I just miss bookstores a lot, okay, you guys.)Īnyway, the book also involves some humans, I guess. Did I fall in love with the shop before we even met both protagonists? YES. The number ‘forty thousand books’ is thrown around a lot.

The shelves are a maze and everything smells like dust and old paper. A good chunk of the action takes place in an old, crowded building crammed full of used books. Aside from the two possible deal-breakers above, as far as I’m concerned that is Fact #1. No one is sick or quarantined at any point, but the effects of large-scale infection are mentioned.

The plot hinges on a weaponized disease.

It worked for me, but if you’re feeling the lack of satisfying emotional resolutions in your real life and need one in your fiction? Yeah, hold off on this one.

It’s the first in a trilogy, and the author has stated that the HEA won’t be happening until book three.

There are two things you need to know right up front when deciding if this book is for you. Theme: Class Differences, Friends with Benefits/No Strings Attached, Slow Burn I finally got used to it popping-up during the narrative, unannounced ( Christ, Will, you just got attacked, how getting laid is your first thought?) and then once I put that unease feeling aside, I managed to enjoy the rest of the story.Genre: Historical: European, LGBTQIA, Romance But once I understood that it was an important detail for the story, or more like an important part of the relationship between Will and Kim that kept building up alongside the plot, it was okay. I couldn’t put the book down for 3 days, and as I am quite pleased with my reading, I was just a tiny bit disturbed by all these explicit sex scenes - I did not expect that when I first opened the book.

The only problem? Will has no idea what this is all about.

Just after World War I, Will inherits his uncle’s bookshop and with it, the secret that inhabits it: Darven, a now dead scientific, asked Will’s uncle to hide his ground-breaking discovery, a chemical warfare, but a lot of people including the War Office and a gang of so-called anarchists are after it. So yeah, the plot is compelling, with a lot of actions and everything you can expect for a book about secret scientific formulas and gangs. Quite a good read overall, with compelling characters and great writing.

Kj charles slippery creatures