Absolutely wonderful in all of the best ways!

After reading the sample chapters available on NetGalley I knew I needed more and took a chance on requesting the full book. Luckily I was approved because I ADORED this book.

Historical Romance, especially when it involves LGBTQ is always my type of literature and this story perfectly captures the secrecy that era required. We have sunshine and loving Charlie who has consistently made wrong choices and gotten himself in to enough monetary trouble that he's being forced in to a loveless marriage to receive a bailout. Before he signs away his life though he wants one last hurrah in the form of getting an autograph by his favorite erotica writer.

What Charlie didn't know was that meeting this man in a quite failing bookshop was going to start a series of events that completely upends his life, his way of thinking and his way of loving.

Miles and Charlie were so incredibly wonderful to follow along with and the ensemble of this book is really enjoyable. Book 2 focuses on two characters I adored and I'm just as excited for that one too!

I could read this book a thousand times over and enjoy it just as much as the first. Its not very spicy despite the general plot of it but it has some strong scenes that fit with the book and aren't just there for gratuitous reasons. This book is beautifully written and I just couldn't put it down until I saw the ending. I would read an entire series of Charlie and Miles if given the opportunity.

Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for the ARC.

The Gentleman's Book of Vices is a cute historical queer romance between grumpy Miles, author of (illegal) gay erotica and reluctant owner of a bookstore, and Charlie, a drunk and a fop who is up to his eyeballs in debt, but determinedly optimistic nonetheless. The two start a torrid affair after Charlie manages to track down Miles in the hopes of getting him to sign his copy of one of Miles's titles.

While the story was cute and moderately entertaining (I actually really enjoyed the cake tasting scene), I didn't really find anything in the story to set it apart from other grumpy/sunshine romances, and it felt like it took awhile to really get going.

The Victorian romance many queer readers have been searching for. Excellent writing and compelling characters. Recommended.

Charlie's life is about to change. Despite his preference for men, he's engaged to a woman whose dowry will settle his debts. Determined to become a devoted husband, he sets about on his last hurrah as a bachelor: tracking down the author of his favorite erotic literature to get his signature. Finding Miles turns his life upside-down as their passionate affair turns to love. In a battle between honor and his very soul, which will Charlie choose?

This is a novel of surprising depth and passion. More than a love story, it's about the struggle to fit in to a rigid society with strict definitions of acceptable behavior. Charlie and Miles are both lovable, sympathetic characters. The strong supporting cast add to the fun.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

This book is truly full of vices, with an extremely hedonist character and a smut writer that puts all he writes to practice. I loved this book to pieces, the characters are flawed but lovable and you can see an organic personal growth as their relationship develops. I was rooting for them from the beginning and all their highs made me giddy and their lows made me cry like an idiot.

This is the perfect book for fans of queer and historical romance, grumpy/sunshine and found family tropes, and some rough but not overly explicit smut, which is perhaps my only complaint: I wished the author felt more comfortable to lean completely into the smut and some important scenes didn’t happen behind closed doors, but regardless this book was perfection and I can see myself recommending it to everyone.

This debut novel by Jess Everlee is about a young man who has trapped himself into marriage by living a profligate but not degenerate life. He needs to pay off his debt, and his father has arranged this if he marries Alma, a sweet young woman. Charlie is an amiable guy, loyal, and though there may not be anything super-remarkable about him, I really grew to like him within a few chapters. One of his pastimes, one he will have to conceal from his future wife, is collecting “pornographic” writings, art, and figurines. The novel is set in the late 19th century, and Charlie is a gay man, though the word “gay” did not come into use that way for several decades.

At the beginning of the novel, Charlie’s friend Miss Jo meets him at his favorite molly house, the Curious Fox. A fascinating character on her own, Jo is married to “the Beast” but hangs with the Sophists and seems to be able to move in out of various societies with ease. She has somehow procured the real name and address of his favorite pornographic writer Reginald Fox. No one knows who Fox is, and so Charlie is rightfully suspicious of where Jo got the information, but he barrels ahead in his efforts to secure the signature of Fox, aka Miles Montague, the gruff proprietor of a bookstore on Fleet Street. Sunshine/grumpy here we go!

Jess Everlee does a good job of situating us in the precariousness that was being LGBTQ in the 19th century. For one, despite his precautions to remain anonymous, every story that the celebrated Reginald Fox writes must end in tragedy. A real romance, with an HEA would set up any writer of gay or lesbian love for harsher prosecution, because they would be failing to show the characters getting their “comeuppance” and restoring the homophobic world order. Reginald Fox needs plausible deniability. We also learn the lengths to which the molly house proprietor goes to secure the space of The Curious Fox from onlookers and police. Finally, Miles himself lives in a state of constant low-level paranoia because his ex-lover, Ethan, died in prison one year into a prison term for a reduced sodomy charge. He knows the risks of blackmail and exposure. Ethan had willed Miles the bookstore, and though Miles is a terrible shop owner, it has hung around his neck like a millstone for years.

I was white knuckling my Kindle as I read this book because the tension feels real. Sometimes m/m historical fiction can blunt the disturbing homophobia of 18th or 19th century England by using wealth, or secret societies, or ninja-like defenses to protect the main characters. In The Gentleman’s Book of Vices, Charlie is not rich enough or aristocratic enough to be protected from anti-sodomy laws, and so it is into protected spaces he and Miles must go. One of those spaces is Miles’ apartment above the bookstore. “Small and drafty,” this is the place where Miles writes, surrounded by candles and lamps. Once the door is closed, the two of them are freer. And the scenes in that apartment, fierce and tender, are all the more erotic because the two men can be themselves.

My main criticism of this novel is in the pacing. There was a lot to get through in the novel, and the falling in love section was wonderful. Then, and without giving anything away, Charlie must deal with his impending marriage and what it means for him and Miles, which is a surprising and tear-worthy section. But the conclusion felt like a bullet-train combined with an Agatha Christie conclusion, and I was a bit disappointed it had to end like that.

Grade: A-

PLOTLESS AND FORGETABBLE

Honestly, if I didn't take notes during my reading, I would not remember this book. Even with my notes, I struggle to remember anything. However, I do remember that it didn't impress me.

👎 What I Disliked 👎

Plot: The plot really didn't hit the spot for me. I struggled to even see the plot lines most of the time. It felt wafer thin and see-through. No surprises. No twists. And nothing to keep my interest.

Smut: Apparently, if the characters/author is to be believed, the smut in this book is kinky. The sexual encounters are often referred to as kinky. And perhaps it could be argued, that for its historical setting, what the characters engage in was considered kinky. It was definitely considered taboo. But it is not kinky today. And as a historian I can tell you, that in all ages of history people have engaged in far more kinky sex. If the author meant to imply that their sexual encounters were considered kinky for the time, it should have been more explicit. Because as it is, it just bothered me.

Chemistry: In all honesty, I felt no chemistry and no attraction between the two characters. I hardly even felt sexual chemistry. It was just pretty bland.

4.5., rounded up. I've been saving this book to read when I needed a pick-me-up, and I'm glad I did because it's absolutely delightful.

Charles is extravagant and flamboyant in a very lovable way; he also has a strong moral compass, as he has agreed to marry Alma, a woman he does not love romantically but thinks of as a sister and wants to protect. Miles, an author and bookstore purveyor who lost his love years earlier, is more reserved and cautious but equally as compelling. Their romance is sweet and has palpable chemistry, and I enjoyed reading about them as their relationship develops over the course of the novel. The ending is dramatic, but entertainingly so, and I love how Jess Everlee incorporates the side characters throughout the story and uses them to resolve this ending.

Grab this if you love books by Cat Sebastian, Keira Andrews, or K. J. Charles.

This was unfortunately not for me. I had a hard time connecting with the characters or even seeing any of the alleged love between them and the overall mood of the book just jumped around too much between erotica and historical drama and romance. The attempts to weave it together were there, but just didn't feel super well done.

3.5

This was lovely.
Romantic and sweet, full of heartfelt emotions and found family vibes that were truly top-notch, with just the right amount of angst and heartache to make the book, with it's historical setting, feel realistic.

It's also surprisingly tame in some ways, especially considering the chosen profession of one of the leads: there are several closed-door scenes that I was a bit surprised to see.
However, "The Gentleman's Book of Vices" IS an extremely sexy book: the chemistry between the two leads, the build-up to their relationship and the way their dynamic plays out, all of that is very, very hot so I must say, I wasn't disappointed at all by the steam (or lack of it). On the contrary!

I also adored the characters. Miles and Charlie are fantastic protagonists: opposites in so many ways, but both of them are terrified of their lot in life and secretly desperate to find a bit of happiness and love. The whole cast of side characters, though? They stole my heart completely. Noah/Penelope, Forester, Warren, Jo and even Alma and Smithy: all of them are terrible meddlers, and the best kind of people. I'm so, so curious to see if any one of them will be getting their own story: I'm especially desperate for Noah's 🥺

So why 3 and a half stars?
Well, I got a bit bored at one point. I think this book started off great, and then lost a bit of steam. Maybe it was a tad too lengthy for its content: I ended up skimming a few bits, especially during the second half of the book. A shame really, because otherwise I would have truly loved it.

Anyway, this was a minor issue, so I'm sure lots of readers with more patience than me will enjoy this book more: either way, I'd wholly recommend giving it a go, if you love queer historical romances.

This was steamy. Get it.

I know this is historical fiction, but can we please retire the word sodomy? My boys just want that HEA, yeah?

My homeboy Charlie does not have it together. He spends too much. He drinks too much. He dabbles in opium. He's also getting married to a woman even though he frequents clubs where he sleeps with many many men.

Miles is doing a little better, but not much. By day, he runs a failing bookstore. By night, he writes some hot and heavy M/M novels. We stan that.

Obviously they fall in love with quite a few hiccups along the way.

I got an ARC of this book.

There isn’t anything wrong with this book, but it really doesn’t stand out all that much from the others. The main thing that stood out from me is the use of olive oil as lube. The fact that a m/m romance mentions lube is still something that is shocking to me. There was even a stretching scene. There was preparation for anal!

The story though. It was just so basic. I had no real desire to keep going. I wasn’t bored, but I had read it all before a dozen times. It was so formulaic that I didn’t have to put any effort in to read. So it was a nice bedtime read. I could read and relax. There was no thrill. The closest was the excitement I got over the sex scenes having some for of lube. I wish there had been talk about STIs. You know there were STIs and with how active that back room was, there had to be someone getting sick. That would have made it more interesting, instead of the generic sex shaming of “eww sex fluids” that happened over and over again.

The ending itself was what made me roll my eyes. EVERYTHING came together magically, so quickly. Everyone had a happily ever after. There was no tension. I had figured out most of the twists before the big reveal. There needed to be a bit more messiness to make this book actually stand out. I am all for happy endings, but sometimes I need some form of conflict that isn’t just whining.

The characters didn’t really stand out much. If this book had been about the bar manager or Jo, then I think it would have been a bit more substantial. They appeared to have more of a story to tell than these two gentlemen. They had backstories, but they felt watered down with just how little was eked out near the end.

It wasn’t a bad book, but it was not one that really stood out from others.

This was a nice change of pace from the usual historical romance I read (and I don't read a lot of it, so it probably doesn't take much). There's no high society at play, no insurmontable class difference between the MCs. This is a romance between an erotica author, Miles, and an enthusiast of his work, Charlie - two opposite characters. Charlie is outgoing, careless with money and a risk-taker, and Miles a little bit on the paranoid side, lonely, stuck living in the past. I liked the big cast of side characters, especially the Charlie support group from the molly house. What didn't really work for me was the stiff dialogue and lack of chemistry between the two MCs and the resolution of the small mystery side-plot regarding Miles identity. It bothered me throughout the book that some of it didn't make sense, and it was explained at the end, in, to my mind, and anti-climactic way.

This is a good debut novel. I liked the first half better than the second but o we all it was a promising start and I look forward to reading more from this author!

Charlie Price is to be married. To a woman. Only problem? He's gay. As a last hurrah he wants to get the autograph of his favourite erotic writer, who writes under a pseudonym.

I'm not generally a fan of historical fiction, but this book was utterly charming. Sweet, funny and spicy, The Gentleman's Book of Vices embraces it's era and takes us on ahijinks filled journey.

Would definitely recommend.

The Gentleman’s Book of Vices by Jess Everlee
⭐️⭐️⭐️
A few weeks before his wedding Charlie makes it his mission to meet and get the autograph of his favorite erotic writer. A friend gives him the address of Miles who writes the books under a pseudonym and the two are instantly drawn together. Neither should want the other and both are bound to their other obligations but they can’t stay away from one another and must figure out how they can possibly have a future together.
I wanted to like this more than I did. It was a shorter book so I was expecting the book to be a bit tighter but found my self skimming pages if long paragraphs that weren’t moving the story forward. I was very confused by the decision to have the book be fade to black when there were some very steamy other moments because it made the moment of intimacy very anticlimactic, no pun intended. I did really like both Charlie and Miles as well as Charlie’s wonderful group of friend and I’m hoping future books are about the friends. believe that this was a debut novel so I will be interested to see if the next book in the series works better for me.
Thank you to NetGalley, Harlequin, and Carina Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Jess Everlee's The Gentleman's Book of Vices is just so much fun. Is it fanfiction? Sure. More or less. But it's also a great historical story about gay love where everything works out and no one dies. A happy ending for a marginalized group that, historically, hasn't gotten one. Recommend for readers open to the premise.

"Is their real-life love story doomed to be a tragedy, or can they rewrite the ending?

London, 1883

Finely dressed and finely drunk, Charlie Price is a man dedicated to his vices. Chief among them is his explicit novel collection, though his impending marriage to a woman he can't love will force his carefully curated collection into hiding.

Before it does, Charlie is determined to have one last hurrah: meeting his favorite author in person.

Miles Montague is more gifted as a smut writer than a shopkeep and uses his royalties to keep his flagging bookstore afloat. So when a cheerful dandy appears out of the mist with Miles's highly secret pen name on his pretty lips, Miles assumes the worst. But Charlie Price is no blackmailer; he's Miles's biggest fan.

A scribbled signature on a worn book page sets off an affair as scorching as anything Miles has ever written. But Miles is clinging to a troubled past, while Charlie's future has spun entirely out of his control..."

Rewrite the ending for a HEA!

Thank you to Netgalley anf the publisher for this ARC.

Well this book did not disappoint! A sexy historical M/M romance that was funny, heart-wrenching and well written. Highly recommend for people who love M/M historical romances.

A sexy historical romance about a smut author? Absolutely yes. With a satisfying ending, charming side characters, and two pleasantly flawed main characters. A great pick for fans of Cat Sebastian and KJ Charles.