Subtle Blood is out!
After much agonising, indecision, rewriting, and, frankly, fannying around (see last post) I am pleased to report that Subtle Blood is out. At last.
This is the final part of the Will Darling Adventures trilogy, which really does need to be read in order as otherwise it won’t make nearly so much sense. (Words are often like that. 😛 ) It’s a historical romance/Golden Age pulp mashup, with cocktails, conspiracies, flappers, and fast cars, plus a pair of men trying to make head or tail of the plots, the world, and themselves.
Reading order:
Soldier/bookseller Will meets lowlife aristocrat Kim Secretan.
You thought Kim was a disaster area in the last book? Oh boy.
#2.5 To Trust Man On His Oath
Short story showing a turning point, available through my newsletter.
#3) Subtle Blood
Crunch time for Will and Kim as a lot of chickens come home to roost, some of them homicidal.
The reviews are in…
Subtle Blood is one of the best books that KJ Charles has ever written. Every word, every twisting twist of the plot, every interaction between its characters, it has been magnificent. (Book Me Up!)
A sexy, elegant and romantic murder mystery. … The romance between the two men shows that there are always new layers of love and understanding to uncover in one’s partner — and that happy ever after can be a work in progress. (Maya Rodale, NPR)
This was the perfect way to end this series. Lots of lovely declarations, a wonderful mystery, Will reaching his bullshit limit and letting it be known HE HAS HAD ENOUGH, Kim interrogating people with intensity, MORE DECLARATIONS OF DEVOTION, the bad guys getting their comeuppance, and then a wonderful ending. Okay, okay, also some super hot, ‘I’ve got to have you right now’ sex scenes. (Smexy Books)
KJ’s storytelling is like if you took your favorite pulpy detective stuff and gave it much more class consciousness, hot sex scenes, and also made it about queers, so A+++. (May Peterson, author of The Sacred Dark trilogy)
Gumroad (mobi/epub downloads)
This is waiting on my Kindle as a reward for the next 8 hours of Day Job. So happy. 🙂
Finished (and loved) it already! I…wish there were more to come.
So good! Such an emotionally satisfying ending. Love to see so much character growth! From the perspective of the one who *didn’t* have to go through hellfire to write the darn thing, totally worth it. 😉
I really enjoyed Subtle Blood, it finished strong. After I read it, I went right back and reread the first two books. I would love to read “To Trust Man On His Oath” but I haven’t been able to find it in the free reads section. Any help in pointing me in the right direction.
It’s available through my newsletter (link at the top)
I really enjoyed the series, I even overstayed my bedtime by more than an hour to finish the last book.
I do have one suspicion, though – could DS be Daniel da Silva?
Thoroughly enjoyed a reread of the entire trilogy this month. In anticipation of an upcoming London trip, I was curious if Kim’s Gerrard Mansions were based on an actual Holborn location? A google search shows a mosaic floor in Gerrard street with that name, but not much more. Very curious about what architectural era would accommodate his modern interior taste. I always imagined an art deco building like the Grampians or Florin Court on my first few reads, but only now realized those are more 30ies than 20ies, and nowhere near Holborn.