Review: Copper Script by KJ Charles

Title: Copper Script

Author: KJ Charles

Length: 255 Pages

Category: Historical Romance

Rating: 5 Stars

At a Glance: When readers can feel the setting and we’re transported there, it’s love at first page. It’s the attention to detail that makes this story and its characters spring to life and ensnare readers in the coming conflict.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: Detective Sergeant Aaron Fowler of the Metropolitan Police doesn’t count himself a gullible man. When he encounters a graphologist who deduces people’s lives and personalities from their handwriting with impossible accuracy, he needs to find out how the trick is done. Even if that involves spending more time with the intriguing, flirtatious Joel Wildsmith than feels quite safe.

Joel’s not an admirer of the police, but DS Fowler has the most irresistible handwriting he’s ever seen. If the policeman’s tests let him spend time unnerving the handsome copper, why not play along?

But when Joel looks at a powerful man’s handwriting and sees a murderer, the policeman and the graphologist are plunged into deadly danger. Their enemy will protect himself at any cost—unless the sparring pair can come together to prove his guilt and save each other.

Review: KJ Charles gives book hangover like few others. There’s something that little bit spectacular about reading a historical novel in which it’s obvious the author has researched and is paying homage to the time and place. When readers can feel the setting and we’re transported there, it’s love at first page. Copper Script embraces a 1924 London where some coppers were on the take and gang lords ran protection rackets, unchecked. It’s the attention to detail that makes this story and its characters spring to life and ensnare readers in the coming conflict.

Joel’s knack for plucking the fibers of a person’s makeup from their handwriting makes a skeptical DS Aaron Fowler sit up and take notice—not because he believes Joel is legitimate but because he believes Joel is a charlatan who needs to know he’s being watched. Their first meeting is full of challenge, hook baited, but the undercurrent brews noticeably with some intrigue among the suspicion. That Joel can’t help but push a few of Aaron’s buttons is a bonus. It’s a bumpy road to get to a place of trust between them, but watching them get there is a small blessing.

As the cat-and-mouse challenge to expose the crimes and criminality proceeds, and not only to expose them but make the charges stick, so does the depth of trust between Aaron and Joel, as does a connection that resonates with wanting something Aaron is sure they can’t have. Their happy ending isn’t reached tidily, which makes the getting there all the more satisfying.