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bookishmillennial's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
general disclaimer if you’ve read other reviews by me and are noticing a pattern: You’re correct that I don’t really give starred reviews, I feel like a peasant and don’t like leaving them and most often, I will only leave them if I vehemently despised a book. Thus, no stars doesn’t indicate that the book wasn’t worthy of any starred system. It just means I enjoy most books for what they are, & I extract lessons from them all. Everyone’s reading experiences are subjective, so I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Happy reading! Find me on Instagram: @bookish.millennial or tiktok: @bookishmillennial
Premise:
Premise:
- set in London in summer 1885 with flashbacks to David & Noah's time in boarding school, starting in 1870
- Noah is Savile Row's promising young tailor
- David runs an underground queer club, The Curious Fox
- when the baron who owns the Fox tries to close it, David must figure out how to save his club!
- Noah & David navigate their feelings for each other that they've suppressed over the years & dismissed as childlike curiosity
- cw from Jess Everlee's website marking as spoiler:
A main character has a history of abuse at the hands of a parent and an intimate partner. While this is dealt with non-graphically, his resulting C-PTSD and an on-page connection to that ex-partner drive parts of the plot. There is an off-page suicide of an unsympathetic character. All on-page sex is between adults, but their underage history is discussed. There is period-typical homophobia, racism, and sexism. Arrest and violence pose significant threats, though do not occur in any Lucky Lovers books.
Thoughts:
This was the delightful historical queer romance I've been wanting!!! I adored the dynamics, angst and tension between Noah & David! They were so clearly pining for each other for so long and denied themselves a chance at true happiness FOR WHAT?! I love this trope of what I call "two idiots who need to just shut up and kiss already" ahhaha.
Overall, I'll admit that I read this for the friends-to-lovers first and the plot second lol! However, I loved the way the flashbacks tied into the present, and the quest to save the club!
Steam: 2.5/5
Quotations that stood out to me:
Best friends going on fifteen years, their feet always seemed to wander to wherever the other happened to be.
Never mind that the air he took in smelled like David’s cologne, or that the firm hands rubbing his stiff muscles made him want to arch his back like a damn cat. David had always been strangely good at this sort of thing; even now, when Noah was annoyed and defensive, it was hard to resist relaxing into such a skilled touch.
“It’s a razor’s edge sometimes, but it’s something to stand on.”
“Did you not know that? About the liquor? It keeps wounds from turning.”
David peered at the bottle. “Are you trying to tell me this stuff has health benefits after all?”
If he could not escape the world’s bitter workings himself, the least he could do was keep offering shelter from it to the others. It wasn’t much, perhaps, but it was something.
But he had never met the Noah who shoved his fingers in men’s mouths, then looked up through his eyelashes in a manner that meant one thing only, purring in a voice so blatant it would hold up in court, “If that’s the motivation you need, then yes. Do it for me.”
It would be humiliating to admit how much time he’d spent perfecting maneuvers like that, but Noah’s response made the time seem incredibly well-spent.
He knew just who he was, what it was, what it meant. His lover was a Londoner whose name he knew better than any other on the planet. He was home, home, home, but for some bizarre reason, he wanted to shake Davy awake and tell him what had happened like it had happened with someone else.
“You poor thing,” she said. “Have you really been pining after him all this time?”
“I didn’t say that.” He started on her braid with tingling fingers. “I haven’t said anything.”
“You’ve said enough.”
He had been pining after David back then, hadn’t he? No one sat around burning things and crying because their sister couldn’t marry their friend. Noah hadn’t realized he was pining, of course, because how was he supposed to know that was even possible? They were hardly the first pair of friends to get cozy in a boarding school broom cupboard, after all, and he’d not understood that love was possible until later. He hadn’t known what he wanted from David, just knew that he wanted something from him, something vague, something big, something that had driven him to the only outlet that made any sense…
“You poor thing,” she said again. “I can’t believe I never saw it. No wonder. My heavens, no wonder you follow him to these wretched places. You’ll follow him anywhere, won’t you?”
You never, ever have to be desperate when you have me. You know that, don’t you? Never. I’m doing very well for myself; nothing you ask would be the slightest burden.”
No wonder it never worked with anyone else. No wonder he eventually got so fed up with every lover he’d ever had. No wonder he didn’t care who left his card table with the words tease and cheat on their lips. What did it matter? They weren’t David.
He’d never felt as loved as he did right now, and didn’t need or expect anything else.
Now that he’d admitted it to himself and to David, he wanted to make everyone in here, from his well-meaning father to the least of their acquaintances, shut up and deal with the absolute reality of him. There was no coming back from the miraculous realization of what he and David meant to each other. He wanted to do something equally mad in the outside world, something as honest and wild as the love bubbling inside him. But while the rules of the world were more relaxed than usual here, to flout them might sharpen the more ambivalent opinions in the room into unpleasant ones. He could poke the rules, and challenge them, but he didn’t have the power to shatter and reshape them.
Turned out that refusing your best friend’s help was much trickier when his tongue was in your mouth.
You can pretend otherwise, but I know the truth, Forester: you’re a petty little bitch, and can hold a grudge against anything from a horny actor to an entire European nation.”
“You are relentlessly comforting, you know that?”
“Good. Now, comfort me a bit.”
“Slut?” Noah flicked a button toward Annabelle that vanished into the folds of her skirt. He shook his head as he carefully put the next stitch into the shell of a half-finished waistcoat. “Seems like mere hours ago that everyone and their sister was calling me frigid.”
Annabelle gave him a look.
“Times change.”
He prayed there would be a chance for more moments like that, but if not, at least they hadn’t gone to their graves pretending their love for each other was silly.
“You’re always so put together. It’s lovely, but I like seeing you sort of undone.”
There were details—so many and so harsh—but they’d work those out in time, on the scaffolding they’d built together.
They were not half-discreet enough in the way they leaned across the table to whisper and brush hands and taste each other’s food, but there was no helping it. Something had changed at Kings Cross, and neither of them had learned to resist the pull of it yet.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Mental illness, Sexism, Homophobia, and Domestic abuse
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