There's a lot to enjoy in Jess Everlee's novel.

- I quite liked the two main characters; I liked that Charlie was a self-described fop with purple peacock feathers and lace cuffs, and I liked that Miles was a smut writer with a tragic backstory.

- The back n' forth dialogue between them was great, often funny, and the MCs have chemistry.

- I'm so, so glad Charlie's fiance Alma wasn't written as a shrew or a harpy. She's a very likable character, and I'd honestly read a story where she gets together with Miss Jo or some other female character.

- Charlie's parents seemed like decent people who were really trying to do their best by their son, considering the constrictions of the time period.

- Yes, the ending was a bit neatly tied up, but I don't mind that at all in my romance novels. I want solidly happy endings.

Why did I take two stars off then?

- I found the scenes in Charlie's secret gay club (the Curious Fox) to be tedious to the point of skimming. Everlee clearly had a lot of fun writing these scenes, but I didn't care about or connect to any of the characters (aside from maybe Jo), there were too many to keep track of, and the scenes seemed to go on forever.

- They're supposed to be this wacky, fun-loving group of diverse queers, but fuck, they were TEDIOUS.

- There was one pretty promising sex scene in the beginning, but everything else is fade to black. The book description would have you believe this is going to be a really steamy, smutty romance (the one MC is a porn writer, after all), but it's all threatening to be smutty, without any payoff.

- I PERSONALLY feel it would have been a much braver and more interesting choice if

Spoiler

Charlie and Alma did go through with the wedding and figured out a way to make it work between the three of them.

You don't often get that kind of ending, and I would have loved to see it.

- I ended up skimming the epilogue, and I'm usually a sucker for epilogues, but instead of being about the MCs, it was about those tedious goddamn gay club characters again. About the MCs giving them presents, and having to read every character's reaction to each character receiving a present. Goddamn, I do not care about them.

I don't think I'll read the next one. I don't care enough about the tedious gay club characters to want to read a book centering on a romance with two of them.

DNF.

CW: power dynamics, BDSM