In The Gentleman’s Book of Vices, Jess Everlee’s soul-stirring debut, a fan obsessive about a bootleg guide finds real love together with his favourite creator.
Handsome Charlie Price is a good accountant by day and a “finely dressed and finely drunk” rake by night time. When his exploits land him below a mountain of crushing debt, he makes a take care of his mother and father: If they pay what he owes, he’ll do no matter they ask.
Since that compromise, nearly nothing in Charlie’s life has been of his selecting, not his snug London city home, not the servants who spy on him, not his financial institution job and never even his candy fiancée, Alma. Until his wedding ceremony, Charlie’s dedicated to taking pleasure in two issues: cultivating his assortment of erotica and spending his free time together with his gaggle of devoted associates at his hedonistic gentleman’s membership, The Curious Fox.
The circumspect and cautious Miles Montague additionally leads two lives, albeit rather more quietly than Charlie. Heartbroken and shaken by an expertise that Everlee retains mysterious at first, Miles runs a good bookshop however writes England’s most notorious erotica in his off hours below the nom de plume of Reginald Cox.
Cox occurs to be Charlie’s favourite creator, so when Charlie learns Cox is an unassuming bookseller, he visits the store to ask him to autograph his most notorious novel (and Charlie’s most treasured possession): Immorality Plays. In 1883 London, being uncovered because the creator of an specific textual content would imply authorized and life-threatening hazard, so of course, Miles assumes anybody asking for him by his pen title should be a blackmailer. It’s the queer Victorian model of a meet-disaster turned meet-cute. Miles and Charlie’s attraction is electrical. Even although each know their relationship has a agency expiration date, love blooms within the blissful interregnum between their assembly and Charlie’s impending wedding ceremony.
Fans of KJ Charles, Cat Sebastian and Alexis Hall will discover a lot to take pleasure in right here. There are shades of Charles’ Unfit to Print (pornographer/bookseller lead) and A Seditious Affair (the well-wrought BDSM and the tightknit circle of associates centered on a non-public gentleman’s membership) in addition to Hall’s Something Fabulous (the slapstick humor, mistaken identities and genderplay). While the characters are a bit sluggish to develop and the plot isn’t as distinctive or refined as one of the best works within the subgenre, Charlie and Miles’ chemistry is good, and Everlee’s writing reaches its peak of their love scenes, which soar with emotional depth. With its potent mix of queer eroticism, discovered household and unabashed swoon, this romance is a resonant winner.
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