Reviews

An Unseen Attraction by KJ Charles is a historical mystery. It is an enjoyable book. Rollie and Clem, the main characters, have a relationship that develops over the course of the book. Clem had a British father and an East Indian mother who were not married. His whole life he was been an outsider and treated as "less than". Rollie's father was a violent man who was hanged when Rollie was a teen. Two men who the English society have disdain and yet were more decent than the nobility in the story. Matthew Lloyd Davies is a terrific narrator. He does a great job on the range of accents and voices. An enjoyable book.

britgbrewer's review

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective relaxing tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

jackiehorne's review against another edition

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4.0

Charles moves from the aristocracy of the Regency period to the middling sorts of the Victorian in the first book of this new series, Sins of the Cities. Our protagonists are two unlikely heroes: Clem Talleyfer, the biracial bastard son of an aristocrat, who runs a rooming house in London; and Rowley Green, one of Clem's rooming house tenants, who works as a "preserver," or taxidermist. The opening of the book is fairly slow, establishing the characters of these two quiet introverts and their gradual inching from friendship (Mr. Green and Mr. Talleyfer taking tea occasionally together of an evening) to a riskier sexual liaison. The mood shifts from romance to suspense after another of the rooming house's boarders, one Clem's brother the earl insisted he house despite the man's drunken behavior, turns up murdered on the house's doorstep.

The evil-doer is fairly obvious, but Charles manages to keep the tension high in spite of it. Romances set in racially mixed Victorian London are pretty rare, as are historicals that feature middle class heroes who are neurodiverse. Intriguingly, the author does not include a note explaining what type of neurodiversity Clem has, wanting readers to take him as he is without needing to label him. As is usual with Charles' historicals, both characters are portrayed with depth, insight, and kindness. They may not be the most exciting pair Charles has ever written, but they are certainly one of the more endearing.