“For all that the Will Darling books are romance, they are not sweetness and light. People have pasts and they hurt as a result.“
KJ Charles reports that writing the final book of The Will Darling Adventures trilogy (Subtle Blood) was especially difficult, describing the experience “like driving [a Land Rover] into a tar pit.” [2] As with many authors writing at that same time, the Covid pandemic laid her low. I, for one, am grateful she persevered. Reading Books 2 and 3 both comforted and kept me reasonably sane in the face of the virus’ impact in my own life.
A m/m romance trilogy in the spirit of Golden Age pulp fiction. It’s the 1920s and tensions are rising along with hemlines. Soldier-turned-bookseller Will Darling finds himself tangled up in spies and secret formulas, clubs and conspiracies, Bolsheviks, blackmail, and Bright Young Things. And dubious aristocrat Lord Arthur ‘Kim’ Secretan is right in the middle of it all: enigmatic, unreliable, and utterly irresistible.
The Sugared Game
The Sugared Game takes up a few months after the events of Slippery Creatures. Although a standalone story it is decidedly a sequel and needs the previous book to set the context. With the four key characters—Will Darling, Kim Secretan, Maisie Jones, and Phoebe Stephens-Prince—firmly established Charles is able to expand the action both in terms of romance and adventure.
The story opens with Will taking best friend Maisie to the High-Low Club for an evening on the town. The club is glamorous but seedy, clearly a haven for nefarious doings of all sorts. It becomes the focus of the plot and the continuously fractured romance between Will and Kim. While at the club Will meets a one-time military compatriot. Kim, who initially is as unreliable, and irresistible, makes use of Will’s connection, turning the bookseller’s finally neatened world into one more secretive, criminal, and underhanded.
If Slippery Creatures was something of a romp, The Sugared Game is tougher, occasionally meaner, taking a deeper look at the gents as the taut plots winds into something more twisty and and dangerous for them both. Trust, the lack thereof that is, continues to center the emotional dynamics here.
Kim’s fiancée Phoebe and Will’s best friend Maisie have their own tale as Maisie, with Phoebe’s solid support, tries to establish herself with the fashion design set. Unlike the men, the women have a strong and growing friendship. Staying close to the historical reality of the times, the women struggle more to be taken seriously. Phoebe, a glamorous and wealthy aristocrat is viewed as ornamental; Phoebe’s lower class standing and race are held against her. Only Phobe’s patronage gives her the edge up, capable as Maisie is. Still, the women willingly use societal assumptions as an effective disguise that allows them to skirt those very expectations.
While I personally did not feel as engaged with the story—and that’s on me; the 1920s noir/pulp style just isn’t my thing—I very much liked how Charles’ lets Will and Kim mature, something she gently and effectively explores in a side story she sent her readers via her newsletter (“To Trust Man on His Oath” —see link at the end of this essay.) Will tends to think he has his act together; it’s Kim who has a problem. By the end of the tale, Will learns new things about himself and discovers, too, that Kim can in fact be be trusted
Subtle Blood
Book 3, the last of the trilogy, is a wonderfully blazing and hugely satisfying conclusion to the series. NPR’s Maya Rodale pronounced Subtle Blood a “sexy, elegant and romantic murder mystery” and it is every bit that. We leap right back into things with the murder of a man at a gentleman’s club, the suspected killer being the older brother of the charming and devious Lord Arthur “Kim” Secretan.
“Yet I must thank you for admitting that you are thieves rather pretending that your work is in a respectable profession . . . Rascal thieves, Here’s gold. Go, suck the subtle blood o’ the grape, Till the high fever seethe your blood to froth, And so ’scape hanging. . . .”
~ Shakespeare. Timon of Athens, Act 4, Sc. 3
In Subtle Blood the ravens come home to roost. Kim must deal with his rather appalling family and his own need for at least one family member’s approval. Will finds that the pragmatic, just-endure-today approach that let him kill during the war killing without remorse, with pride even, does not work when it comes to love. Kim matures and finds his metier. Will follows but more slowly. And for once, it is Kim who leads here in self understanding and kindness for all that he still struggles with the pain of what he has to do and who he is.
Kim’s one-time fiancée, Phoebe Stephens-Prince, now Lady Waring, and Darling’s long-time good friend, Maisie Jones, who is a Paris designer now, play secondary but pivotal roles in this last tale. They are strong women and, while supportive of the gents, do not shrink from forcing Kim and Will (and, surprisingly, Kim’s father) to deal with the consequences of their actions and, in Will’s case, to grapple with the emotional realities of loving a man beyond one day at a time.
For all that the Will Darling books are romance, they are not sweetness and light. People have pasts and they hurt as a result. There are difficult situations, death, and considerable mayhem. Charles considerately posts content warnings on her website here.
Finally, Charles did a rather lovely thing for her readers—wrote supplemental tales to this trilogy. Those signed up for her newsletter received them first, but since then she has posted the side stories on her website.
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- Song for a Viking (Think of England 1.5)
- To Trust Man on His Oath (Will Darling 2.5)
Charles notes it is “Set a week after the ending of The Sugared Game (so contains mild spoilers for that book).” - How Goes the World? (Think of England/Will Darling Adventures series epilogue)
NOTE: This essay is an updated version reviews I originally published on my artist blog, Dante’s Wardrobe.
© J.A. Jablonski 2021. All rights reserved.
ABOUT BOOK THOUGHTS
“Book Thoughts” is an intermittent column within my blog. The essays are not so much book reviews as book responses. I like to converse with and around the books I read.
HOW TO CITE THIS POST
Jablonski, J.A. (2021, Aug 16). KJ Charles |The Will Darling Adventures | Pt. 2. Blog post. J.A. Jablonski (website). https://jajablonski.com/2021/08/16/kj-charles-will-darling-pt2/
IMAGE CREDITS
Covers of The Will Darling Adventures. From KJ Charles Website.
Silhouette portraits of Will Darling, Kim Secretan, Maisie Jones, and Phoebe Stephens-Prince. From a Twitter book announcement by KJ Charles.
SOURCES
Disclaimer: As KJ Charles sells/promotes her books via her own website, I do not link to the Bookshop.org listings. See the first link below.
[1] Charles, KJ. (2020, 2021). The Will Darling Adventures. (Slippery Creatures, The Sugared Game, & Subtle Blood). KJC Books.
[2] Charles, KJ. (2021, May 24). How to Write a Book When You Can’t write a Book. Blog Post. KJ Charles website.
