I guess anything claiming to be an homage to Georgette Heyer is not going to be something I want to read, so I should have known better going in. My bad! ( )

This was a bit of a slow start for me, and it took a while to keep all the side characters straight. But overall it was enjoyable and left me feeling happy. ( )

Fairly silly and quite satisfying. (Except for the broken leg --- fuckin flashbacks!!! It was a much less scary break, but I was sobbing without the strongest opiates of the 2020s.) Stayed up late to finish it, whoops. I do think the author gets so caught up in disrupting some of the tropes that she doesn't spend enough time enjoying them. For ex there is an age gap (hot!), but you actually have to do the math to realize it. Both is good!

KJ Charles really Gets Me, because yes I do want to hear about the history and science of sugar beet cultivation as a welcome breather from Emotional Honesty Hours. ( )

The Band Sinister is the Murder, the band of misfits led by Sir Philip Rookwood.

Lord Corvan and John Raven make up the threesome. Guy and Amanda Frisby, siblings, and Rookwood Hall neighbours, stumble into the world of the Murder and the hellfire club.

From there, it is "the education of young Guy" - a heartwarming ascent/descent? into attraction, connection, self knowledge.

Like so much of contemporary historical fiction, the novel is as clever and witty as one could hope for.

Hellfire! I've heard so much maligning of the word "woke" lately with DeSantis's antics. Yet that is the word that comes to mind when considering this world that these two young people have stumbled into – a woke world, using the word's proper meaning. And it was encouraging.

The ending was a little abrupt despite the HEA having been reached – I would have liked to stay with this book awhile longer.

I had been looking forward to reading a KJ Charles novel and was grateful to find one on audio in my library. She is lucky to have Cornell Collins bring this novel to life – I liked the way he did NOT overdo it, which he might have been tempted to do. I see he reads others of hers that are produced by Tantor Audio.

One day I must spend time finding out the story behind this publishing house... ( )

I just spent two days absorbed in this marvelous book.

Yes, I needed a glossary of historical idioms at times, but I relished the thorough construction of the historical framework immensely.

I adored the diversity and complexity of the characters, all of them, not only the protagonists. I know, I know, this characteristic is not to everyone's taste, but when a good story has a complex context and a multitude of voices, I’m as happy as a dog with two tails!.

The romance was charming and sweet but not cloying. The sex is delightful and there is classy dirty talk.

What I loved most was the conception that underlies and sustains the broad, deep, inclusive, and timeless content. I found practically in each conversation or each thought, matters that in their essence (and often in its surface too) are absolutely current issues. And KJ Charles achieves that without ever losing the historical tone, or falling in moralization.

I hope there will be more stories about the Murder, and that we don't have to wait too long for them. ( )