Review: How To Marry A Werewolf

How To Marry A Werewolf by Gail Carriger
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Carriger's introduction of novellas that give a little bit more backstory on some of the side characters found in her main novels has been a really interesting approach at giving the reader more of the characters. Sadly, the length of the novellas inherently limit that 'more' quite a bit. We don't get the full build-up and nuance of rumor and romance that is common in her longer novels.
I always find myself wishing for a little more, which I guess is both a good thing and a bad thing.

'How to Marry' gives us the backstory of Major Channing, but not until almost the very end of the story. His love interest Faith turns out to be a much more interesting character. An American geology fancier with a questionable reputation and thoroughly terrible parents. I would have really liked a longer novel about her, something that explains how is has been able to stay a kind, thoughtful person with her background. She has hints of a cunning nature that with a little bit more cynicism would make her a very formidable force. I am hoping that we'll see that part of her bloom in later books.

Biffy and Lyall do show up at one point and are awesome (I don't think that they could be anything else) and we get a few more hints of the personalities of the other pack members and possible characters that might show up in future books, but the story is mainly about Faith hunting Channing and Channing not quite getting it and FEELINGS. I was a little surprised how dim he was honesty when it sounded like he has spent the last 100 years meditating on his own emotional being in the hopes of suppressing it.

Faith's cousin is a darling character who I hopes shows up again, but we only get a few lines about the pack's babies. Basically, they are fine.

Fast read, a nice little snack for the Carriger fan who wants a bit of romance and high emotions.

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Review: Unfit to Print

Unfit to Print by K.J. Charles
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

'Unfit to Print' is written in the same tone and with some of the same themes as Charles's Sins of the City series. If you like those books you will like this one.

Both main characters are from minority backgrounds, Gil Lawless is a half-black illegitimate child from a well-off family who was thrown to the streets when his father died. Vikram Pandey is his childhood friend who spent the last 13 years believing his friend to be dead only to find him while searching for a lost teenager. They both having been missing each other deeply wither or not they admit it.

Charles once again shows us a part of English history and society rarely addressed, that of the Indian community in London. I would have really liked to have learned more about it, but the length of the novella means that we don't get much more than a few brief bits thrown at us. Hopefully in future works Charles might go more in-depth on the subject.

We get a bit more when it comes to the Victorian pornography and sex worker scene of the time. I was a bit worried that the subjects would be treated with the sort of heavy moralizing that tends to happen when they show up in other historical romance and was pleasantly surprised at Charles's handling of them. The characters talk through their different opinions as well as their reasoning behind them without attacking each other or the workers themselves. I'm honestly still processing some of the discussions and representations so I don't really have a completely clear handle on how I feel about them yet. Maybe once I can discuss it with other readers I'll be able to express myself better on the subject.

The two men are thrown into the position of trying to figure out where they stand with each other after having been extremely close in school, seeing if they still fit together in the ways that matter, and how the new parts of themselves will work while at the same time trying to find a missing teen.

I really enjoyed reading this, finished it in about 4 hours and its given me a number of things to think about. The romance isn't as heart-twisting and dreamy sigh-inducing as the one in 'Unseen Attraction,' but I really liked all the discussion that happened to get them to their happy ending.

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Review: An Unsuitable Heir

An Unsuitable Heir by K.J. Charles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I haven't stopped thinking about this book for days now.
I'm not sure how I can give it even close to the review it deserves, its filled me with an excess of emotion that I just don't know how to type out.

Unsuitable Heir concludes the mystery started in Unseen Attraction, and I admittedly had my heart in my throat until the last few chapters about how it was going to pan out.

I don't want to goo too much into the plot as I personally really liked not knowing too much about it and enjoyed having it unfold for me.

What I will say is that the relationship between Mark and Pen is one of the most beautifully written things I've ever read recently. The love and romance between two characters that have gone their whole lives without being truly seen for themselves finding someone who not only does, but loves them for themselves and unconditionally. Charles makes you fall for both of the characters as they fall for each other, Pen is just such a wonderful individual that I wish had a whole series just about them.
From a historical view, I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it would be to be gender fluid during this time period. Pen talks about how they don't feel comfortable with either s/he pronoun but goes with 'he' as it's less trouble. Giving 'himself' their own name seems to be one of the only way they can take agency over their identity, the threat of having that taken from them as well as forcing them into one gender identity is terrifying for both Pen and the reader.
I found myself trying to figure out if the twins could make a run for the Continent or something, screw the rest of the characters.
The clueless nature that all the other characters treat the threat of loss of self is painful to witness and the betrayal that happens...its really hard to swallow.

Pen deserves every happiness and its hard that that happiness is limited by the society not just of that time but our current one. The story ends on a hopeful note though.

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Review: An Unnatural Vice

An Unnatural Vice by K.J. Charles
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

K.J. Charles' Sins of the Cities series is flat out phenomenal.
I was a bit worried about how this book might be as a follow up on Unseen Attraction as that book is just lovely (Clem is too good for this world and just thinking about him and Rowly makes my heart hurt a bit). I hadn't read any reviews of this story beyond just knowing that the basic plot would be picking up on where Attraction left off with the mystery in that book and that the pairing in the one would be essentially 'Good cop/Bad boy,' and I'm glad that I didn't go in without any more knowledge than that.

In an interesting twist I found myself having a harder time liking Nathaniel Roy, the good cop, so upstanding he must have a stick up his back end, ex-lawyer journalist. I couldn't help feeling that his reaction to Justin Lazarus' Spiritualist shtick was a bit overblown, especially as the guy seemed mostly interested in fleecing those who could afford it. Perhaps if there had been a bit more showing him twisting people's guilt and sorrow to his own enrichment (Someone other than Roy) I would have found him a bit harder to like. Roy comes off at the start of the story as someone who is used to getting his own way and is always looking for some kind of intellectual fight steadfast in the belief that he's always right.
Charles does a great job of showing not only Roy's transition from blind loathing of Lazarus but of Lazarus himself learning his own worth.

The history and overall atmosphere are all wonderfully done. Charles' knowledge of time and place really shine, actually naming all the streets as the characters run through them is just the tip of the well-researched and presented iceberg.

As this is the second of three books the mystery isn't solved at the end of the story, but we are left was the foundation of a lovely relationship between Roy and Lazarus. I can only hope that Charles will some day write up follow-up on what happens to Lazarus' familiars as I adore them.

Although the relationship doesn't make my heart grow three sizes every time I think about it like Clem and Rowly, Roy and Lazarus do make me smile. It's nice when two jerks find each other and mush together like melting M&M's in your hand. Broken hard shells, sweet inside, even as they make a mess everyone else has to clean up.

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Review: Romancing the Werewolf

Romancing the Werewolf by Gail Carriger
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

You can read this novella if you haven't read any of the Parasol books, however, you won't get most of the jokes, you'll have very little idea what's going on, and the bit about the Wicker Chicken will fly over your head. But you know, it is possible to read it much like it's possible to wear a hat made entirely of cheese and assorted baked good. You do you.

That being said, this book is the long awaited reunion of Buffy and Lyall, a couple I am highly invested in. which, might be one of the reasons that I found this book good, but not fainting couch good. The length of a novella might not have been the best place to delve into the relationship of these two. I'm hoping that there will be a bit more fleshing out of Lyall's time away from pack with the 3rd Custard Protocol book that will fill in some of the holes and emotional aspect.

However, it is a fun little holiday story that introduces a character of two that I am hoping to see later on *CoughRobinCough* even though it doesn't have quite the emotional payoff one had hoped for the reunion. It also lays out some of the difficulties that Buffy is facing with the pack, which hopefully we will be able to see more of later on.

Fast read, took me less than three hours, and has some great call-backs for those who are well antiquated with the rest of the series. Looking forward to the novella for Channing, the guy is a bastard, but a big old softy...a crusty marshmallow if you will.

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Review: A Queer Trade

A Queer Trade by K.J. Charles
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A very nice little novella.

I really like that Charles writes stories about people that we as historical romance readers don't usually get to see but who were the backbone of cities like London. The added dark humor is just an wonderful plumb dough topping on it.

This story takes place in the same universe as the Magpie books, but shows a whole other facet of the way magic can be used in the universe. I suggest reading the first in the Magpie series to have a better understanding on the world before reading this one.

The romance is adorable if a little on the 'love at first awkward flirting' side of things. However, with how short the story is that can be forgiven.

All in all I am looking forward to reading more in the Rag and Bone series.

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Review: The Magpie Lord

The Magpie Lord by K.J. Charles
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was somewhat wary about reading this as I have read some of Charles' most recent books and loved them and was a bit worried about how strong her earlier works might be (Prachett I'm looking at you).

Fear Not!
The Magpie Lord is right up there with her more current works, and dare I say, much more amusing.

In creating a believable magical system that the characters then explain without the reader getting bored of would be an accomplishment in and of itself. However, taking the already overdone setting of a magical Victorian England and making the idea feel new and different really takes the cake, and not a hard-yet-soggy fruitcake either, a proper cake.

I adored Crane and Day, and spent most of the books wishing that Crane would just throw Day over his shoulder and the two of them run off to China together to live in snarky magical love together. However, the mystery as to who or what was trying to kill Crane was much too interesting to wish for the character's total abandonment of the plot to hard.

The only thing missing to make the story really luridly Gothic was a painting hidden under a vale in the attic and some deranged monks. It was wonderful.

I am fully on board for further Magpie books, although not in the first-class cabins as I've heard what people get up to in them.

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