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A review by okthislooksbad
The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by KJ Charles
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
I’m just gonna say it as it is. I have a KJ Charles Problem™.
The problem isn’t so much a problem as it’s me actively choosing to read her books and be absolutely dazzled by them all the time. You know how you have a comfort author whose books you return to any time you’re not feeling any of your other option? Yeah. That.
If you’ve ever read a KJ Charles book before you know what you’re getting with this: loveable characters, squee-worthy romance and a good bit of regency dramatics, complete with absolute delightful filth. I loved the mains, but a special mention goes out to the absolute menagerie of side-characters, who were all (except for the villains, of course, off with their heads) actually useful and necessary to the story, and not just there to move the romance along. The absolute scream I scrome when I learned that the next book in the series features Luke?? Y’all.
The narrator brought a bit of extra life into characters with the various accents and the like, but I wasn’t fond of some of the voice acting (actively sighing before a bit of dialogue that was sighed, etc) that was peppered in. The pacing was sometimes off, and I was definitely not able to listen at x2 speed like I usually do - sometimes even x1.75 meant I’d miss bits of dialogue because it was suddenly actively shouted at breakneck speed. A bit unfortunate.
Rating is for the writing/story/book/whatever. Narration gets a 2.5.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
The problem isn’t so much a problem as it’s me actively choosing to read her books and be absolutely dazzled by them all the time. You know how you have a comfort author whose books you return to any time you’re not feeling any of your other option? Yeah. That.
If you’ve ever read a KJ Charles book before you know what you’re getting with this: loveable characters, squee-worthy romance and a good bit of regency dramatics, complete with absolute delightful filth. I loved the mains, but a special mention goes out to the absolute menagerie of side-characters, who were all (except for the villains, of course, off with their heads) actually useful and necessary to the story, and not just there to move the romance along. The absolute scream I scrome when I learned that the next book in the series features Luke?? Y’all.
The narrator brought a bit of extra life into characters with the various accents and the like, but I wasn’t fond of some of the voice acting (actively sighing before a bit of dialogue that was sighed, etc) that was peppered in. The pacing was sometimes off, and I was definitely not able to listen at x2 speed like I usually do - sometimes even x1.75 meant I’d miss bits of dialogue because it was suddenly actively shouted at breakneck speed. A bit unfortunate.
Rating is for the writing/story/book/whatever. Narration gets a 2.5.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.