Review: The Magpie Lord is back, and aren't we all lucky...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 13, 2014
Maybe it's because I had a thing for magpies when I was a kid, because of a wooden children's puzzle.  Then, when I saw my first magpie at fifteen in England with my dad, I was entranced.  Maybe it's because I'm a magpie myself, professionally - a museum curator whose job it is to collect bright, shiny objects. Hmmm...I was worried that I would like the sequel to "The Magpie Lord" less; in fact I liked it even more. K.J. Charles moves Mr. Day and Lord Crane's relationship ahead with agonizingly perfect finesse and emotional truth. She introduces yet another fantastic detective problem for them to solve, with its own unique blend of mayhem and magic. And she delves more deeply into the people who form Stephen Day's essential family: his fellow justiciars, and particularly Esther Gold and her doctor husband Daniel.But the real reason I have loved both of K.J. Charles' "Charm of Magpies" books is the writing. In the world of m/m romance, whether fantasy or paranormal or historical or, as here, all three, it is the writing that matters most to me. I love it when I don't read a book so much as experience it. When Stephen Day and Lucien Crane walk through Limehouse, I'm there with them, seeing and smelling as if through their eyes, ears and noses.  When the police inspector interviews Lord Crane regarding a particularly gruesome murder, I'm in the room with them, trying not to chortle out loud at the dry humor of the two men's banter. When Stephen and Lucien are indulging in passion away from prying eyes, it's not like watching porn on a computer screen. A good writer makes you one of them, not a creepy voyeur. Take your choice, Stephen or Lucien - but it's you who experiences the heat and the friction--and the love.It is hard enough to create a believable historical context in which a gay couple exists outside our modern social liberalism. To add to that a fantasy England in which the practice of magic is an assumption and its practitioners are accepted, if underpaid, participants in the social contract, is no mean feat for a writer.  Charles pulls it off brilliantly. Even if she never writes another book about this remarkable pair of Victorian gentlemen, I'll be satisfied. But truly I hope she does, because they are worth revisiting.