At a guess, KJC has recently had gothic novels, Northanger Abbey, and "The Cask of Amontillado" poking their heads up out of her subconscious, because Nobleman's Guide has elements of all of these -- as well as a couple of affinities with her own A Thief in the Night and Think of England. Details would be spoilers (except to say that Luke loves those gothic novels!), and anyway I'm not complaining. It's just interesting to see how a writer as good as this revisits certain images or dynamics or preoccupations and how they change in each incarnation.

Luke Doomsday, the viciously abused boy from The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen, is all grown up, well educated and earning a good living as a secretary. (Among his past employers is someone familiar from Band Sinister -- hello there!) But the ripple effect on a psyche of being abused and of desperately wanting your abusive parent to love you even a little bit doesn't cut off just because you're now well loved and are wildly competent at your work. So when Luke comes to work for the brand-new Earl of Oxney, Rufus d'Aumesty, it's because he has an agenda -- one that he himself doesn't, perhaps, quite understand -- and his pursuit of it nearly costs him everything. Cue helpless readerly sobbing.

Nobleman's Guide has one hell of a twisty plot and some superlative villains -- they're OTT, gloriously OTT, in that gothic-novel vein -- but the heart of the book is in Luke's story. I don't mean that Rufus is stinted. Hot-tempered, kind, and generous, he has some troubles of his own and we spend equal time in his POV exploring them. But Rufus's problems are for the most part practical rather than emotional ones, or rather the resolution of the practical problems also addresses most of the emotional ones, whereas for Luke the practical problems are incidental: they exist only because of his psychic damage.

It was a pleasure to see Gareth and Joss again, of course. Their scenes with Luke cast a shadow back over Country Gentlemen, because among Luke's many wounds are those inflicted by his family in that his father's violence and emotional cruelty went unnoticed or passed over for so long. With respect to these passages: cue more readerly sobbing.

Country Gentlemen was terrific but Nobleman's Guide is, for my money, even richer. Many thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for the ARC.

Despite being ostracized from his family, Rufus unexpectedly becomes the Earl. His family are determined to not make it an easy transition and contest his rights to the title at every chance. When Luke Doomsday appears and claims that his mother was wed to Rufus’ father first, making Rufus illegitimate, the last thing anyone expects is for Rufus to hire him as a secretary. Their relationship soon develops into much more but when Luke’s true motives surface, will they even be able to maintain a professional relationship?

What I loved:
-sense of found family
-queer historical romance
-getting to see Luke grown up!! His story broke my heart in the first book
-the chemistry AH
-getting to see characters from the first book again

I truly enjoyed this book so much and can’t recommend it enough.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for the advance reading copy!

Are you a Bridgerton fan? Then check out KJ Charles' books! This book is set several years after The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen and is full or swashbuckling fun and romance! Charles incorporates lots of historical details and vocabulary and the story has both steamy scenes and heartfelt discussion of deeper themes like honesty in relationships. New and existing Charles fans will love this!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for the review copy.

I received a free copy of this book thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca. All opinions are delightfully mine.

I saw this title on Netgalley, and, for once, managed to check out the preceding title as well as other works by the same author BEFORE this review. I have to say, being a little more familiar with KJ Charles work now, this one is absolutely a joy. Following the story in The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen, A Nobleman's Guide continues with the story of Luke Doomsday. It's a romance wrapped in a mystery contained in a Regency era period piece, and I enjoyed every bit of it!

I love this book and this author so much! The second in The Doomsday Books series, it is M/M historical romance filled with two dashing heroes, heartbreaking choices, and plenty of swashbuckling adventure. Highly recommended.

Just delightful. This got me out of a bit of a reading slump. Both main characters are interesting and fun to read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for the ARC.

I have enjoyed KJ Charles' take on historical stories for a while and enjoyed the themes of found family, belonging and justice. This book took alot of those same themes and ran in a totally different direction with them.

So the family plot on this one is a little bit complicated, strap in. Rufus d'Aumesty is a solder who has returned from the war to find that he is now the Earl of Oxney, BUT all the rest of the d'Aumesty family thought he was dead, are not thrilled to see him. What follows is a series of plots to prove or disprove Rufus' legitimacy of the title. To this end, Luke Doomsday (who you may remember from The Secret Lives of Country Gentleman) is hired as a personal secretary to Rufus. But Luke is a Doomsday, so he has his own schemes going on... Also there's chemistry between Luke and Rufus, and some complicated layers of power.

There are alot of the usual KJ Charles beats. There's a good romance, engaging mystery, and characters who find their place, BUT the family stuff was the stuff that really engaged me.

So family is complicated. In the d'Amensty there are some pretty severe power games, financial and emotional manipulation extending across generations, and that causes some pretty intense damage. But what really worked for me was processing Luke's relationship with the Doomsdays. The Doomsday pride themselves on being a family who "looked after their own", and yet there was a massive blind spot directed at Luke, mostly just through ignoring what was happening to him. It sat uncomfortably for me in the first book and I'm glad to see it addressed here. But ALSO what I liked was that it wasn't all tied up in a perfect "we all get along now" bow. Luke established boundaries and I was here for that.

I love this series. This book takes us back to the marsh but on the other side with Joss’ nephew. Gareth took him in and helped him go to school and now he’s determined to make his way.
Rufus is over his head. He’s been fighting his family for months. He’s the Earl but another was counting on that tutor and is willing to do anything to get it. He needs a secretary and a day off and for these terrible people to sod off.
I loved these two together. Both very intelligent but in different ways. They are fun & sexy and sometimes very angry.
I really enjoyed revisiting this place with Luke all grown up.

After adoring The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen, the sequel was high on my list of anticipated reads for the rest of the year. I had to fight to keep my expectations low (don't we all have books we hype up that can never live up to the perfect versions of themselves that live in our brains?), but I shouldn't have bothered: this book is even better than I'd imagined.

I was initially unsure about Luke as a main character, but he's super interesting to follow. The reader doesn't know what his motivations are for a huge portion of the book—KJ Charles keeps those secrets from us as well as the other characters—and it works so well. We can become endeared to him while not quite knowing what he's up to; we worry about what he might be doing and why he might be doing it, but we can't help but love him, anyway, just like Rufus.

And, man, Rufus is the star of this book in every way. I knew right away that he would become one of my favorite romance heroes in anything, ever. Like Luke, he's a force to behold (albeit in a very different, less subtle way than Luke is), with so much, maybe even too much, kindness, faith, and generosity packed tight into his wary heart. He cares SO MUCH about the people around him, even the people who absolutely do not deserve it.

To that point, the main conflict is my one sticking point. I think it's really compelling; I can see both sides of it, to varying degrees, and I knew something like it was coming, just not when the other shoe would drop. I don't, however, love how easily it resolves itself—I really think we could have had another chapter, or at least another conversation, with fully open and honest communication between Luke and Rufus about the things that happened to really tie everything up nicely.

I can forgive basically all of that, though, because the rest of the book is such a genuine delight. The romance is solid, the characters are complex, there were a bunch of little sweet moments meant to pierce my own heart with a dagger (Luke's HANDWRITING, my god), and I cannot wait for it to come out so I can gush about it to everyone on the planet.

Superbly fun and swoony! KJ Charles continues to write historical romances that are practically pitch perfect and feel personally tailored to my reading tastes, which never fails to delight me. Who doesn’t love a romance with a dash of skullduggery and justice?

I’m eagerly awaiting news of what books she’ll be publishing next, but in the meantime I know I’ll be gleefully rereading the Doomsday series and picking up on all of the clever hints and groundwork that always make for twisty, heartpounding first reads and even more delightful rereads, when you’re finally in on all the secrets. KJ Charles marries romance and mystery craft in such a brilliant way, making her books gifts that keep on giving and permanent residents on my keeper comfort reads shelf.

Loved it, even more than the first book. I have a few minor quibbles, but overall it's an excellent historical romance - emotionally intense with lots of intrigue and plot twists. It’s set in the same world as book one, 14 years later when Luke Doomsday is already a grown up.

The plot here is even more convoluted than most of KJ Charles' plot. The main intrigue concerns the inheritance of the noble title of Lord of Oxney with all the complex laws around succession and inheritance and titles. Being a proper lord, one who cares about his tenants and his estate, it matters to Rufus and he does his best to achieve it despite the strong opposition and open hostility of his relatives.

I will not go into details regarding the complex family relations/feuds/abuse/lies and conspiracies. I do admit that they make entertaining reading though they appear completely bonkers at times.

I really liked the character work here. Two very different men, carrying the physical and mental scars of their past. Fraught dynamics – complicated by the fact that Luke works for Rufus (Lord Oxney). Lots of conflict mostly internal, some external as well. Rufus' struggles with reading and the gentle way Luke helps him with that - it was such a tender, considerate act of care and kindness!

I really, really like how KJ Charles portrays the relationships as a work in progress. It’s we love each other and that solves everything but rather, we love each other, let’s see how we can make this work. And I love her characters contain multitudes – a nobleman but not quite, a gentleman’s secretary but not quite. Allowing the characters to be human, to be confused and to make mistakes, to uncertain especially when it comes to personal relationships and intimacy – I appreciate this so much. The intimate relationship does not follow a set of rules – first base, second and etc. , it follows a meandering path, has set back, discoveries about one’s own likes and desires, experimentation – at the base of it is openness and sincerity.

And here we come to what I have come to see a KJ Charles main weakness – the villains read like bad caricatures than real people. Yes, not of all of Oxney family are villains, given the chance they turn out the be decent people but still, the villains are just too villainous without enough motivation/justification for their hatred. Honestly, I am not surprised by this, I see this more often than not in KJ Charles, but it still bothers me nonetheless.

The element that bothered me in this book is that Luke keeps a major secret from Rufus in the end and while I can how that decision makes sense for Luke, I am also worried it’s something way too important to keep from Rufus. And, in general, I don’t understand the need for this plot twist, it’s an unnecessary complication and the story would have been fine, even better without it in my opinion. I would say that if you bring such plot twist in the story, then it's better, in my opinion, for the characters to be open about it and deal with it together. It's an author's choice, I am just baffled by it.

All that said, apart from this element, I really liked this romance, it's a worthy sequel to The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen.

CW: violence (in the past), scars, dyslexia, attempted murder

Thank you so much to Netgalley for allowing me to read this charming romance, and much anticipated sequel, early!

I loved that this book built on the story I loved in the first book in the series and expanded the world of the salt marshes. Luke was a phenomenal, self-assured character--even if his motivations weren't always the smartest or well-thought-out--and his chapters were always my favorite to read. Where I think the plot faltered in some places for the sake of the budding romance, the fully-realized characters in this book more than made up for it.

This is a great, fast read that can be enjoyed in an afternoon and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Taking place 13 years after the first book, this book focuses on Rufus, a war veteran turned Earl against the wishes and schemes of his uncle. There is also Luke Doomsday, who we met previously when he was a child, but now he's a man in need of a job.
This series has become an instant fav of mine. The compelling story line, the emotions of the characters and their struggles just keep you sucked into the story. It's the kind of story that if you start it before bed you're not getting much sleep as you'll want to finish it before dawn.

Thanks Netgalley for the ARC! This is the perfect sequel to The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen. This is a story about deception, lost treasure and murder!

KJ Charles remains one of the best in the romance business. This was a charming story with wonderful characters, humor, and a delightful sense of place.

I love KJ Charles, but i REALLY loved this book. Rufus is a newly-titled nobleman in need of a lot of help, and Luke is an exceptional secretary….and a member of the notorious Doomsday family, famous for their smuggling exploits. Luke’s dark and lonely past leaves him struggling to believe that he is loved and wanted as he is, and Rufus just desperately wants someone he can trust. Their romance is tense until it is easy, dangerous until it is safe. It’s beautiful. I loved it.

Mix romance, mystery, and adventure and you get 🔥. I did not read the first book but I was able to easily catch up to what was going on.

Luke falls completely in love with Rufus. I loved them together! The love, support, and understanding really showed how powerful love can be. With messed up pasts and the traumas that can hold. They still found a way for happiness.

Let’s not forget the 🌶️ scenes. It was off the charts!🔥🫣 I’m definitely a new fan of this author and wish I discovered them when the first book came out. Can’t wait to check out more books from them!

Thank you, Source books and NetGalley for the EARC! As always, my review is my opinion and thoughts.

Thirteen years after the events of The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen, Luke Doomsday returns to Romney Marsh, seeking employment with the new Earl of Oxney. The earl in question, Rufus d’Aumesty, is fighting for a title he doesn't really want and attempting to shore up the estate and lands that languished under his grandfather. Rufus, highly ethical if quick to anger, is thrilled with Luke's competence and confidence, less so with his smuggler origins. With Luke's help, despite the resistance of recalcitrant relatives, Rufus begins to get his house in order. He also starts to fall for his secretary, and the feeling is mutual.

Initially this felt like much lighter fare than Secret Lives, with a cast of scheming relations, a crumbling manor, and a workplace flirtation. But Luke's dark past can't help but catch up with him and imperil his fragile affair. The rage he harbors over his father's abuse and his family's failure to act on his behalf has festered over the years, and the scar he carries inside is less visible than the one marring his face, but far more damaging. He's used to keeping secrets, and the ones he's hiding now, inextricably tied to the past, threaten any chance of a better future.

KJ Charles never disappoints. A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel is by turns swoony, scary, devastating, and hopeful. It's also a fine riff on gothic romance. A magnificent five star tale.

A delight in every possible respect! Definite shades of my very favorite Cat Sebastian book (The Lawrence Browne Affair, natch) and Heyer’s The Unknown Ajax and The Quiet Gentleman, but KJ Charles is of course making her own mark on the tropes and doing a great job with it. I was surprised that this book takes place so much later than the first book in the duology (the hero was a child in Secret Life) but it was really nice to get a glimpse of Joss and Gareth being old and married. Just a really well-plotted book with very endearing characters.

*Received as a free ARC*
An excellent follow up! I deeply enjoyed getting to see Luke as an adult and Rufus's steadfast straightforwardness. And I love that Rufus was able to form meaningful relationships with his cousins. I would heartily recommend this to anyone who enjoys regency romance, particularly queer ones. Always a fabulous reminder that we have always existed, even when society at large likes to pretend otherwise. 5 stars!