Review: A pleasure to think of England
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 7, 2014
Even though I've never really considered myself a romance fan, K.J. Charles is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors - enough that, when I finished burning through A Case of Possession and saw there weren't to be any further Magpie Lord books for several months but this one was coming out in a couple of weeks, I did something I've never done before and pre-ordered it!  Something about her stories manages to fascinate and inspire me in a way that few romances (and, really, few stories) do.Upon reflection, I think it's the care and focus with which she builds her characters.  It seems like a lot of romance stories take a significant shortcut in that arena, just assuming that these are nice people that you like and want to see together, without taking any time to demonstrate who they really are, or why they're attracted to each other, or any of the historical or emotional context other than perhaps a few casual swipes at a past affair gone wrong or an unhappy childhood.  Charles' characters, on the contrary, are vividly drawn, with well-developed histories, personalities, and motivations, and thus real chemistry.  (I particularly liked the contrast here between Curtis' straightforward-to-a-fault worldview and da Silva's demimonde of entendres and subtle implications.)  I also love that her romances always contain an external story of some sort - relationships are shaped by context as much as by individuals, and hers never exist in a vacuum.The writing is still a little tell-don't-show in places, and the transitions between the character moments and the external plot can be a touch choppy. Still, Charles' style continues to improve, and the ending is left open for potential sequels that I feel the characters could well support.  I'm very much looking forward to her next book, be it about these characters, the Magpie series characters, or some other series entirely.