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Lara
https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/copper-script-by-kj-charles/
https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/?post_type=reviews&p=166081
I’m a big KJ Charles fan so it was inevitable that I would read this book one day. I read it this weekend and I had a great time, with a couple caveats.
Aaron is a police detective in London in the 1920s. He is told about a graphologist, Joel, who can decipher people’s personalities from their handwriting with impossible accuracy. Aaron is sure that Joel is a charlatan or a con artist of some description and becomes obsessed with working out how Joel does what he does. The first 50% is taken up by this. Initially this put me off my stride as I thought the mystery plot would kick in sooner but it doesn’t: that comes later.
We find out early on that Joel has a ‘criminal’ history – he did two months in prison for an ‘indecent proposal’. While he doesn’t advertise his queerness to the general public, there is something about Aaron that provokes Joel into flirting at Aaron quite a bit. Aaron is tightly buttoned up and doesn’t flirt back. He wouldn’t dare – he’s a policeman. This builds some quite lovely tension between the two. There is an intensity to their connection that’s a lot of fun to read.
Joel has a limb difference – his left hand was shot during WW1 and he lost the hand. His feelings about his prosthetic are complicated. The sex scenes adapt to Joel’s limb difference and Aaron’s responses show a deep acceptance of Joel as he is.
As with all KJ Charles novels, the historical detail is rich and makes for a very immersive experience as a reader. For example, the discussions of how WW1 veterans were treated at the time made me consider the England of that time in a different light.
The mystery plot kicks in at around 60% but things stagnate almost immediately. Because it happens so late in the book, I won’t take you through it here, but I will say that there are no clues, no movement in solving the mystery until one of the characters takes decisive action around 80% in. So the pacing is a bit off. Once that decisive action is taken, the plot accelerates significantly.
For a romance novel, Joel and Aaron don’t spend a huge amount of time together before professing their love for one another. I get that given their circumstances (and the mystery plot) that it’s tricky to get that time together and stay safe, but the romance felt a bit rushed to me. It is possible that this might be a “me” problem as I recently read a trilogy by KJ Charles in which the romance arc takes three books to reach fruition. So perhaps it is quick in comparison only. Nevertheless, it is something that my mind snagged on while reading.
Do I recommend this book? Absolutely I do. It is good, but it doesn’t reach the heights of KJ Charles’ other books. The mystery brought the story momentum to a lull, and I wanted more than the limited time Joel and Aaron spent together, but Charles’ writing is always compelling, particularly in the way the characters move around in a world with such deep and specific contextual details. I probably sound a bit disappointed, and I am, but I don’t want that to stand in the way of you picking up this book.
https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/copper-script-by-kj-charles/
https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/?post_type=reviews&p=166081