Opposites attract when self-righteous, upper-class London and plain-spoken, working-class Kent enjoy a splendid week-long affair together... that ends terribly when the two argue. But weeks later, Gareth (London) must travel to Kent after his father dies and he inherits his title. It's not until he testifies against Joss (Kent)'s sister in court that the two reunite, and despite the tense circumstances, the two eventually regain the connection they had against the backdrop of the Kentish marsh. But it's not just beetles the two uncover - it's dangerous secrets.

This romance will leave the reader swinging their feet in joy while also turning the pages out of a desperate need to uncover the mystery of what exactly Sir Gareth's father was up to alongside Gareth and Joss. It's both exciting and romantic, with beautifully described scenery and an interesting cast of characters sure to show up in the author's upcoming works.

I knew I wouldnt really like this book after the first chapter and I was right.
I just didn't find it interesting.

I loved everything about it. This was my first KJ Charles book, and I was impressed with the balancing act of historical romance and the Queer love story. Often Queer historical fiction either overlooks too many historical realities and ends up feeling more like a fantasy, or it slide more into the history and you are forced to confront the ugliness of historical homophobia. This book deftly manages both and then some. Highly recommend.

this was a quick and fun read! i don't often read historical romances but i quite enjoyed this, enemies to lovers is one of my favorite tropes and these two were a fun pairing for this story. will definitely read more from this author!

Enemies to lovers in a fun setting with two gentlemen - this was a fun read that included not only romance but some mystery, thrills, adventure and intrigue too!

This was so heartwarming! I loved the characters and the plot was so good! I’m struggling to put into words how good this was but just read it I promise you won’t regret it

“I want you on my side. I want to be on yours.”
“Just one side. Ours. And us both on it, always.”

Ahh this book was so good!! I love KJ Charles and this book definitely did not disappoint. I really liked the setting, out in the countryside on a marsh, instead of city living. It gave it a really interesting backbone that worked well. There are a good number of side characters that were written well, and I enjoyed the mystery and action as well as the beautiful romance!! And the spice was excellent.

I listened to the audiobook and it was great :)

🌈 Queer rep: gay M/M main characters

Loved this! It had mystery, adventure, and a heart-pounding romance. I had some expectation that I would enjoy this story but it really pulled me in more than I thought it would. I love historical romance and setting of the marsh. The book shines a light on the socioeconomic disparities at the time. I loved seeing Gareth realize that rules are often made by those at the top and without care of how those laws affect the livelihood of those who are already struggling.

Overall, this was a fantastic historical romance that’s light on the balls, gowns, etc., and delivers a spicy adventure.

Spice Level: R

This was my first book by KJ Charles, I enjoyed the historic English setting. Tragically disappointing! It's exciting to see K.J. Charles traditionally published, and the package is very nice, but this was on the duller side and I know Charles can do better. The enemies-to- part of the plot is resolved too quickly, leaving the relationship tensionless and most of the page count devoted to various not terribly engaging Kentish smuggling power-plays. Charles' side characters are usually as well-drawn as her leads, but I kept waiting for, say, Joss and Gareth's sisters to be developed, to no avail. Instead circular arguments between our main duo give way to circular passions that were not well-built-up.


Thanks to NetGalley, the author & Sourcebooks Casablanca

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by KJ Charles is a male/male historical romance set in Regency England in Romney Marsh in Kent, an area known for its culture of smuggling. Gareth Inglis, raised by his distant uncle and saddled with a bullying cousin, inherits a baronetcy and a house in the small town of Dymchurch from his estranged and selfish father. Unexpectedly, after his arrival he encounters a lover from a few anonymous but intense encounters in London. Joss Doomsday, along with his powerful mother, is the “gaffer” of the local smugglers and his duties in that role are almost immediately at odds with Gareth’s “outmarsh” ideas. When Gareth begins to follow in his father’s footsteps as a naturalist, he becomes embroiled in a mystery and must find ways to work with Joss to protect his half-sister and his own reputation from serious threats. Meanwhile Joss, while still being a caretaker for all, struggles to balance his uncle’s increasing bad behavior and his mother’s reluctance to chastise her brother as needed. The plethora of realistic conflict made this book a page-turner to the very end. My favorite secondary character was Joss’ grandfather, a former enslaved man who’d escaped Georgia; he is a conduit of local information, a steadying influence, and a valuable advisor at critical moments. Warning for some child abuse, mostly off-screen, that is not addressed by the characters as quickly as it should have been.

An unexpectedly soft romance. Absolutely lovely. I'm not usually a fan of historical fiction but this was so accessible. Just an absolute joy to read.

I enjoyed this book. It was an interesting read . I found that I was able to read quickly and enjoyed the pacing and premise of the book. I would recommend to others.

This one just didn't grab me. I can see how it will work for other readers - the writing was very good - but I couldn't get into it.

This was my first book from this author and it wasn’t for me. I tried several times to get past the first two chapters and just couldn’t get into the story.

I’m going to try again but while the writing was really well done I just couldn’t get into the characters’ story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Classic lovers to enemies to unlikely friends to lovers. I loved this book more than I thought I would! (which, isn't saying much bc I knew I'd have a blast reading it. It was exactly the kind of queer historical romance I needed to kickstart me reading again.

This is one of the best books I've read from KJ Charles! The plot and characters were so well written.

KJ Charles can do no wrong. This was another excellent historical romance with great, realistic characters that you can't help but root for. I would recommend this to any historical romance fans.

Content warning: child abuse, neglect

Dear KJ Charles,

What a delight this book was! So cleverly and tightly plotted and so very romantic. There were only a couple of things I had questions about – but given that this is billed as “the Doomsdays book 1”, I’m hoping we’ll see Gareth and Joss in future books and those answers will be provided then.

Notwithstanding how much I enjoyed the book, readers should note that there is some explicit child abuse on page involving one of the Doomsday cousins. Also Gareth was neglected as a child by his father and his uncle (but this didn’t extend to physical abuse).

As the book begins, Gareth Inglis is late for an assignation at the Three Ducks in London. He has been meeting “Kent” there for a week for hot sex. Given the sodomy laws in 1810, Gareth is very careful about not giving out his name. He is “London”. Gareth is fair and tall and thin; gangly really. Kent is shorter, muscular and dark – brown-skinned, black hair and dark eyes. A week earlier their eyes had met across a crowded room and then… But Kent is leaving London and Gareth, used to being left and not trusting anyone to come back ever, rejects Kent’s offer to renew their acquaintance when next he’s in London. Gareth is not polite about it and things between the men end badly.

Only days later, Gareth learns of the death of his father and his own inheritance – a baronetcy and all that comes with it, including Tench House in Romney Marsh, Kent, and a half sister he’s never met. After the death of his mother when Gareth was six years old, his father left him with his Uncle Henry. And that was the last Gareth ever saw of his father. His father remarried and had a daughter, Cecelia, but Gareth was not invited into the new family home. Uncle Henry never wanted Gareth and made that plain. While fed, clothed and educated, Gareth was abandoned and unwanted and desperately lonely. Uncle Henry is a lawyer. His own son, Lionel, about the same age as Gareth, is also an attorney. Gareth was training as a clerk (admittedly he wasn’t very good at it) and on the day he last saw Kent, he had been summarily dismissed and ejected by his uncle for reasons unknown.

When Gareth travels to Romney Marsh to take up his inheritance he barely dares hope that he can form a bond with Cecy and that he can find a home. But he wants it. He’s also sad that he never got the chance to know his father or understand him. At Tench House Gareth finds the housekeeper and the late Sir Hugo’s mistress, Catherine, who was his late (second) wife’s sister – Cecy’s aunt. It’s a bit messy and untoward but it gave Catherine a home and meant she could stay to raise Cecy, who is now 17.

Catherine explains Sir Hugo best to Gareth: he didn’t like to be troubled. If a thing was troublesome, he put it aside. After the death of Gareth’s mother, Gareth was a problem to be resolved – trouble to be put aside. After Cecy’s mother died, perhaps Cecy would have suffered the same fate – but Catherine was there so Sir Hugo was not “troubled” overmuch. It is not a satisfactory explanation but then, Sir Hugo was not a nice man.

Romney Marsh is a smuggling area. And the Doomsdays run the smuggling in Romney Marsh. “Ma” Doomsday is in charge of the family and her eldest son, Joss, is the Upright Man in charge of the smuggling runs. Ma is a tough lady. She’s had to be. Just about everyone is scared of her but they also all respect her. Her one area of weakness is her brother, Elijah. Elijah has long believed he should be the head of the family and the Upright Man but he’s just not very good at either. He’s lazy, overly aggressive and a drunkard. Joss prefers a less confrontational modus operandi. Joss knows things are coming to a head there but he’s not looking forward to the argument he’ll have to have with his mother about it. Joss loves his mother dearly but he is fully aware of her ferocity.

“What’s that, girl?” Ma demanded, emerging from the beer cellar. Joss had once seen a pantomime in London where the Demon King had risen through the stage on a trapdoor. The memory returned quite often.

Cecy is walking out with a Preventive Officer and in trying to get into her good graces, Gareth volunteers that he saw a young woman, apparently mid smuggling run, to the authorities. The woman, Sophia Doomsday, Joss’s younger sister, is therefore arrested. Gareth will need to testify. Of course, Joss is “Kent” and there is one sure way to persuade Gareth his memory was perhaps faulty…

Needless to say, their first meeting on the Marsh does not go well. Nor does their second or third. But Joss is determined to put things to rights as much as he can. He developed feelings for Gareth in London and Joss has a keen sense of balance and justice.

When someone threatens Cecy, Gareth goes to Joss – at first to demand answers and then to get help. Someone wants something from Gareth but he doesn’t know what it is. It clearly has something to do with Sir Hugo but exactly what is a mystery. Gareth had no relationship with the man so he has no clue. The people making the threats are being very vague but they are also very determined and vicious. And then Uncle Henry comes sniffing around wanting to look at Sir Hugo’s papers. Could these things be connected?

Gareth discovers that Sir Hugo had a keen interest in naturalism and made a survey of Romney Marsh and its various inhabitants. Gareth, in trying to know his father better, starts to follow in his footsteps and finds he too, is fascinated by the insects and fish and plant life. Joss offers to show Gareth where he can find a great diving beetle and this leads the men to spend time together in enjoyment rather than tension and, over a little time, to renew their romantic relationship.

Gareth is a bit of a stickler at first and he’s quite horrified at Joss’s occupation. But Joss makes a spirited and persuasive argument for smuggling and Gareth, being a reasonable man, is forced to reconsider his worldview. I must say, Joss’s argument was very persuasive.

Between the unknown threat to Gareth, the unexpected arrival of Uncle Henry and Cousin Lionel, and the machinations of Elijah, things are pretty risky for Joss and Gareth. But Joss is the guy who fixes things and gets things done. He can make arrangements for them to spend time together alone and be safe. He’s sure of it. Gareth is not quite so sanguine.

“You have a lot to lose.”

“But I’ve a fair bit to lose if they hang me for smuggling too. You can’t just not do things acause of the consequences.”

“Consequences are literally the reason not to do things. That’s what they’re for.”

There is some local dialect (?) that is used in the book, some of which is explained (the various meanings for “middling” for instance) but some of which isn’t. I gathered most of it from context clues – I gather “dunnamany” means “a lot”- but I wouldn’t have minded a glossary. The local colour serves to show that the Marsh is its own place. You are either a “marshman” or “outmarsh”. Marshmen don’t have much time for outmarsh folk. The language closes the reader in to the Marsh and that adds to that sense of separation from the rest of the world and the sense that the reader is also a marshman.

And then there are some beautiful descriptions; word pictures that are just perfect, like this:

There was a remarkably pervasive quality to the rain on Romney Marsh, as if the sky had chosen its side in the precarious balance between land and sea.

Or Gareth’s mental description of his changing relationship with Joss.

Joss’s smile. The way they’d kissed. Even that stupid argument, about which Gareth had given himself some serious talkings-to, because of how Joss had listened afterwards. The touch of his hands, the wonder in his eyes, the astonishing sense of familiarity, as though he and Gareth had somehow slipped past one another all their lives and their meeting was long overdue.

It had felt like that with Kent too, and he’d told himself it wasn’t real. Now he’d started wondering if it had been, say, true in outline. As if ‘London and Kent’ had been a pencil drawing, and now it was being filled in with colours.

There is a broad cast of characters – Catherine Inglis is a remarkable woman who comes to be a pseudo mother figure for Gareth. Asa Doomsday, Joss’s grandfather, who was formerly enslaved in Georgia is, for all Ma’s over authority, a power “behind the throne” so to speak.

I enjoyed how the mystery played out and how historical realities were threaded into it. Joss and Gareth are wonderful together, very much like pieces of a puzzle which just fit. Gareth wants to belong and Joss, always the caretaker, needs some taking care of himself. Together they meet each other’s needs and make each other better.

Grade: A-

Regards,
Kaetrin

KJ Charles is back again with a fabulous, chaotic tale with all the sweet romance, sprinkles of smut, passion, and crazy nonsense villains you could possibly desire! I cannot recommend this book enough, if you love regency/Victorian era romances and not reading this and KJ Charles entire library of works what are you even doing? Whatever is next in this series, I simply cannot wait! Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for the review arc.

Delightful M/M historical romance, made even better by how believable it is, in light of the Regency era setting.