A Fashionable Indulgence

A fun, sexy romance with twists and turns I didn't see coming. THIS is how you add a murder/intrigue plot to your romance so that it still feels like a romance and not like a book that doesn't know what genre it wants to be (AHEM, [b:The Paying Guests 20821087 The Paying Guests Sarah Waters https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1396671788s/20821087.jpg 26164907]). Enjoyed this a lot.

Huh. I have read everything K.J. Charles has written (with the exception of Non-stop Till Tokyo) and this is the first book I haven't loved. I liked (but again didn't love) the two MCs, Harry and Julius, but I felt uncomfortable with the sociopolitical issues of the time that were raised but then (at least for now) abruptly dropped. I found it difficult to get caught up in the historical romance fantasy world when Harry is tied to protests against the British government that led to the deadly “Peterloo massacre” of 1819, while Julius lives a life of luxury. The lighthearted Pygmalion theme of Julius teaching Harry to become a gentleman rests uneasily beside the social injustice and oppression that Charles describes. Is it a happy ending if Harry ends up a member of the idle rich? It's possible that the timing of this book, so soon after the one year anniversary of the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson (close to my suburban St. Louis home), is making me overly sensitive to this type of issue. We read romances to escape, not for political commentary, after all. But even if I forget those concerns, the romance between Harry and Julius just didn't pull at my heartstrings in the same way as the relationships between Stephen and Lucien in the Magpie series, or Curtis and Daniel in Think of England. There are obstacles to their relationship but not a whole lot of angst. YMMV if you don't require much angst in your romances. I have high hopes for the relationship hinted at in the next book of this series, and perhaps the sociopolitical issues will be addressed more satisfactorily as well. TL;DR - slightly disappointing effort from one of my favorite M/M authors but still worth reading.ETA on 2nd reading in 2019: 3.5 stars. Still not my favorite KJC, but I've read a lot of really bad romance in 4 years and I've come to appreciate her even more. Plus reading this book when I know what's coming in [b:A Seditious Affair 25241403 A Seditious Affair (Society of Gentlemen, #2) K.J. Charles https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1436568399l/25241403.SX50.jpg 44960983] makes Harry and Julius' romance more enjoyable in its simplicity.