Like the historical mystery [b:Slippery Creatures|52237989|Slippery Creatures (The Will Darling Adventures, #1)|K.J. Charles|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1587519719l/52237989.SY75.jpg|77319427], which I also read this year but have not yet reviewed here, this is another “Edwardian toff and ex-Tommy thrown together by circumstance and end up falling for each other” tale. This one is historical low-fantasy, similar to [b:The Magpie Lord|34715150|The Magpie Lord (A Charm of Magpies, #1)|K.J. Charles|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1490703800l/34715150.SY75.jpg|24803707], which I read and reviewed in the first half of the year, albeit that one is set a little earlier, in the Victorian era. As I wrote then:

[a:KJ Charles|7123498|K.J. Charles|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1418032373p2/7123498.jpg] describes her œuvre as “cravats and smut” in her Twitter biog and, while this is not a “fade to black as they kiss” book, it’s also not porn. But it's probably not a book to buy for your teenage nibling who just came out.

I picked this up to read after DNF’ing a couple of other books and remembering how much I had enjoyed Charles’s other books; it was an absolute breathe of fresh air after a those previous works that I just couldn’t get into.

KJ Charles clearly had some fun adapting English folklore — and London folklore in pticlr — to her plot. This is the first in a series involving Saul (the Tommy archæologist) and Randolph (the toff arcanist) and I'm hoping book 2 ([b:Last Couple in Hell|35427566|Last Couple in Hell (Green Men #2)|K.J. Charles|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1508852314l/35427566.SX50.jpg|56805271]) comes off hold sometime soon; that she hasn’t tweeted about it since 2018 is not a hopeful sign, mind.

CN: state violence, survivors’ guilt, low self-confidence after state homophobia and betrayal, otherworldy horrors. Some scenes are sexually explicit.