I freely admit that I’ve been chomping at the bit to get my hands on this third and final instalment of K.J. Charles’ Sins of the Cities trilogy, eager to discover who has been violently disposing of anyone with knowledge of the missing heir to the Moreton earldom and to find out how all the pieces of the puzzle the author has so cleverly devised fit together.

Note: The books in this series could be read as standalones (although I wouldn’t advise it!), but there is an overarching plot that runs through all three, so there are spoilers in this review.

A trail of arson and murder began – literally – on the doorstep of unassuming lodging house keeper, Clem Tallyfer, when the dead, mutilated body of one of his lodgers, the drunken, foul-mouthed Reverend Lugtrout, was dumped on the front steps.  An investigation by two of Clem’s friends – journalist Nathaniel Roy and private enquiry agent, Mark Braglewicz – revealed that someone was trying to do away with anyone who knew that the Earl of Morton (Clem’s half-brother) had committed bigamy.  He entered into a marriage in his youth with a beautiful young woman of low social standing and soon abandoned her, not knowing she was pregnant. She gave birth to twins – a boy and a girl she named Repentance and Regret – who have since disappeared without trace. These facts have set in train a series of events which have led to blackmail, abduction, arson and murder; someone is killing those with any knowledge of the earl’s first marriage and is trying to find his children – most importantly his legal heir – likely with similarly nefarious intent.

In the previous book, An Unnatural Vice, we discovered that the twins – who go by Pen and Greta – have been hiding in plain sight for the past decade, earning money and acclaim as the Flying Starlings, the music-hall trapeze act Clem takes Rowley Green (the object of his affections) to see near the beginning of book one, An Unseen Attraction (hah! Clever, Ms. Charles – they’re an ‘attraction’ and are also ‘unseen’ for who they really are ;)).  Following Moreton’s death, the killer – whose identity and motivations remain unknown - steps up his attempts to find the twins, which is when Justin Lazarus, medium extraordinaire and self-proclaimed, all-round shifty bastard finds himself in big trouble. Forced to flee his home – and London – in fear for his life, when An Unsuitable Heir opens, Justin and Nathaniel Roy are hiding out at Nathaniel’s house in the country while Mark attempts to contact Pen and Greta and keep them safely hidden until such time as Pen can stake his claim to the title.

Readers of An Unnatural Vice will already know that Pen wants nothing to do with the earldom and will have some idea as to why.  Mark quickly discovers this for himself when he manages to meet up with Pen, seemingly by accident at first, and inveigles him into going for a drink.  He pretends to be unaware of Pen’s true identity, and is, for want of a better word, gobsmacked by his physicality and presence. Pen is gorgeous, with an athletic build, beautiful long hair and wears gold earrings and face paint – and Mark is captivated.  He’s a pretty no-nonsense sort of bloke, and to him, beauty is beauty in whatever shape or form it takes; Pen is beautiful and Pen is… Pen. Mark would dearly love to get to know him better, but has to remind himself that Pen is the subject of an investigation and that Pen, Greta and two of his dearest friends – Clem and Nathaniel (because of Justin) – are in danger until Pen is installed as the Earl of Moreton.

But Pen does not want to live as an earl; in fact he doesn’t want to live as a man - or rather, he doesn’t want to live ‘just’ as a man.  Because he isn’t.  Nor is he a woman.  He’s Pen. He’s a Flying Starling. He’s who he is and some days he wants to wear face paint and chiffon scarves; others he’s content to grow stubble and look in the mirror to see his large, well-muscled form and recognise himself.  I can’t claim any expertise whatsoever in this area, but I know K.J. Charles is someone who takes great pains to get things like this right and I trust her  judgement. All I can say is that her portrayal of Pen as gender-fluid is extremely well done and the way she writes him as sometimes being completely uncomfortable in his own skin and his reactions to it ring very true and made it easy for someone like me – a middle-aged, heterosexual woman – to understand his thoughts and emotions.

When Mark acts out of a need to keep Pen safe, it causes a deep rift between them; but it soon emerges that getting Pen out of London and down to the family seat at Crowmarsh might not have been the safest thing after all. A couple of ‘accidents’ point to the killer having followed the twins out of London, and while Pen’s uncle and would-be-earl, Desmond Taillefer, and his son try to downplay the threat, Clem sends Mark to the house in the hope that he will be able to get to the bottom of things and keep Pen alive.

I think it’s fair to say that An Unsuitable Heir is weighted firmly towards the mystery, which wasn’t really a problem, as I desperately wanted to know whodunnit and why.  Pen’s inner conflict – over what it would mean to live the rest of his life as someone else – is extremely well done, as is his confrontational relationship with Desmond, who regards Pen as pretty much an abomination. Fortunately, Pen’s sister Greta is very much in his corner; she’s fierce and determined, and while she freely admits that she would like to have the settled, comfortable life of the sister of an earl, she understands perfectly what being forced to become something he is not will do to Pen and is prepared to stand by him.  But all this – which is extremely insightful and well-written - means that the love-story takes a bit of a back seat and consequently feels less well-developed than those in the earlier books. That said, the pairing works well. Both Mark and Pen are different to the norm; Mark because of his disability (he was born with one arm) and Pen because of his fluid sexuality, so both of them have had to deal with prejudice and suspicion of one form or another for almost all their lives, which helps them to understand and empathise with each other.

The twists and turns of the plot make for an exciting finale, and I didn’t see the identity of the bad guy coming until shortly before the reveal.  As in the all the best sensation novels, all ends well, and we leave our heroes – all of them – safe happy and looking forward to the future.

I love the way K.J. Charles has incorporated the elements of Victorian popular fiction into her plotlines; the writing is sublime and the characters are three-dimensional people with lives of their own whom I imagine laughing over a pint or two and bantering with Phyllis at the Jack and Knave long after I’ve finished reading their stories.  Even though my final rating for An Unnatural Heir is a little lower than my grades for the other two books (principally because of the slightly underdeveloped romance) I am nonetheless recommending it and the entire Sins of the Cities trilogy very strongly.

Buy Now: A/BN/iB/K

Absolutely brilliant. Wraps up all the plot threads from the prior books and manages a believable solution to the seemingly insurmountable central conflict of the book. I'm also pleased as punch to get to read a genderqueer protaganist in a historical romance; it really makes you wonder why there haven't been more of them written already.

My goodreads review is below and will be updated closer to the release date. Right now it's mostly overjoyed screaming :)

A very satisfying ending to this series that brought all characters together again.
I really liked Mark's and Pen's dynamic and how they saw each other which made the romance my favorite part of this book. The author did a great job to show the struggle someone like Pen had in the 1870s, when there was nothing fluent whatsoever about fender roles.

Review will be posted after release day.

An Unsuitable Heir, KJ Charles

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre:LGBTQIA, Romance

KJ Charles is my favourite m/m author, and I love taking a dip back in time with her books.
This trilogy has been another fun read, and what amazes me is when in this final book little clues and things I recall from the previous two make sense now, plot lines that were secondary now fit in as major ones.

I love reading and am always in awe of just how cleverly authors wrap up a story, tie in lose ends, put everyone in the place I want them to end, when halfway through the final book I still can't see how it can be done. This trilogy has been like that with each book.

It was good to catch up with Clem once more, I love him, so gentle and unassuming but so Right all the while. His character seems like he'd be background and yet he has an inner strength to him that others lean on. He's a genuinely kind and caring man.
Julian from book two is here as well. Oh how I disliked him at the start of that but loved him by the finish, and here he's the same slick character, incredibly clever, formed by his upbringing (or lack of it), but now with Nathaniel he can work at a living that doesn't mean betraying the trust of others.
I love when that happens, he wasn't happy at what he was doing, forced into it by circumstance and now with help he can find a way forward to be proud of. That past though, the skills he learned help him here, well, help him aid Mark, Pen and Greta anyway. 
Pen and Greta, what a great pair, relied on each other for so long and have struggled so hard.
Life could be incredibly tough for people in the past, and in KJ's books some of that comes over, making me look at why people do what they do, at the struggles they have, and for anyone like Pen who doesn't fit the traditional roles society believes in, life gets really complicated. Greta understood him, few others did til Mark came along, and quiet, watchful Mark sees what Pen needs. 
Mark, he's been in earlier reads, and always seems the strong, silent type and slightly detached from issues. You get the feeling though that once his mind is set, once he decides to help he won't stop till all avenues are exhausted. But for poor Pen the result Mark needs for his friends, what need to come out into the open to save them, is the one thing that will emotionally destroy Pen.
That tears Mark up, he can't let more people die, and yet how can he condemn Pen to life in the public eye where his differences will be mocked, ridiculed and tear him apart?
I just couldn't see how it could all work out, but luckily i'm just a reader and KJ has the perfect solution for everyone, wrapped up in a very neat way.  


Stars:Five, a clever end to what seemed like an insurmountable problem and a trilogy that will join  the keepers. 

ARC supplied for review purposes by Netgalley and Publishers

You could say I am a K.J. Charles fan and you wouldn’t be wrong. You could say I am a K.J. Charles super fan and you wouldn’t be wrong, not at all. You could say I am a K.J. Charles mega fan and you would see my heart-eyed expression while nodding enthusiastically. I am a fan, that’s 100% right.

What is with K.J. Charles that makes me love everything she writes? Hell if I know, that woman owns my money and me!

This third and last book of this trilogy was the perfect ending to a mystery series with characters that you can’t help but love. Each of them layers and layers of surprises and wonder. The first half of “An Unsuitable Heir” is set at the same time as the second half of the previous book. The events take place simultaneously and you see the story unfolding from a different point of view.

Mark, a man we know because he is friends with Clem and Nathaniel, is the private enquirer asked to find the heir to the Moreton fortune. By the end of “An Unnatural Vice” we know who are the twins, the children of the late Lord Moreton, children he had from his first wife, one of them male so the rightful heir. The twins are the famous Flying Starlings, trapeze artists well known among Londoners.

The real names of the twins are Repentance and Regret. What kind of woman gives those names to their children no matter how much hatred she had for their father? Of course the poor kids went by the names of Pen and Greta, much better alternatives. Greta is a great woman, strong built, she doesn’t left words unsaid, she knows what she wants, and loves her brother with all her heart. She would do anything for him.

Pen is genderfluid; he feels like a man some days and some other days she feels all woman. Mark accepts Pen and everything about Pen is precious to him. Mark is new to what Pen is and asks for directions, for explanations, for whatever may Pen feel uncomfortable. Mark is sweet and the love blooms almost immediately between them yet it doesn’t look forced or rushed. It all feels right. They have some issues along the way, with the heirloom and all but the story is set to have a happy ending so we must enjoy the journey knowing it will end the best way it can.

The infamous Fogman, the killer that’s been murdering people since book 1 is finally revealed and, surprise surprise, I didn’t see it coming. I should’ve seen it but I’ve been distracted by the romance. The romance was really nice, steamy and adorable; it has their flaws but they all know love is not perfect and they have to fight for it to work.. All the characters are trying to be comfortable in their own skin, with their own sexuality, in a world that does not go easy with people like who doesn't resemble their idea of normality.

This series is really worth your time: mystery, nobility, murders, and romance. There’s a little bit of everything and it won’t disappoint. I’m glad I got to read the ending of this story a few months before its release.

I adore this series. I love all the characters and I especially love the style of overlapping the plot from one book to the next. A serial, but with different characters, and you have to read all three to get the full plot. So well done.

Thank you Loveswept and NetGalley for the ARC!

The awaited end to this trilogy is finally out. A satisfactory ending to the story arc and all the characters involved except for the dead ones of course. Trilogies are tricky because like olympians they need to peak at the right moment. Fortunately for books this is subjective to the reader, what does not work for me will work very well for another reader. For me the first book remained the strongest. I was hooked in during the first and then got unhooked during the second and third.  Maybe it's the whole structure and method used that did not convince me. This time round the Pen’s story did not mesh into the overall story and Mark was rather of an addendum when I wanted more.

Charles is very inclusive in her writing and over and over again she has shown that she does not shy away in giving us a varied spectrum of characters. This I like, I love new perspectives, new views. However this time round I did not like the delivery so much as the writing took a soap boxish tinge. I got a lot of what Pen wasn't  but barely touched what Pen was. I think showing me Pen would have worked better for me than trying to teach me.

As the last in the series, this novel ties up all of the loose ends and explores some of the relationships between characters that the reader was left to question in earlier books. As ever this is a tightly written tale with good use of characterisation and contextualisation. The story overlaps somewhat with the other books but this is understandable given that they are different views of the same tale. Of course this book moves the story on to its completion with a largely familiar set of characters.

There is some tension and development of the story but this book focuses on the relationship between two of the central characters. Specifically the author examines gender fluidity and sensitively explores a subject that is not widely discussed or understood. The emphasis is on pro-choice and does so from a personal and societal perspective. There is always a fine line to be tread between storytelling and education and mostly the author is successful in this; however, the point did feel laboured from time to time.

The ending unravelled what seemed to be an intransigent position to provide a neat and positive conclusion. This is not only an enjoyable series but also one that could give the reader pause for thought.

4.5 stars. A great ending to an atmospheric and fascinating trilogy. This book featured a romance between a bi/pansexual enquiry agent (private detective) and a non-binary trapeze artist. As always, KJ Charles' characterization and relationship development is excellent, and the resolution of the trilogy's overarching plot is satisfying. A gripping, sexy read!

A stunning conclusion to an amazing trilogy. I can easily say this one of my favorite set of books by KJ Charles. An Unsuitable Heir was the historical gender queer romance of my dreams. The narrative wraps up the ongoing mystery in a way I didn't see coming, but that has nothing on how wonderful it was to see Pen as gender queer in a historical context. Charles, I believe, deftly handled the complicated feelings many gender queer people have about their identities (dysphoria, etc) without it being exploitative.

An Unsuitable Heir is the third and final book in K.J. Charles’ Sins in the Cities series. The book is centred around Pen and Mark. Pen (sort for Repentance) and his sister Greta (short for Regret) are trapeze artists and, as we found out in the first two books of the series, the legitimate children and heirs of an Earl. Mark is the private enquiry agent who finds them.
The first half of the book focuses on events that lead up to the big confrontation at the end of the second book. However, it doesn’t feel repetitive because we hadn’t seen this side of the story yet. This is also where the romance between Pen and Mark develop. The attraction between the two is pretty much instantaneous and it evolves into love very easily.

As always, Charles has created two complex, interesting characters. Pen doesn’t want to be an Earl because it will stop him from being himself. He doesn’t identify as a man, but not as a woman either. I like how his gender identity mirrored his identity in society. I also liked how Mark accepted him unconditionally. Mark is also an interesting character, but for me, Pen steals the show.

Compared to the first two books in this series, the plot is much more suspense-heavy, to the point where it overshadows the romance. It’s an interesting suspense plot, that kept me wondering until the end, and I especially loved the resolution, but I’m still disappointed that the romance isn’t developed as much as I would have liked.