Magical realism – books + ecstatic = BIBLIOSTATIC

Review: The Magpie Lord by K.J. Charles

r/suggestmeabook: I want a fast-paced magical Victorian mystery with an unwilling earl and a clever magician spiced with some steamy guy on guy romance.

Movie rating: R

Pages: 204

Publisher: KJC Books

Series: A Charm of Magpies

From the publisher: A lord in danger. A magician in turmoil. A snowball in hell.

Exiled to China for twenty years, Lucien Vaudrey never planned to return to England. But with the mysterious deaths of his father and brother, it seems the new Lord Crane has inherited an earldom. He’s also inherited his family’s enemies. He needs magical assistance, fast. He doesn’t expect it to turn up angry.

This book was so much fun that I’m raring to read the next one. The protagonists are adorable: tall, rebellious Lucien Vaudrey and short, clever Stephen Day. I wouldn’t say this is a cozy mystery because there’s some quite a bit of swearing and some graphic sex in it, but it’s next door to one.

K.J. Charles manages to make everything feel fresh in the story, even though she’s riding some well-worn tropes—the unwilling heir with the terrible family, a gothic house, possible madness, and hereditary curses. Part of it is the completely frank attitude of her new earl, who has completely lost any concern for Victorian sham, and part of it is the simple joy she seems to take in the love story.

As a CIS, hetero female, I can’t say how the romance will affect those who identify more with the sexuality of the protagonists, but from my point of view, it was completely absorbing, and, dare I say it, hot. It reminds me of the tone of Gentleman Jack; the story has similar sensibilities, but without Anne Lister’s conformity to her class.

Completely irrelevant side note, but did you know magpies are classified as one of the most intelligent animals in the world? They don’t live by me, so I’m fascinated by them, but I guess they could be a nuisance if they did.

At any rate: Run and get a copy of The Magpie Lord now. You’ll thank me later.

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As a teaser for a future series, or to get me to read more of April White’s books, this succeeds. As a standalone, I have some issues with it. However, the author earned brownie points from me for giving an afterward that gave the historical record.

Let me start with my bias: I’m not fond of novellas generally, and this one is representative of why. I like what is there quite a bit. Ren, the protagonist, is a woman you want to know more about. The author does a stunning job of adapting known facts about Edgar Allan Poe into this time travel book and the prose is well paced and easy to fall into.

What gives me problems is that it feels like so much is missing,. Perhaps this novella is meant more for readers who have already invested in the prior Immortal Descendants series, in which case many of the unexplained background may be obvious to those readers. But as someone new to the world, there isn’t enough world building. And even then, that background wouldn’t help me understand the murky motivations of the prime villain of the piece–or maybe it would.

The other issue for me is that everything happens too quickly. Characters change their stances too fast and believe the magical parts of the magical realism novel much too quickly. The plot is resolved almost instantaneously, which left me with a “Wait, did I miss something?” feeling.

This feels like it could have been a novel with a little more fleshing out, but it does its job well as an ad, because I know I’m going to read more of the series.

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