Review: To Sketch a Scandal by Jess Everlee

Title: To Sketch a Scandal

Series: Lucky Lovers of London: Book Four

Author: Jess Everlee

Length: 301 Pages

Category: Historical Romance

Rating: 4.5 Stars

At a Glance: There are risks involved in Warren and Matty’s relationship, but the tension is lower—even while the stakes are high—than it might have been were it not for friends, unexpected allies, and Warren’s wholehearted commitment to proving that Matty is worth a second chance.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: London, 1886

Barkeep Warren Bakshi is happy with the secrets that he keeps—those of the patrons he serves at underground queer club The Curious Fox, and his own.

But when Warren’s long-lost brother returns, bringing unexpected wealth to the Bakshi family, his elevated status requires more dignified pursuits. An art class seems an ideal way to keep questions at bay, until it reunites him with the subject of his recent fantasies—a man Warren’s boss has expressly forbidden him to pursue.

Detective Inspector Matthew Shaw has brought some of London’s worst criminals to justice. With laws against homosexuality on the books, meeting Warren could detonate his undercover case—and his career. But when his artistic deficiencies prove a greater threat than his desire, Warren is the only person he can turn to for help.

Private drawing tutorials give way to an affair that may put more than their jobs in jeopardy. But real life is infinitely more complicated and surprising than any lessons could prepare them for…

Review: In The Curious Fox, Jess Everlee imagined a safe space that would have existed by necessity in its time. Then she populated it with characters who met and fell in love, with the encouragement of their friends and the club’s owner, David Forester, in particular. I’ve adored each book in this series, but there’s something about To Sketch a Scandal that elevated my love for it just that little bit more.

It’s Matthew Shaw. It will always be the waif with a tragic backstory. Matty growing into the roll of a DI wasn’t necessarily a natural fit. It was either partner with Scotland Yard or face imprisonment for “gross indecency” at the age of fifteen, when he was caught trading sexual favors with men for coin because it was the only way he knew how to survive. The fraud he perpetuates in the name of the law—seducing men for the sole purpose of entrapping them—might have made him an irredeemable character were it not for the fact he wants so much to redeem himself, to abandon the hypocrisy, and to no longer be exploited and objectified for the laws he would willingly break with the right man.

Warren Bakshi is Matty’s perfect foil. He’s the consummate flirt, the committed bachelor with more than a few notches on his bedpost, and has made a life for himself as the bartender at The Curious Fox that allows him to be himself like he can be nowhere else. Warren’s conflict is two-fold: one, upon his long-lost brother’s return life changes dramatically for him and his mother. And two, he can’t seem to resist the gorgeous Matthew Shaw.

Warren and Matty are drawn to each other in every conceivable way, and watching them fall in love, while also confronting and managing complications from the outside that work against them, happens with little fanfare, really. There are risks involved in their relationship, but the tension is lower—even while the stakes are high—than it might have been were it not for friends, unexpected allies, and Warren’s wholehearted commitment to proving that Matty is worth a second chance.

I appreciated the reading time with To Sketch a Scandal for its earnestness and its loveable characters and, of course, for its happy ending.