Review: ‘The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting’ by K. J. Charles (Mild spoilers)

Its a beautiful day in Romancelandia and I’m here to review a book that has blue birds of joy tweeting all around me like I’m a fairy tale princess. Yes, its true. The new K.J. Charles is coming out soon and its glorious as ever. But first, the big things.

Content warnings and trigger warnings: Discussion of past physical, financial and verbal abuse of main characters and secondary characters, financial insecurity, deception between main characters and secondary characters, discussion of past deception between main and secondary characters, retelling of slurs used against main characters, internalized homophobia, periodic specific sexism, discussion of secondary character’s past enslavement and slavery in general and class disparity between main characters that results in some complex consent discussions. As always, feel free to reach out to me via twitter if you need more description or clarity on any of these before diving into the book.

I didn’t quite know what to expect, as K.J had said on Twitter that this book had essentially abducted her muse and run off with it while she was trying to write another book. But clearly, it knew what it was about.

Robin Loxleigh (obviously not his real name) and Marianne Loxleigh (also so not her real name) have come to London with one goal: to marry rich and finally be secure. By hook or by crook or by heated look, they will make it happen.

There’s just one problem: feelings. Those pesky things. Oh and consciences and also the fact that the wealthy person Marianne eventually ends up going for is an absolute turd of the finest water by the name of Lord Tachbrook, a wealthy marquess. Robin sets his eyes on a slightly less elevated mark of young Alice Fenwick, a plain girl with a secret fortune that will be bestowed upon her following her marriage. However, Robin begins to like Alice and finds himself somewhat conflicted about his decision to marry her, knowing that he is not attracted to women.

Enter Hartlebury, Alice’s uncle by marriage who senses that perhaps not everything is as it should be with Robin. Though a peer himself, Hartlebury manages the brewery for his sister after her husband’s passing and enjoys himself far more spending time with Cits and those of lower class than himself. He begins the process of finding out why a handsome, charming man like Robin all of a sudden wants to hover around his plain, bookish niece. In the process, he finds himself looking a bit closer at Robin than is really comfortable for both of them, until its quite comfortable.

I won’t go into too much more detail, because frankly the fun of this book is watching it all unfold, but its utterly spectacular. A true Happily Ever After at the end for all involved, with trouncing of classist jerks and freedom to be who they are for others. If you’re feeling a bit stifled by the world and wanting a way out, I can’t recommend this book enough. It hits all the right points and leaves one slightly unable to start another book afterwards cause you know it won’t quite live up until the book high wears off.

As always, I received this book in exchange for an honest review and cannot tell you how happy I am to own it. I’ll probably reread it later this week, just for fun, but snag a copy, you won’t regret it.

Until next time,

NJB

Review: Ink in the Blood (Spoilers!)

So this was a long awaited book for me, cause tattoos and magic? Plus a queer friendly world? Sign me up!

However, before we delve in, I have to give you the trigger and content warnings cause holy hand grenade Batman, this book has a lot of them.

Content and Trigger warnings: torture, murder, blackmail, systemic oppression, self mutilation, alcoholism, family abandonment, body possession, children being sold into religious based slavery and supernatural haunting. I sincerely recommend a warm blanket and a good friend on speed dial if any of these things hit your brain in a rough way, cause this book is graphic in its description in places.

Also, for those coming from Romancelandia, I will warn that this book, in my opinion, does not have a HEA or a HFN. Its one of my biggest gripes about the book and part of why my rating is lower.

Now on to the meat of the book.

The setting is super interesting, based in a world with a religion based on a child who had the power to create magical tattoos that helped guide people and make decisions. However, the child is (spoiler alert) murdered in said legend of the beginning of the faith. She eventually returns, but its complicated, as you can find out in the book.

What is left behind is a huge chest of magical ink and small children are ‘called’ into the service of this faith at a very young age by the presence of a tattoo.

Unfortunately, as we look further into the system and meet our main characters, Celia and Anya, we discover that this system is distinctly crooked and exploitative. There is little to no chance to escape and extensive torture of the children and teens for any possible infraction.

I won’t lie, I almost stopped reading at some of these places.

Frankly, it got a bit much for me. At certain points, it almost felt as if it was trying to keep being as shocking as possible and didn’t seem to serve as much of a narrative purpose. I get proving that this temple and the faith are totally horrible, but after a bit it felt overdone.

But we move on as our main characters escape, through a series of cunning maneuvers. They join up with a local circus troupe and find their found family. This piece was some of my favorite parts of the book. Lots of trying to learn how to trust others, be with people and dealing with trauma and the realness of having to keep a secret when you want to share with people you care about. Tons of fascinating characters as well and amazing found family vibes as well as queer finding yourself vibes.

I could have read a whole book about just the circus troupe.

However, their safe place becomes compromised and our two main characters become embroiled in a conflict that takes over the rest of the book and segways into the second. I won’t spoil this portion for you, as its a fairly significant part of the book.

Though this book has such incredible potential, I found myself disappointed. The gratuitous nature of the pain inflicted on the main characters and side characters really put me off at times. Maybe its because of 2020 or just life in general, but I’m so tired of seeing characters tortured to prove…something? How bad a place is? I don’t know.

Also, the queer and gender affirming stuff I had been sold on the cover? Sadly seemed somewhat perfunctory and only seemed to exist in the beginning part of the book. The friendship between Celia and Anya periodically seems like it might verge into a love story but never manages to make it there. The love story that does play out has major enemies to lovers vibes and is pretty interesting, but I wish we could have had less sidelining of Anya.

Gender wise, there are aura like creations called tenors that are part of how people read each other’s gender. However, most characters appear to be along the cisgender spectrum and minus one character, no one is shown as having a nonbinary or mixed tenor presentations.

Lastly, the ending. I won’t spoil it, but I will say that I found myself upset that what felt like the potential for a HEA or HFN is pulled out from under the reader’s feet at the last possible second to make room for a sequel. I felt cheated. All that pain, all that struggle and such a huge, intense final fight against the main villain with loss and intense feeling only for things to be unresolved at the very last second.

For that reason, though I love parts of this book, I’ve given it 3.5 stars. Such potential but it didn’t deliver how I hoped.

Your mileage might vary, especially if you like intense angst. And as always, I received a free copy of this book in exchange for writing an honest review.

Update!

I wanted to let you know about a few updates to the site and future reviews.

1. I will continue to be doing my best to provide comprehensive and easy to find trigger and content warnings for all books I read. If there is something I miss, please, please contact me so I can add it and update the review. I am still learning about some various types of content warnings and triggers, so do not hesitate to let me know.

2. All trigger and content warnings will be near the beginning of the review and bolded where they begin, so you can choose to skip them or not. I will try to avoid extensive detail in them, unless it seems appropriate. If the warning is long, I use italics to indicate which content is a trigger or content warning and which is a different part of the review. This way, individuals can skip them if they wish to.

3. Any books that don’t meet criterion for the blog (aka, a dominant culture narrative of romance with a cis male and cis female pairing, for example) will be reviewed solely on Goodreads. I may link to them here, if that’s something of interest. The blog will continue to be focused on reviewing books outside of the dominant cultural narratives in romance and other genres. This includes LGBTQIA romances, romances with at least one non white character in a non tokenizing or exoticizing way, polyamorous romances, romances involving folks with disabilities and many others.

That’s it for now, but I would love to hear from you and any of your thoughts. Thanks so much for following me and enjoying the reviews!

Until next time,

Not Just a Buzzword