#also omg pen starling <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[mywingsareonwheels]

K. J. Charles just never needs to go as hard as she does, and I love her for it.

The Sins of the Cities trilogy is three queer romances set in the 1870s in London, which are very openly her take on the Victorian melodramatic "potboiler" genre of the time (scandalous aristocrats, lost heirs, fraudulent seances, murders in the fog, kidnapping, the works). The books shamelessly fulfill the tropes of both the romance genre (complete with HEAs for all six of the leads!) and the Victorian potboilers. Two populist genres fully accommodated...

... but with such compelling characters and likeable prose and so much nuance and such intensely precise and excellent historical research, and such a sharp and compassionate and where relevant really angry eye on class, race, sexuality, disability, neurodivergence, and gender.

Also fucking hell the London fog of December 1873 sounds terrifying. They had to close the theatres because even though it was inside, the people on the front row of the stalls couldn't see the stage. People got lost within a few yards of their own houses, and the fog followed you in and trailed around your legs whenever you opened the door or a window. And it was to a large extent made of coal and wood smoke, so it was horribly hard to breathe through, even if you had no pre-existing lung problems. Ngyarrgghh! Charles gets this across to the extent that when you witness a character manage to navigate his way across town because his memory and spacial awareness are just that good, it rightly seems like like a superpower to both the other characters and the reader. :-) <3

But honestly, K.J. Charles just always goes harder than she needs to. On historical accuracy and caring so so much about her characters and sometimes on being Really Fricking Weird. Love her. :D