Title: The Gentleman’s Book of Vices
Series: Lucky Lovers of London: Book One
Author: Jess Everlee
Publisher: Carina Adores
Length: 300 Pages
Category: Historical Romance
Rating: 4 Stars
At a Glance: Charlie and Miles are not the authors of their own romance, and that’s one of the many things I enjoyed about this book, apart from the fact that I liked both men a lot and wanted them to find their happy ending.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: London, 1883
Finely dressed and finely drunk, Charlie Price is a man dedicated to his vices. Chief among them is his explicit novel collection, though his impending marriage to a woman he can’t love will force his carefully curated collection into hiding.
Before it does, Charlie is determined to have one last hurrah: meeting his favorite author in person.
Miles Montague is more gifted as a smut writer than a shopkeep and uses his royalties to keep his flagging bookstore afloat. So when a cheerful dandy appears out of the mist with Miles’s highly secret pen name on his pretty lips, Miles assumes the worst. But Charlie Price is no blackmailer; he’s Miles’s biggest fan.
A scribbled signature on a worn book page sets off an affair as scorching as anything Miles has ever written. But Miles is clinging to a troubled past, while Charlie’s future has spun entirely out of his control…
Review: The Victorian Era is such an opulent setting for a historical romance, given our modern sensibilities, especially a queer historical romance. The moralists and puritans were the nemeses of the aesthetes and hedonists, and vice versa, but moralism didn’t stop the nonconformists from seeking, and providing, bawdier forms of entertainment. There was risk in indulging their appetites, though, and Miles Montague, for one, believes that complete discretion isn’t just the better part of valor . . . it’s the only part.
Miles authors erotic novels when he isn’t busy unenthusiastically managing his failing bookshop, which is a lovely contradiction. He writes under a pen name, Reginald Cox, fiercely guarding his anonymity, for obvious reasons. He even builds a fail-safe into his work that imitates life in an all-too intimate way, but which allows his publisher some measure of plausible deniability if he’s ever charged with the crime of peddling smut. Sex sells well, though—the royalties are what’s, albeit barely, keeping both Miles and his bookshop afloat—but he never anticipated he might gain a rabid fan while writing his sort of pornography. A fan who could put them both at risk of exposure.
Given the nature and success of Miles’ writing, and how dearly Charlie Price treasures his book collection, one might say it shows how hungry readers have always been to see themselves on the page. Charlie may not believe in romantic love, but the passion in Reginald Cox’s books speaks to him in meaningful ways. So much so that Charlie has vowed to discover the author’s true identity and get his autograph on a favorite work. Much to Miles’ initial dismay.
Charlie leads what can best be described as a double life. He’s a devoted fiancé by day, thanks to the machinations of his own and his fiancée’s parents, but by night he’s a regular fixture at The Curious Fox, a place where both the clientele and the entertainment would be considered less than savory by polite society, and illegal in the eyes of the law. It is here, however, that Charlie is most himself. It’s where he has built a circle of good friends and experiences uninhibited joy. And it’s a place where he is able to indulge his carnal needs. If his indulgences kill him in the process, well then, he’ll at least have gone out on his own terms. But his friends, his best friend Jo, in particular, are not willing to stand by and simply watch Charlie plunge into matrimonial misery.
Charlie and Miles are not the authors of their own romance, and that’s one of the many things I enjoyed about this book, apart from the fact that I liked both men a lot and wanted them to find their happy ending. They are directed by society, their lives dictated by strangers, and, in Charlie’s and his fiancée’s case, coerced into marriage by parents who throw out ultimatums as solutions to problems created by the strictest of society’s rules, and I felt a great deal of empathy for Alma, a young woman who, through no fault of her own and by virtue of being a woman, was left with few palatable options.
Charlie’s friends at The Curious Fox are stellar supporting characters. I especially loved the no-nonsense Jo and how that side-story played out. Jess Everlee has introduced an interesting and diverse cast in her debut novel, one I look forward to following into next year’s A Rulebook for Restless Rogues.
You can buy The Gentleman’s Book of Vices here:
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