The Sugared Game

The Sugared Game (2020) K.J. Charles (The Will Darling Adventures)

Set in London in 1924.

Will Darling has settled in as proprietor of the bookstore he inherited from his uncle. He’s cleaned out the upstairs so he has room to sleep, and is slowly organizing the books. Unfortunately, all that is not keeping his mind off Kim Secretan, the unreliable aristocrat he met several months earlier, and who has seemingly walked away from Will without a second look.

But when Will and his friend Maisie visit a popular nightclub, it ends up the kind of mess Kim gets involved in, which throws the two together again.

I think my favorite part of the story was the subplot with Maisie, who (with Kim’s fiancee Phoebe) is going to start her own clothing line.

“Excuse me.” It was a woman standing next to her. “May I ask, where did you get that divine frock?”

“Maison Zie,” Maisie said immediately. “This is an early model.” She spoke in cut-glass English, disturbingly like Phoebe’s accent, with no hint of her usual Welsh lilt.

Kim has proven himself unreliable, however, Will also knows he is in an unpleasant line of work that requires a good deal of lying, which is why it isn’t quite ridiculous for Will to keep giving Kim chances.

“What about the perpetrators?”

“Consequences happen,” Kim said. “Sometimes officially, sometimes not. Jobs are lost. Bank accounts are emptied. Words are dropped in ears, and decisions are made to leave the country and start a new life in South America. The passive voice does a lot of work in my line.”

To my pleasant surprise, this actually wrapped up the mystery begun in the first book. Kim is at loose ends, and there is another book scheduled. But I was quite pleased to see the Capricorn sotry arc wrapped up.

Publisher : KJC Books

Rating: 7.5/10

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