The ever reliable K.J. Charles is back with The Secret Lives of County Gentlemen. This is a charming but intense story in which two very different men with very different lives navigate a relationship in the marshlands of Kent, where smuggling is a cultural norm, everything is just a little bit gothic, mystery abounds, and “out-marsh” people are held in suspicion.
‘London’ and ‘Kent’ hit it off in the big city as clandestine and anonymous lovers, but when Kent tells London that he’ll be gone for a couple of weeks, ‘London’ assumes this is ‘Kent’s’ way of breaking things off and lashes out, ending things badly. Shortly after, ‘London’, whose real name is Sir Gareth Inglis, repairs to Romney Marsh to take over his recently deceased and very estranged father’s estate. Imagine his surprise when it turns out that ‘Kent’, whose real name is Joss Doomsday, is his neighbor and the head of a smuggling family.
Gareth’s mother died when Gareth was very young, and his father sent him to live with an uncle and promptly forgot all about him. Gareth is surprised to learn that upon his father’s untimely death, his father left his estate to him and that the estate comes with a rebellious teenaged half-sister (Cecilia) and a step-aunt. Since these women were left nothing in the will, they are completely dependent upon Gareth, who until recently was completely dependent himself on an uncle who never wanted him and reminded him of this fact often. So Gareth is going through some things.
Meanwhile, Joss is also dealing with family trouble. He’s supposed to be the head of the family/company but his uncle, who is an incompetent alcoholic, resents him and undermines him at every turn. Joss can’t deal with the uncle himself, because Joss’s mother, who, let’s face it, is the REAL head of the family, babies her little brother and won’t let Joss confront him. So it’s all a big mess in the way that only families with generations of drama can produce.
The plot thickens because Cecilia is walking out with a Preventive officer (a cop), and of course Joss is the head of a smuggling family, which puts the family obligations of Gareth and Joss firmly at odds. Gareth is prickly and suspicious and has enormous abandonment issues, while Joss has both business and family stress, because for him the family and the business are one and the same, and he and his mother can’t agree on how to deal with Joss’s insubordinate uncle. And no, Gareth never stops pointing out that Joss’s name is ridiculous.
There’s a lot of conflict in this book and it comes in different forms – external conflict, action scenes, courtroom drama, family arguments, internal conflict, and a mystery. Joss and Gareth both struggle to feel inwardly secure in their family roles even as they have to fight off challengers. However, I never felt like there was too much conflict – I was never too anxious to enjoy the book. It’s interesting when Joss and Gareth argue with each other, because they are both a little bit right and a little bit wrong, and it’s enjoyable because they are good at listening and learning from each other (once Gareth calms the hell down, which takes a while).
Joss is one of those supremely capable people. Even when he’s worried about his ability to handle a situation, we know he can do it. And I enjoyed seeing the insecure, out-of-place Gareth become more confident and capable himself. There’s a lot of enthusiastic sex, and a bit of gothic mystery, and quite a bit of tea. Once Gareth gets Joss to join him in some natural history quests, mostly involving beetles, things get downright cozy.
This was an incredibly atmospheric book. I really felt like I was there on the marsh. It was easy to visualize all the scenes and characters. The conflicts were all compelling and the resolutions felt earned. One Gareth calmed down a bit, I found the dynamic between him and Joss to be very enjoyable. They felt like real, flawed human beings surrounded by a bunch of other real, flawed human beings in a challenging physical and social environment. The plot kept me glued to the page and the relationships were all compelling, not just the romantic ones.
My only problem with the book was that the happy ending, while as happy as one might expect two men to get in that time period, felt a little unresolved. As happy endings go, this one is…ok, but lacking in details. I would love to see how Joss and Gareth’s relationship plays out in practical terms in the future.
The strengths of this book are in the balancing of conflict with humor and optimism, the rich characterizations, and the portrayal of life on the marsh, as well as a romance between two opposites. It’s entertaining, exciting, and immersive. While I wanted a little more from the ending, I enjoyed this book overall!
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This is already on my TBR stacks, and I’ve been saving it to savor. I have the sequel on my preorder list as well.
The setting makes me think of Georgette Heyer’s The Unknown Ajax, one of my favorites of hers, and KJC’s “Heyer but gayer” motto.
This one was also a solid B for me mostly because Gareth has his head so far up his ass for the first quarter/third of the book. As Carrie notes, there are good reasons for this but it was still like, “C’MON, dude,” especially since the opening scene is some serious sexy times. (I think I might have minded Gareth’s issues less if the opening scene had been different!) And agree about the ending. But on the whole, it’s KJ Charles and I’m always happy to spend time with her books.
Also, the copy I had had the first chapter of the sequel which looks very promising! There are hints it’ll tie off a big plot point from this book and that it explains Joss’s ridiculous last name. I’m looking forward to it.
Can’t go wrong with KJC, mostly (“The Casebook of Simon Feximal” being a partial outlier here). The Will Darling trilogy wrecked my sleep patterns for weeks, and you bet I put this hot number on my library hold list as soon as I found out about it.
This was an A+ book for me; I’ve already read it twice. Agree that a bit more time spent wallowing in the happy ending would have been ideal, but (unlike in many books I’ve read recently where a high-conflict main storyline takes 90% of the book and then you get a rushed resolution in which much is assumed) I felt confident in the HEA.
Also I have hopes that KJC may gift us a follow-up story at some point, as she often does.
Charles never disappoints; this was an A- for me.
I’m with @chacha1: A+ from me — and also my favorite book cover so far this year. I’ve ordered the sequel. I felt that the HEA was perfectly solid, especially given the times. Both men find that they have loyal and loving allies in their families who will help by supporting and protecting their relationship. And I had total sympathy with Gareth, not just because of his issues with being displaced and unwanted but because of what Joss does when they first meet again on the marshes. I’d have stayed angry a good while myself.
KJ Charles has ruined me for other authors. Even my least favorite of hers (which is a tie between A Gentleman’s Position and A Gilded Cage, for the same reason: one of the leads is so utterly awesome the other is intensely unworthy in comparison) I adore as books even if the romance aspect doesn’t absolutely kill me as much as it might.
I believe in Joss and Gareth’s HEA, and I don’t need an extended epilogue prove it. After all they have been through, and how they have changed? Especially considering that whatever their interpersonal communication angst at any given moment, and their extreme extended circumstantial angst throughout, the intimacy between them remains so consistently, remarkably joyful and problem free. I have no doubt that they have met their person, and no doubt that they know it. They know how lucky they are, and they have worked so hard to get to where they are, I don’t see what life can throw at them that they couldn’t handle.
Do I always want more of all of her books? Absolutely, but that doesn’t mean she should make them so long I don’t feel that way anymore.
Is it my favorite KJ Charles? No, but only because my favorite is basically whichever I have read most recently. I have read this three times, but A Thief in the Night came out today (for those of us who can’t do audio) and thus is my latest favoritest thing.
Thank you for the reminder about A Thief in the Night @kkw. I’ve been waiting for that one, since I can’t do audio books.
It’s supposed to be coming out in a paper edition with other stories.I’ve been debating whether to get that as well. I was hoping it would include the sequel story to Think of England, but it sadly won’t.
This was an A read for me too. I feel like I’ve been disappointed by a lot of books I was looking forward to this year, so I savoured this one.
I kinda liked Gareth with his head up his arse – I think it just showed how much he didn’t trust himself and I liked seeing him gain that little bit of confidence in himself.
I love how KJ Charles builds characters that make me want to hang out with them. Joss is totally one of them.
I loved it too – Charles is one of the few writers I’d consider to be an auto-buy for me. The Magpie Lord series is probably my least favourite as fantasy isn’t so much my thing, and I haven’t read Simon Feximal, but all the others – love them all! Society of Gentlement was my starting point into Charles’ books during the Pandemic *swooooon*.
Loved this one, it kept me up all night! Gareth didn’t put me off, I could understand his reasons and I liked to see him grow.
Yes, the end was pretty short, though I believe in the HEA, but I am sure we’ll see more of the two in the next book, which will be about Luke. Another gorgeous cover, and going by one part of the cover plus a comment that Charles made on her blog a while ago, I have an idea what might just happen.
And now I’m off to read Thief in the Night, because I don’t to audiobooks, and this was a happy pick-me-up for the weekend, seeing it appear on my Kindle this morning!