Five years ago, Pat and Fen almost stole the spotlight from Curtis and DaSilva in Charles’s Think of England. Their mismatched charm, and utter competence save the day and left readers begging for their story. Proper English, a delightfully dark house party mystery, is that story, set two years before Think of England. While the focus in Proper English is firmly on the central quartet of Jimmy, Billie, Pat and Fen, Charles continues to excels at creating with fascinating secondary characters who love to steal scenes. From the loyal and serious Victoria Singh, to the tart and savvy Travers, Charles fills this novel with women who are not to be underestimated, not even brittle and bitter Lady Anna.

Pat is relieved to be heading off to a hunting holiday with her brother at his best friend’s house and to leave the family home she has managed since girlhood in the hands of its new mistress, her new sister-in-law Olivia. Pat hopes that the days outdoor will let her sort out her next steps, and work out what to do with her life in the wake of her brother’s marriage. But her hopes of a soothing retreat are dashed when Jimmy announces that his new fiancee has invited herself along and that all his family will be in residence.

“I don’t understand how anyone could not see you,” Pat said again. “I don’t see how they couldn’t look. I don’t see how they could stop.”

KJ Charles, Proper English 

To most Miss Fenella Carruth is a curvy, sparkling and utterly ornamental young heiress, but Pat soon realises her good cheer and charm hide a keen mind and a deep sadness. Fen has twice broken off engagements and seems doomed to do so again, in the face of her fiance’s preoccupied disregard of her. In Pat she finds an unlikely confidant and champion who sees her like no one has seen her before.

At the heart of Pat and Fen’s romance is a keen sense of observation and awareness. Both have camouflage themselves through their lives. Pat blends in with the men in the hunting party, parlying her shooting skills and hardy constitution into cover that allows her to be just one of the guns. Meanwhile Fen, deflects hurtful comments and smooths over conversational breaks, performing often overlooked emotional labor on behalf of all those around her. Both excell at hiding the uncomfortable and painful from casual observers but come to recognize in each other a kinship and discover mutual desire. 

Even as Pat and Fen’s friendship blooms, the fact that Fen is engaged to Pat’s good friend is real obstacle. I loved how Pat works to be good friend to both of them, restraining her own feelings, as she tries to give good advice to Jimmy. Her bluntness and directness serve them both well. Her loyalty to Jimmy, despite her deep disappointment in how he is behaving toward Fen, force Fen to be the active pursuer. She is the first to recognize the spark between them for what it is,and to stoke it. Perpetually overlooked or denigrated for her managing personality, it is lovely to see Fen lavish appreciation and attention on Pat and welcome her eagerly into her life. This makes for a incredibly satisfying romance.

I love a good house party mystery and this one is stellar! With each turn of the page, Charles ratchets up the tension with painfully uncomfortable dinner conversations, half-overheard threats, private trysts interrupted and oppressive weather, long before murder is committed. When Jimmy’s manipulative and sadistic brother-in-law goes missing and later turns up dead, Billie, Pat, and the newly un-engaged Fen & Jimmy work together to try to uncover who in the house is responsible when nearly everyone has a secret and thus a motive for murder. The investigation and its resolution were breathlessly intense and likely to please all house party mystery enthusiasts.

In Proper English, Charles creates a prequel that more than matches the suspense and romance of the first book, while avoiding many of the prior books faults. I was particularly pleased to see that Charles is able to present the reality of racism and insidiousness of prejudice and ignorance without subjecting readers to hateful slurs.

My copy of Proper English is filled with swoony-highlights and I am sure to re-read it again and again to relish its optimistic and sweet ending.

Content Warnings: Bullying, Drug Addiction (secondary character), Fatphobia, Murder

Ana received a copy of this book from the author for review.

I reviewed The Austen Playbook in Love in Panels:

In the Austen Playbook, Parker delights with a clever opposites-attract romance.

 Set in a crumbling estate begrudgingly opened to a television production crew and a querulous cast of thespians, Parker throws together a grumpy and frustrated theater critic with a charming and impulsive actress. While full of Austen references, it is not a full blown retelling, allowing for the story to surprise by calling back to beloved Austen moments at unexpected points. The conflict embedded in Freddy and Griff’s explicitly Hufflepuff/Slytherin personalities is fodder for much of the humor. While it comes close to becoming repetitive, neither of them become caricatures. Parker’s resolution of the high stakes literary mystery did not wholly satisfy, but I loved how Griff and Freddy worked out their differences.

Parker layers present-day conflicts with past scandals, creating an engaging story that is at once playful and profound. I was completely caught up in the saga of the Fords and Carltons and how the choices of one generation echo down the years. With its cast of colorful, vain, and occasionally villainous supporting players, The Austen Playbook made for a full blown house party mystery from Parker.

The Austen Playbook is one of my favorite reads of the year so far and one of my favorites of the series, perhaps even surpassing my love for Pretty Face.

Content Warnings: Bullying, workplace harrassment 

Although I really liked the characters and the setting this is a DNF review!

This book had a fabulously hot beginning with it is white-hot flirtation/hookup but when I had to bow out when Adrien kept delaying telling Faith a crucial piece of information, and I lost patience with the sight-seeing around NOLA with that hanging over the couple. 

For the rest of the review visit: Love in Panels

I was late to pick up Charlie Adhara’s first two Big Bad Wolf books and I was rewarded with that lateness by being able to read all three in short-succession. The books are a cross between police procedural mysteries and paranormal romance. They are suspenseful and character-driven stories with slowly unfurling worldbuilding that builds on itself with each book. I loved seeing Cooper and Oliver’s story unfold, and getting caught up each mystery.

Read the my review at Love in Panels

Chelsea and I had fun unpacking all our feelings for Beyond the Sectors podcast last week, and  Episode 3 went out to subscribers on Thursday.  To find links to the podcast and read the show notes, head over to Beyond the Sectors.

Also Suzanne from Love in Panels asked me to write up a little piece on how I ended up getting involved into launching a podcast with zero podcast experience and a lot enthusiasm for Kit Rocha's books.

My review of Wild Country is up at Love in Panels!

Wild Country is full of surprises and unexpected twists, most more unsettling and upsetting than the last while providing a heart-pounding companion story to Etched in Bone. It is not a book I would recommend to anyone except a long-time series fan however.

To read the full review go to: http://www.loveinpanels.com/prose/wild-country

My review of American Dreamer is up at Love in Panels!

Ernesto Vasquez might have been born in the Dominican Republic but he is a die-hard New Yorker at heart. His food truck, OuNYe’s menu expresses the special fusion of his New York city childhood, where the Afro-caribbean flavors of his heritage and that of his Puerto Rican, Cuban, Jamaican and Haitian best-friends, nourished and united them. Making his food truck a success is his driving objective because Nesto can’t live on passion alone, he needs his truck to turn a profit. Willing to try anything, Nesto has given himself six months Upstate in his mother Nurys’s new town of Ithaca, in a last ditch effort to keep his dream aflot. If he fails to find customers, he will pack it in and head back to NYC and find new dreams.

Jude Fuller is a young adult librarian with a passion for outreach to underserved communities, like rural LGBTQIA+ youth who don’t have regular or easy access to the local library. For years he has been working to see his bookmobile project funded and this might finally be the year. While it is small town curiosity and the lure of delicious flavors that bring Jude to OuNYe, it is Nesto’s flirtatious smiles and smooth moves that he can’t resist. However, Jude is determined to counter his BFF's matchmaking antics as he has no desire not risk heartbreak again. Jude wants to keep things nice and casual, but he soon finds himself caring and wanting more from Nesto.

Nesto and Jude’s relationship starts off playful and sexy with with great joyous energy and bilingual banter. But underneath Jude’s sunny and saucy sauntering lurks a painful emotional history and anxiety that makes him hesitate pursuing anyone, particularly someone whose focus and ambition might not keep him in Ithaca. Nesto is also conflicted about his inability to ignore his attraction to Jude. Being distracted from his primary reason for being in Ithaca brings up its own kind of angst.

Tension over the risk of pursuing a relationship, fear that commitment might not be evenly felt, and how to balance relationship and career goals are central to the story. Both Jude and Nesto have moments where they realize how deep in denial they have been, and I loved how their actions often betrayed their real feelings for each other long before they are willing to name their attraction or relationship.

This book was chock-full of delicious food, fascinating and engaging secondary characters and had a great sense of place. Herrera brings to life Ithaca’s many social and economic contrasts. I loved Nesto’s rowdy, nosey and loving extended Latinx family and the friends who drop everything to help him and wish him well. In contrast Jude’s religious and emotionally abusive family felt sketched in and somewhat like cardboard cutouts.

Misty, the petty and malicious antagonistic harasser of both Jude and Nesto was at times grandly cartoonish but not unrealistic in this day and age of meme-able white ladies calling 911 on innocent picnickers for simply being POC. Misty’s use and abuse of public servants such as cops & health inspectors seem instead frighteningly believable.

I also loved how Herrera showed Nesto and Jude’s different responses to the harassment. The differing ways they responded to Misty’s behavior is deeply informed by their own prior experiences and whether they felt it would spill onto others. I particularly appreciated how Nesto’s attitude of calm disengagement was a result of a life-long experience with racism and Jude’s internalized anger a scar from growing up closeted in an insular community that would eventually shun him for failing to conform to their expectations.

As much as I loved the book overall and the characters most of all, there was some wonky pacing in the middle of the book with weeks going by in a few paragraphs. I felt that I lost a sense of how long Jude and Nesto circled around each other, how long they were actively together before things started to go sideways or how far into Nesto’s six months we had progressed. I am also not a grand-gesture/big grovel reader, and the ending of this book has a big one. The gesture makes intellectual sense but it didn’t hit my emotional buttons, because it seemed to gloss over some serious communication and expectations issues that Nesto and Jude must address for their HEA to feel solid.

American Dreamer is angsty and sexy with a strong supporting cast and I am eager to read the future books in the series. I do recommend readers identify a source for Caribbean food before they start reading American Dreamer, as it is sure to inspire a desperate hankering for its Caribbean flavors.

I received a review copy from the author.

Content Warnings: Cancer Death (relative of one of the MCs), religious extremist family, Homophobia, Racist language, racist harassment. 

My full review of Robyn Bachar's Bite Me is up at Love in Panels today.

But here is a taste:

I loved what Bachar did in this book. From its sarcastic, funny and decidedly off-kilter Lizzie, desperately trying to figure out how to hold everything together, while falling desperately in love at the wrongest moment possible, to solid and unflappable Angie, who refuses to let Lizzie face things alone and who listens and asks questions,especially when they face unexpected complications to their relationships.  

I am over at Love in Panels today with my review of Polaris Rising by Jessie Milhalik.

Polaris Rising is the first book in a new SFR series by Jessie Mihalik, this SFR adventure is full of action, fascinating secondary characters and interesting world-building.  There is lots of sexual tension, mutual mistrust, wall-banging sex and lots and lots of med-bay visits for the space faring duo. 

For the rest of the review: Love in Panels 

With a short stay in NYC ahead of her, all Likotsi, Prince Thabiso’s head advisor & planner supreme, was simply looking for an enchanting woman to pass the the time with and instead fell hard and fast for Fabiola. But their whirlwind affair is derailed abruptly by a single phone call. Months later, their lives on vastly different tracks than before, their paths cross again... read the rest at Love in Panels