I must have said before but I’ll start the same way – I found KJ Charles books in February last year and got hooked immediately. Once the book I read was finished I tracked down her entire back catalogue and devoured it.

Her books are usually pretty grim with people getting hurt or dying in gruesome ways (how about choked by butterflies? or eaten by giant rats? I certainly remember something with eels!) so it was fun to see her brief for this one with a tag line that said ”No murders!”

Band Sinister is a light comedy set in the British Regency. The biggest horror that happens is a pretty graphic description of a broken femur (I guess she couldn’t help herself?) and a scrape to someones Hessian boots (but the author assures us it was only the wearer’s second best pair). Phew.

As for the characters they are well constructed as usual. And the (inevitable) sex scenes are hot af and full of consent (literally) – which is the main reason these books spoke to me in the first place.

Guy is a country virgin who is pretty stuck in life (quite literally actually) in the village where he and his sister Amanda grew up. His family’s reputation was ruined when his mother ran away with another man and left her husband and children behind.

Sir Philip is the brother of the man Guy’s mother ran off with and he is not happy about the situation it put him in but is trying to do the best he can with the hand he’s been dealt. And the reputation he’s been given (and cultivated) after his brother’s elopement.

When Amanda turns up at Sir Philip’s home after a nasty fall from a horse (what was she even doing on his lands?) and cannot be moved for a few weeks. Country gossip and propriety forces Guy to stay with her and he and Philip are brought together.
Guy is not going to befriend his host (TYWM), but Philip and his disreputable entourage of friends (Rakes! Artists! Satirists! Scientists! Musicians! Doctors! .. wait what?) soon work their way inside his defences and the forces that keep him trapped in his childhood village might shatter and set him free. If only he will let them.

I loved this book and would read it again immediately if I didn’t have a TBR-pile as high as myself to get through first.

For everyone? This book contains explicit sex scenes between two men (at a time). If that offends you this book is not for you.

I received a free ARC of Band Sinister in return for a review.