Thumbs up for The Magpie Lord; A Case of Possession; Flight of Magpies; and Jackdaw by KJ Charles. Historical fantasy romance.
These came to my attention in an article on Tor.com. I sample a lot of books, mind you. A lot. Most of them, I don’t continue to read. I certainly don’t get hooked in the first couple of pages, decide to take a chance with my $1.99 and a few hours of my time, and never–when done with the first book–do I download and binge-read the next three books like an addict, mentally mumbling at the author “Take my money–please” and trawling her website for extra stories. These things, man! The first three books comprise the Charm of Magpies series, about Lucien Vaudrey (Lord Crane), previously a smuggler in Shanghai, now returned home to take up his family title; and Stephen Day, a magician with a bone to pick against Vaudrey’s family. Adventure and mystery, lots of magic, witty dialogue, sweet romance, hot sex, and characters I’d want to read about even if they were just sitting around arguing about shopping lists. Jackdaw is set in the same universe, with some overlap of characters, and while I didn’t like it quite as much, it’s still better than most things. If you think you might ever enjoy a Victorian-era fantasy adventure gay romance, stop reading my blog and read them instead. (And if you’re KJ Charles reading this review: can we pretty pretty please have a story about the Golds?)
“I am in the process of nailing Mr. Humphrey Griffin to the wall so thoroughly that future generations will mistake him for a tapestry. Currently, he is under the impression that his cooperation may incline me not to press for a lengthy prison sentence for embezzlement, malpractice, extortion, and perjury.”
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