{"id":12899,"date":"2020-05-24T08:00:28","date_gmt":"2020-05-24T12:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=12899"},"modified":"2026-03-30T19:42:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T23:42:21","slug":"slippery-creatures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/12899","title":{"rendered":"Slippery Creatures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Slippery Creatures<\/a><\/em> (2020) K.J. Charles<\/a> (The Will Darling Adventures)<\/p>\n

\"Slippery<\/a>Will Darling returned from the Great War at a bit of a loss.<\/p>\n

Will had gone to the War at eighteen, and come back five years later to find himself useless and unwanted. In Flanders he\u2019d been a grizzled veteran, a fount of professional expertise who knew the ropes and had seen it all. Back in Blighty he\u2019d become a young man again, one with little training and no experience. He\u2019d been apprenticed to a joiner before the war, but that felt like decades ago: all he was good at now was killing people, which was discouraged.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His one piece of luck was reaching out to his uncle, a dealer in antiquities, who took Will on in his shop. When his uncle died a few months later, Will inherits the shop–and an unexpected problem: Men who insist will turn over the document.<\/p>\n

I liked Will. I liked his friend Maisie. <\/p>\n

Will had asked her dancing early on in their acquaintance, and they\u2019d had some very pleasant evenings. Then he had walked into a storeroom at work, and found the senior shop-floor clerk trapping her there. He\u2019d removed the man without ceremony, using his boot, and been summarily dismissed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I liked Phoebe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you\u2019re rather lovely,\u201d he said, startling himself. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know I am,\u201d Phoebe assured him. \u201cBut it\u2019s always nice to be told so.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And I very much like how Kim is introduced and presented. He never explains himself, and we are left to piece together his history (which is different from what he says) as well as his motivations (which are also different from what he claims).<\/p>\n

Having the story only from Will’s point of view means we see only what Kim presents, and (like Will) have to deduce Kim’s secrets and motivations.<\/p>\n

I fear that with the 100th anniversary of the end of the war and the Spanish Flu, we may eventually get a lot of books about this time period. But there haven’t been many in the past, so I’ll enjoy what I find now.<\/p>\n

Publisher: KJC Books<\/p>\n

Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Slippery Creatures (2020) K.J. Charles (The Will Darling Adventures) Will Darling returned from the Great War at a bit of a loss. Will had gone to the War at eighteen, and come back five years later to find himself useless and unwanted. In Flanders he\u2019d been a grizzled veteran, a fount of professional expertise who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,30,33,8,148,26,56,936],"tags":[581,50,697,546,476,544,767],"class_list":["post-12899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-8-10","category-british","category-historical","category-mystery","category-queer","category-romance","category-sexual-content","category-single-point-of-view","tag-bisexual","tag-boinking","tag-book-store","tag-interwar-period","tag-kj-charles","tag-mm","tag-will-darling-adventures"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-3m3","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":26427,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/26427","url_meta":{"origin":12899,"position":0},"title":"Slippery Creatures","author":"Michelle","date":"March 29, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Slippery Creatures (2020) KJ Charles (The Will Darling Adventures #1) Set in London in 1923 When Uncle William had died, Will remembered an ancient piece of lore about bees, and he\u2019d cleared his throat and told the books, \u201cHe\u2019s gone.\u201d He\u2019d been a working part in the State machine for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Slippery Creatures","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Slippery-Creatures-200x300.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24240,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/24240","url_meta":{"origin":12899,"position":1},"title":"Slippery Creatures","author":"Michelle","date":"February 8, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Slippery Creatures (2020) KJ Charles (The Will Darling Adventures, #1) Set in London in 1923 \u201cMy grateful nation wasn\u2019t grateful enough to give me a job. I pawned my medals to keep a roof over my head and food in my belly, and I\u2019ll tell you what, the Military Cross\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Slippery Creatures","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Slippery-Creatures.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13385,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/13385","url_meta":{"origin":12899,"position":2},"title":"The Sugared Game","author":"Michelle","date":"August 31, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "7.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"7.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/7-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Sugared-Game.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24243,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/24243","url_meta":{"origin":12899,"position":3},"title":"The Sugared Game","author":"Michelle","date":"February 9, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The Sugared Game (2020) KJ Charles (The Will Darling Adventures, #2) Set in London in 1924 \"Do you ever have the feeling the whole world changed while we were away and nobody bothered to mention it to us?\" \u201cI know you\u2019ve thought about this,\u201d Will said. \u201cBut there are men\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Sugared Game","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Sugared-Game.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":26429,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/26429","url_meta":{"origin":12899,"position":4},"title":"The Sugared Game","author":"Michelle","date":"March 29, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"The Sugared Game (2020) KJ Charles (The Will Darling Adventures #2) Set in England in 1924 \u201cYou\u2019re Welsh,\u201d Will pointed out. \u201cYou\u2019ve got no room to talk about spelling.\u201d \u201cNothing wrong with Welsh spelling, thank you,\u201d Maisie said, with an edge on her accent. \u201cCome off it. You put two\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Sugared Game","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Sugared-Game-200x300.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24247,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/24247","url_meta":{"origin":12899,"position":5},"title":"Subtle Blood","author":"Michelle","date":"February 9, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Subtle Blood (2021) KJ Charles (Will Darling Adventures #3) Set in England in 1924 Lord Arthur recently became notorious for the killing of man-about-town Johnnie Cheveley in shocking events at Lord Waring\u2019s ancestral home. 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