, LAST WEEK

COWORKER A: [makes some comment mostly unrelated to Edwardian house parties]
ME: Ah, just like an Edwardian house party!
COWORKER B: [popping up from the cubicle] I just read a book about an Edwardian house party! It was really good!
ME: ...was it by K.J. Charles and about lesbians -
COWORKER B: It was by K.J. Charles and about lesbians!

So on my last work trip I read Proper English, K.J. Charles' loving lesbian homage to the country house mystery (a prequel to Think of England, another loving homage to the country house mystery, but with more espionage). It's very sweet! Unlike the standard dual-POV romance, Charles spends the whole book in the head of Fen, a sensible outdoorsy Confirmed Bachelorette who has been invited to a nice hunting-party with her brother and his best friend, and is dismayed to find a whole host of other people have somehow or other been included, including, among others, the best friend's unhappy sister, terrible brother-in-law, and sweet serial-engagement-breaking fiancee.

(Sidenote: I spend a lot of time when reading about Edwardian house parties thinking about how stressful and dull they sound, and then I remember I spent three days this past week in a cabin in Maine with some close friends, and, okay, that also is a house part, and it's great. But at such gatherings I never have to deal with random unpleasant strangers who invited themselves!)

Anyway, various people fall in love, and all the mismatched romances and the murder mystery sort themselves out with a maximum of supportiveness and a surprising minimum of stress, and it's all very pleasant and I enjoyed it, but I also look forward to the first time K.J. Charles decides to write a lesbian romance with as much high drama and tension and energy as, for example, A Seditious Affair or An Unnatural Vice. Or Any Old Diamonds, which I also recently read!

Any Old Diamonds is another single-POV story, and also it is a heist story, about a young late Victorian lordlet who hires jewel thieves to steal a diamond necklace from his terrible father, and then also starts banging one of them. There are twists! There are turns! There are complicated family dynamics and surprise identity reveals! There is ... probably not enough emotional fallout from any of that, at the end, but I still found it an extremely enjoyable read.

Personally I did not like as well Band Sinister, which is probably the fluffiest K.J. Charles I have yet read, and certainly a good book for people who like their romances very fluffy! For me, it was helpful in realizing that, much as with mattresses, there's a level of soft that is just a little Too Soft for me. Anyway this one is Regency and involves a naive young pair of siblings who, for plot reasons, have to spend an extended period of time at the house of their nemesis, the local polyamorous rake. Fortunately it takes very little time for the naive young closeted gay gentleman to overcome most of his inborn prejudices and decide he's up for some romance, and for the local polyamorous rake to discover that he likes nothing better than being very gentle to naive but enthusiastic young gentlemen, and for the back half of the book the conflict is largely external and involves an aggressive aunt.

Comments

[evewithanapple]

Band Sinister is one of my favourite Charles, but it's also very much a comfort read and I totally get why that wouldn't work for everyone. I also eagerly await an f/f enemies-to-lovers. Someday, someone has to get around to it! (I just ordered a copy of The Grass Widow, which sounds at least mildly antagonistic to start with. We shall see!)

[skygiants]

I think the thing is really I have a hard time with romances where one or both parties is perfectly understanding and unselfish all the time - it hits my suspension of disbelief hard. I had this problem with An Unsuitable Heir, too. Conversely, though also very soft, An Unseen Attraction works well for me because even though both of the principals are very nice and trying very hard, they do both have frustrations and failures to communicate that feel much more real!

(ME TOO. I'll look forward to hearing if The Grass Widow fulfills this promise!)

[evewithanapple]

Band Sinister got a little conflict-y towards the end where Philip was like "what do you MEAN you're giving in to your horrible aunt instead of bucking convention to be with me?" but it passes pretty quickly. Then again, "older, experience partner shows their virginal love interests the ropes while being very kind and understanding" is very . . . let's say this is an extremely iddy book for me.

I still haven't read An Unsuitable Heir. It's on my list, but I have such a massive pile of library books to get through right now, it might take awhile before I get there. I also really need to read A Seditious Affair as well, though I wasn't too impressed by the first book in the series.

[skygiants]

A Seditious Affair was for me the one in that series that was worth reading, I did not love either the first or the third. I keep zooming through them because they're such good airplane reading and, unfortunately, I spend far too much of my life on planes. >.<

[kore]

I know so many people who love the Gentlemen series, and they were sadly Just Not For Me. OTOH, I really liked the Sins of the Cities series, and I ate up The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal like candy coated crack. (I guess I like their supernatural romances better?)

[skygiants]

I thought Sins of the Cities was just a level up overall! The Gentlemen series felt like it was playing much more to more traditional Regency tropes/people who like Hot Dukes, and one tires of Hot Dukes after a book or two.

[evewithanapple]

The friend who recommended Simon Feximal to me described it as "fanfic for a series that doesn't exist," and honestly, she's not wrong.

Have you read the Charm of Magpie books?

[kore]

Hah, yes!

I have the first one! but haven't started it yet.

[aurumcalendula]

A Seditious Affair is definitely my favorite in that series.

[aurumcalendula]

I think Stormsong sounds like it might be enemies-to-lovers?

[evewithanapple]

Oh, that's the sequel to Witchmark! Which I, er, still haven't read. I actually hear the first book is very fluffy, so that would be an interesting turn for the sequel.

[kore]

You are my PIPELINE, I swear. //pre-orders

[kore]

OMG wait, is that this?

https://www.amazon.com/Grass-Widow-Nanci-Little-ebook/dp/B00507CSVC

[aurumcalendula]

Ooh! (and yay, my library has a copy!)

[evewithanapple]

Yep! I couldn't find it anywhere except Kindle (which is useless for me, since I don't own a Kindle) so I ordered it from Thriftbooks.

[aurumcalendula]

Gideon the Ninth seems to be heading towards enemies-to-lovers! (I'm halfway through at the moment)

[skygiants]

I've heard extremely good things about that book and I'm SO STOKED.

[aurumcalendula]

Proper English is awesome! (as is Any Old Diamonds) I love Band Sinister, but I can definitely see how it could be too fluffy re: suspension of disbelief.

I also look forward to the first time K.J. Charles decides to write a lesbian romance with as much high drama and tension and energy as, for example, A Seditious Affair or An Unnatural Vice. Or Any Old Diamonds

Same! (*waits impatiently for Last Couple in Hell*, which sounds like it’s going to be full of tension, going by the blurb in my copy of Spectred Isle).

[skygiants]

Spectred Isle is one of the ones I've not read yet so I don't know anything about Last Couple in Hell! but just from this mention I'm STOKED.

[aurumcalendula]

Here's the blurb that has me excited:

THERESA GLYDE WAS ONCE a Green Man, guardian of one of England’s crucial magical sites. Now she’s dead, but that’s no excuse for lazing about. She has vital work to do, if only she can get back to the right side of reality. And that means finding someone she can use—with a willing body, a suitable mind, and an awful lot of nerve.

Joanie Robey has a London deity’s blood in her veins, and a lifelong acquaintance with the strange, the unnatural, and the scary. She also has a perfectly good job as an artists’ model and no interest in being possessed by a ghost. Particularly not an upper-class party girl who’s having far too much fun being in a body again.

But the Green Men are dangerously overstretched. The veil that protects reality is slowly, steadily tearing, and now something is mounting an attack on London’s occult protections. Joanie and Theresa must learn to cope with their forced intimacy—and their growing attraction to each other. Because the fragile bond between the goddess and the ghost may be England’s last line of defence.

[kore]

Is there still no pub date? WOE.

[aurumcalendula]

I think it's still being written (going by how she mentions having difficulty writing political disaster fiction in the middle of a political disaster when she was on Heather Rose Jones' podcast)?

[kore]

//tries to be understanding and patient

(OMG I WANT IT SO BAD) (also an Isle sequel with the dudes kthnx)

[aurumcalendula]

SAME!

[sovay]

(OMG I WANT IT SO BAD) (also an Isle sequel with the dudes kthnx)

ALSO SAME.

[sovay]

Spectred Isle is one of the ones I've not read yet so I don't know anything about Last Couple in Hell!

I loved Spectred Isle for screamingly obvious reasons and am also doing a bad job of waiting patiently for Last Couple in Hell.

[evewithanapple]

The wait for Last Couple In Hell is KILLING ME. Ghost lesbians! It's like she's pandering specifically to me!

[kore]

I HAVE BEEN WAITING SO LONG FOR THE THERESA BOOK. I love Spectred Isle, but damn, come on, writer.... //entitled brat

[loligo]

Yes, I am desperate for that book to come out!! Spectered Isle is one of my favorites, and everything about the sequel sounds amazing.

[kore]

OMG, I totally forgot about Charles in my quest for Sickbed Reading.

[skygiants]

PERFECT sickbed reading tbh. Even her books I don't love require absolutely no effort to read!

[cinaed]

I enjoyed Proper English but I also kept getting distracted by the fact that I'd read a nearly identical fic for the pairing on AO3, haha. But also agreed on high stakes f/f drama!

I at least have read a very intense f/f SF novel today even if it was far creepier than I usually read, but high stakes and trauma and a bit of body horror and weirdness for everyone! Thanks, The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling. I am probably not gonna sleep well tonight, but I also read the book in one go, so it was definitely compelling!

I also enjoyed Any Old Diamonds, and still need to read Band Sinister.

[skygiants]

I think I also read that fic (it was Yuletide a few years ago, right?), but it was so long ago I've almost entirely forgotten what happens in it! Sometimes a very short-term memory is a blessing.

And that sounds EXTREMELY intriguing, thank you for the rec! I shall put it on hold at the library. :D

[cinaed]

Haha, my brain cannot remember people's names that I've worked with for years, but remembering the minor details of a Yuletide fic I read a couple years ago? Yep, that'll stick in my noggin. So helpful!

I hope you like it! It's a bit of a claustrophobic book but I really enjoyed it a lot, even if I am a bit of a baby about suspense and horror stuff.

[dimestore_romeo]

I LOVED The Luminous Dead, I did not sleep but in a gleeful sort of way. It felt like reading a playthrough of Bioshock, and I loved it.

[aella_irene]

Band Sinister resulted in me yelling "Why do you always kill the fucking mothers? You just dropped a mother off a cliff" and raging about it to various housemates, which has...kind of coloured my impression of the book. My immediate reaction to Proper English was "...an alive mother?"

[skygiants]

Remember the book where she teased the idea of a maternal reconciliation and then they got there and the mother had literally JUST DIED?

[aella_irene]

So much rage.

It really saddens me that she seems to think that families of choice and families of blood can't co-exist, like you need to lose one to gain the other.

[skygiants]

I'm not sure that's entirely fair; she seems OK with siblings - all three of the books above feature sympathetic and important sibling pairs - but now that you mention it, I literally cannot think of one living and sympathetic parent in her books.

[aamcnamara]

Band Sinister one hundred percent read like fic to me, with the low-emotional-stakes and the everyone-is-surprisingly-good-at-overcoming-their-lifelong-instincts-for-this-gay-relationship-to-happen of much fanfic. But that's the only Charles I have read! So I have nothing to compare it to. (I read it on an airplane, they do make very good airplane reading even if I keep tipping my ereader screen away from my seat neighbors when the sex scenes happen.) I should look into some of these others.

[skygiants]

Yeah, almost all of Charles' stuff read like fic to me, but there's a spectrum and Band Sinister is for sure all the way at one end. (Admittedly my favorite of hers is the Prisoner of Zenda one which really is STRAIGHT-UP fanfic.) There's a sort of thing that Charles does in some of her books where it's like ... to me it feels like she over-corrects for safety? 'I want people to Feel Good reading this book and I don't want to include anything that might Hurt People and therefore I have carefully filed down every potentially sharp edge.' Anyway I tend to like best the ones where she lets some of the sharper edges stay and make more of a mess, but that's me.

[dimestore_romeo]

Yes! Proper English was...fine? Very sweet. But I don't read K.J. Charles for sweet, I read her for the zingy back-and-forth and really fun, intense characterful sex scenes and - this was not that. Turns out I too am not into fluffy romance. Here's to her next F/F, which hopefully will run more along the lines of her best M/M.

[skygiants]

Yeah, in a way I felt like Proper English really was more of a cozy mystery than a romance per se; the dead body and the whodunnit framed the majority of the plot and none of the tension came from the romance, which was just a very nice supportive side plot.