Slippery Creatures discussion

[vae]

It's been a week! (and oh what a week it's been)

Let's discuss Slippery Creatures. Here be spoilers in the comments!

Did you love the characters? The world? The plot? Have you read other KJ Charles books that you'd compare it with? Things that are in common with other books? Things that are new? How do you feel about it being the first book of a trilogy and how this one ends taking that into account?

Comments

[therru]

The 1920s setting is very interesting, because we see how much the war had changed people and society, and there is a great parallel between this and Spectred Isle. There was the same theme of "the War was wholesale murder of a generation, and our own leaders were the ones who sold us out." It wasn't a coincidence that there were a lot of anti-establishment/revolutionary sentiments going around (some more extreme than others).

And Will who was just a normal 18-year old country boy a few years ago is now an experienced killer -- not just an ordinary soldier, but in fact a kind of assassin. And then he returns home and feels totally overwhelmed by a bookshop. So when the thugs turn up and start making trouble, he's not nearly as intimidated as they think he's going to be. And at the same time he's not a psychopath - he doesn't *like* to hurt people, he's just good at it. (I love his interactions with Kim where he makes it clear that he has no interest in doing something that they don't both enjoy; that he in fact prefers it when that's the case.)

Kim is... ah, poor man, a really damaged person. So charming and competent and calculating and vulnerable and so utterly unreliable. Except when he isn't. And then he is again. I think Kim has probably a lot of character development coming in the next two books.

I was a bit worried about it being the first in a trilogy and just a HFN, but I liked the end a lot. It wasn't a cliffhanger or a contrived conflict, but a genuinely hopeful "Let's see how this goes". Will is really a forgiving kind of person, isn't he? I mean, yes, Kim did rescue him, but even before then Will had already kind of failed at hating Kim, however much he wanted to.

The virus mcguffin, though! Poor KJ! That must have been terrible, to write a book about an engineered virus that would turn into a pandemic if released, and then have the real world erupt in a pandemic shortly before the book release. I mean, what are the odds?

I have more to say, but it's late where I live and I'll leave the field to others.

[jenett]

I just finished it late last night!

For reasons that might be obvious if you poke around my profile I have Opinions about the awesome potential of the 1920s for romance and people trying to figure out how the world works now, and this book delivers all of that in spades.

I really loved how Will starts out just trying to get by, and then has to expand what he's thinking, and his assumptions about people. And I adore Kim, with all his sharpness and his flaws, and I'm really wanting the next books to learn more precisely about how he got to be as he is. I agree with therru, above, about how damaged he is. (And Phoebe is just delightful, and clearly sharper than she lets on.)

I also really liked the HFN here - it's satisfying, but it's also realistic that they're not just going to sort everything out tidily with a bow on it. Will's made it clear he doesn't like sneaking around (and Kim has been under misapprehensions about Maisie). And all of them have their own bits of stuff they really need to sort out even if they don't want to.

[aurumcalendula]

I adored this! I really enjoyed all the characters (and I'm kinda hoping Maisie and Phoebe get together by the end of the trilogy).

It put me in mind of Think of England, although with more emphasis on intrigue. I've been describing it to other people as 'kinda like The 39 Steps, but with queer main characters'.

I think it has a really satisfying ending for Will and Kim - like they aren't together, but they're in a good place with each other. (I'm very happy there wasn't a cliffhanger or contrived conflict)

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I enjoyed it! And I was on board with the pairing by the end of it but I have to say that reading a lot o fanfic has given me the bad habit of skimming over the plot in commercial romance novels but I was actually reading more for the plot for the first half or two thirds of it. And I didn't really like either of the characters so much in the beginning (I didn't dislike them, I just was crazy about them like I was and am about the pairing in Think of England). Like others, I liked Phoebe and Maisie. Maybe even more than the lads in the beginning. I think the author turned up the heat on the sex scenes a little bit and that made me like the main pairing more and I ended feeling a satisfying 'I want to read more about these two.' I mean, at the end of things, you have to bring the heat, no? And the first blowjob was a bit tepid, I thought. And a bit out of nowhere.

But all in all, thumbs up! Let's see what happens next.