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Subtle Blood (Will Darling Adventures, book 3)
By K.J. Charles
KJC Books, 2021
Five stars

“Kim was starlight and privilege. Will had his feet firmly fixed in the mud. They didn’t belong together. Except they did.”

Well, if you finished the second book in K.J. Charles’s wonderful Will Darling series and wondered where it would go next, let me tell you, book three’s a doozie.

I remember, as a faithful follower of Downton Abbey on PBS, thinking that Robert, Lord Grantham, was far too nice to be like any actual Earl in early-twentieth-century England. Or maybe ever. Let me tell you, the Marquess of Flitby, Kim Secretan’s father, makes up for it. K.J. Charles carries class issues and our star-crossed lovers once again into the very halls of power—the residential halls of Kim’s ancestral home, whence he has been banished for years.

At first I was a bit concerned that Charles was going to rely on the same plot points as in the earlier books, but she manages to give everything an emphatic twist, to make it dig a little deeper and, for Kim and Will, hurt a little more. This book is full of emotional power as Kim and Will struggle to break down the barriers that stand between them—discovering along the way that, while class is an issue, it is not really the real hurdle, not for them at least. Class consciousness is a big motif here, as Will continues to be brought up short by the realities of Kim’s heritage in all their ugly magnificence.

K.J. Charles clearly takes delight in focusing on every aspect of British upper-class life that romance readers have swooned over for generations and making them monstrous, from the clubs of Pall Mall to life in a great country house. She takes a perverse pleasure if focusing on all of the worker bees that make life for the upper crust possible; but also brings it sharply into focus in the context of World War I—during which millions of young men died to save the lifestyle of the aristocracy, even as the nobles did all they could to keep their sons away from the front. It is not subtle, not in the least, but in this current age of awareness where we all find ourselves, it seems darkly apt.

Phoebe and Maisie both reappear, as we hoped and knew they would, even after the last book’s disturbing finale. I’m grateful to say they’re better than ever, and I love that K.J. Charles allows them to be “girls” of the 1920s in full flower, she also gives them brains and quick wits and unwavering courage. There is a special gift in this book from the author, about which I will say no more, other than to note that it made me very happy indeed.

While this is the last of the Will Darling series, I can also say that the author has not closed the door. The central tension that powered these three books has not been eliminated; it has simply been harnessed. After all, Will and Kim still haven’t been to France.