I really enjoyed this book! I was a little worried that the flashbacks would be undercut by the present-day storyline, but in fact they supported the story and it really worked. Piecing together the characters based on both then and now was interesting, especially as more and more was revealed and reassessment required. Which makes it sound like I read it analytically, but in fact the plot pulled me along, into the increasing urgency of the characters, and I won’t give spoilers but the resolution worked for me as well. I will definitely be recommending this!

I loved this book so much, and I'll eat up any more KJ Charles mysteries with as much enthusiasm as her romances. It had major Gaudy Night vibes, which is catnip to me, and it's genuinely a great, satisfying mystery. I read the whole thing in a day, which is not something I get to do often as an adult.

He was frightened, and once he recognised that, he realised he'd been frightened for a very long time, at a level so deep he hadn' known i. One of the people he most loved had become a murderer, and he'd never trusted anyone again. [loc. 1548]

1905: Jem Kite is working as a clerk in London, his dreams of academic excellence and a comfortable life shattered ten years before, when he walked out of a final exam at Oxford after the murder of his friend Toby Feynsham. But was Toby really his friend? Who killed him, and why? Jem knows he's not the murderer, but it must have been one of their group of friends, the Seven Wonders: a black man, a flamboyant homosexual, working-class Jem, ambitious Hugo, plain Prue, Toby's twin sister Ella, and Toby himself. When Jem receives a note accusing him of the murder -- and losing him his job -- he decides it's time to settle the matter once and for all.

Death in the Spires is very much a murder mystery with romantic elements, rather than the author's more usual romance with mystery elements: some familiar tropes (perilous inheritance, illegitimate child, social injustice) are present, but the novel is structured quite differently and Charles keeps us guessing until the very end. Each of the characters is intriguing, and each has been badly affected by Toby's death -- but they all have secrets to keep, and none of them were wholly honest with the police at the time, or with one another a decade later. On rereading, I could see that some of those secrets were laid out in plain sight, though blended with plentiful red herrings. There's a strong theme throughout, familiar from Charles' m/m romances, of 'a crime against law but not humanity': the denouement may displease some, but I found it very satisfactory.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 11th April 2024.

The year is 1905. Ten years ago, Jem Kite left Oxford without a degree after the unsolved murder of his friend, wealthy and charming Toby Feynsham, turned his life upside down. A scholarship boy with a club foot and an impoverished background, Jem's been scraping by, rootless and alone, until a malicious accusatory note mailed to his employer leads to another lost job. Jem has never gotten over the loss of his close friends, the so-called Seven Wonders, of whom only six remain. His life is in ruins and with nothing to lose, he decides he's going to find the murderer--at any cost.

KJ Charles is well known for her historical romances, which are frequently built around complex mysteries. Here she pivots toward a more classic murder mystery, but still gives us strong, nuanced characters in whose emotional lives we can't help but be invested. As always, her eye for detail and twisty plotting result in a brilliant story that will keep readers breathlessly barreling toward the satisfying conclusion.

With KJ Charles you can count on accurate historical details, great characters, and a satisfying ending. This was an interesting blend of what could be called a domestic thriller (a “psychological thriller that focuses on interpersonal relationships," in this case college friends), historical mystery, and historical fiction that explores class differences and the treatment of queer people. There's danger, but the tension comes more from dialogue and the main character's mixed feelings about his investigation then from action scenes. All in all, a very satisfying read, and one that I think would be at least as good on rereading.

KJ Charles is already a well-established and well-respected historical/paranormal romance writer, whose many fans (I imagine, based on my own experience) would follow her into whatever genre she chose to write. Death in the Spires is her first foray into crime - and it suits her. Set in Oxford in the early years of the 20th century, it's giving Saltburn x The Secret History x Bloomsbury Group fic vibes. We meet our protagonist Jem Kite in November 1905, a clerk at the Registry Office at Senate House, just as he is being accused of murder. Again. The accusation, which comes via an anonymous letter to his manager, leads him to lose his job (again) and digs up memories and feelings that he has tried to suppress for the better part of a decade. Ten years ago, Jem's friend Toby Feynsham was killed by a knife to the heart in their final year at St. Anselm's, a (fictional) Oxford college. His murder has never been solved. Jem knows that the killer must have been one of the "Seven Wonders," Toby's six closest friends - <i>Jem's</i> closest friends - and this knowledge has haunted him and ruined his life. Whereas once he was an ambitious mathematician, gunning for a First, now he's sad, poor, tired and lonely, estranged from his family and with no close relationships. The anonymous letter is the last straw: he needs to know what happened to Toby; he needs to know who did it and why. How did the most golden years of his life turn to ash and dust? Seeking out his old friends, he returns to St. Anselm's to solve the crime.

What follows is written in KJC's hallmark style. She is an absolute master of the tight, economical sentence, where every word is hard at work and nothing is spare. This means that a complex geography and a large cast of characters, nearly all suspects, are quickly delineated; pacing and plotting are also nicely managed. I read it like a fiend and got caught up in the red herrings, false clues and little hints of the story. The atmosphere of Oxford - the misty, wet streets; the hallowed grounds of the college; the book-lined scholar's rooms - is deliciously evoked, as is the contrasting light and buoyant joy of Jem's memories of his student years. I had a really strong sense of what Oxford meant to him, tapping into my own powerful college nostalgia (thankfully without the death and loss at the end).

Charles has been keen to stress that this is not a romance, even though there are some strong romantic threads, so I wasn't expecting too much in the love line. However, for me there was an overall lack of emotional payoff on the page - too much of the character interaction is taken up with moving the plot forward, so that their feelings have to be found in the interstices or imagined into the scenes that we don't get to see. Don't get me wrong, there are some really effective moments but the balance wasn't quite there for me, especially between Jem and his former lover Nicky. I also had some reservations about how disability and race are mobilised in the story. Jem has a disability, a clubfoot, that means he experiences significant pain and discomfort from long periods of walking and standing. Another member of the "Seven Wonders," Aaron, is Black. Both of them are subject to on-page ableism and racism respectively, which is mostly countered, but these characteristics are also instrumentalised for the plot. At times this felt very uncomfortable to me, as though these characteristics and identities are only on the page to do a job rather than being explored with nuance. For example, we don't have a great deal of insight into either Jem or Aaron's back story and how prejudice has impacted them. Finally, the ending is a bit hand-wavey and the denouement didn't satisfy me entirely - I can't say more without spoilers but it was a little too neat.

That said, I enjoyed this immensely and will keep following wherever KJ Charles leads me. I'd be very interested to know what non-romance readers, unfamiliar with her previous work, thought of it.

I love KJ Charles, but this was a bit grimmer than her other work. It's another "how can they have a happy ending given all that has come before" books and Charles carries it off, but just barely. A group of golden young men and women at college and how they fall apart, and eventually come back together, it's more than a simple romance and more than a simple mystery at the same time.

A complicated book about complicated characters, it's a story that will stay with me for a while.

KJ Charles usually writes historical romance with a bit of murder thrown in. For this book she’s flipped the balance since it’s foremost a murder mystery, but luckily she hasn’t forgotten about love stories.

The book is set at a fictional college of Oxford University and features a group of seven friends until one of them gets murdered. Each of them goes their own way after that and they don’t talk for 10 years. This only changes because the protagonist, Jem, loses his job after his employer receives a letter accusing Jem of the murder. Jem is upset and wants to find out which of his friends is the murderer.

The story unfolds along both timelines so that we slowly find out the dynamics between the friends and the secrets they keep. The pacing is excellent so there are lots of little twists and turns at exactly the right moments.

The book has a very strong sense of place; it feels as if Oxford is another character. I loved that there was a women’s college as well.

The book also deals with themes that are very relevant in the present as well, such as abortion, racism and privileged wealthy men.

I absolutely loved this book and I read it in pretty much one sitting. Can’t wait for more murder mystery from KJ Charles, or romance with some murder of course.

KJ Charles's first foray into the mystery genre is unsurprisingly engaging and self-assured. Long-time readers of her romance work will know that she often keeps a suspense plot running right alongside the love story, and incorporates an important component of "justice being served to the baddies" as part of almost all of her HEAs. Practice at both of these elements has clearly set her up well to write this gripping mystery story of a group of friends at Oxford - the Seven Wonders - who have been torn apart by the murder of one member by another one of their group. After ten years of wondering whodunit, and lamenting how that uncertainty broke up a meaningful friendship, our hero Jem Kite sets out to find some answers.

There is a lot to love here. Charles's brisk, economical, no-words-wasted writing style is perfectly suited to the genre of the murder mystery. The cast of characters is very quickly individuated, and there's never any feeling of difficulty following the plot- while at the same time, you never feel like it's being heavy-handedly over-explained to you. The book it atmospheric, and does a good job feeling referential to a LOT of things, from Shakespeare plays to The Secret History to the Bloomsbury Group and beyond, without feeling derivative. Jem make a great POV character to follow through a murder story, and audiences will have no trouble relating to him.

That said, there are a couple things that didn't come off for me, and they are very spoilery so I'm going to tag them and also suggest NOT to read them until you've read the book. [SPOIER: I really bought in to the emotional heft behind this book - that seven truly great friends had lost a beloved member of their group, and felt torn apart by the idea that another one of them had done it. That the denouement relied on making not one, but two of the members of this group *actual sociopaths* for the mystery element to come off... it's not that it's unrealistic, but it kind of skewed the emotional gravity of this book for me? And it was an emotional gravity that I (unsurprisingly, I know I'm biased here) felt could have been replaced by leaning just a tiny bit more into the romance between Jem and Nicky. Instead, it felt like KJC was almost needlessly running in the opposite direction of that emotional center in order to prove that this was Not a Genre Romance, Really! (/spoiler)]

On the whole, a really satisfying mystery genre outing from a beloved author. I would 100% sign up to read any more mystery that KJC wants to write

Why yes, I do have my usual K.J. Charles book hangover. Thanks for asking. Switching to the mystery genre (and yes, there is still some romance) did nothing to lessen how enthralling I find this author's writing. I fell right into this book and quickly became attached to the characters, all of whom felt very real. It was no surprise to me that this was a cracking mystery, perfectly paced, because many of the romances I've read by this author have great mystery plot lines.

I was nervous for the first few chapters, because the tone was pretty bleak (giving me some Secret History flashbacks. Yes, I liked that book. Yes, I found it horribly depressing) and I worried it might continue on that way and amp up my anxiety and make me put off reading the book. But while there are some pretty depressing aspects of the story, the pace picks up, the focus is on the present rather than the bittersweet past, and I was soon so caught up in the characters that I just wanted to barrel along and read it all in one sitting.

I don't want to say much of anything about the story, other than that I found it hard to put the book down because it was so engaging, because it really is best to go into this one absolutely spoiler free, and even knowing a bit about the characters and their relationships or where the story heads might ruin that.

My advice is to skip reading the reviews and just dive into this book. I do think this is an important one to read content warnings as there are absolutely some heavy topics. But if you love a good mystery that's not overly cozy but also not mired in dread and gloom, this one is sure to hook you. I also found the bit of romance in the story extremely satisfying and emotionally wrought. All in all I had a fantastic time reading this and highly recommend it. Do beware the inevitable book hangover though!

I was lucky enough to receive an advanced copy of this book through netgalley. I ill-advisedly began it just before midnight yesterday, and had to make myself go to bed at 2am. Today I finished it, so basically I devoured it in 2 sittings.

This was a clever mystery, and I felt very satisfied by the denouement. I enjoyed the cast and the setting. Jem was a good pov character to the whole sordid history he recounts, and I felt sympathetic to his plights. I really liked the historical setting, and Oxford reads very alive as a place. I've read quite a lot of Agatha Christie, and this story has similar vibes except people who aren't rich, white, uppercase and straight exist in a way that feels real and considerate.

If you like a clever mystery with a satisfying ending, I recommend you give this a go!

I am a big KJ Charles fan, and honestly, I was hooked on this by the breathtaking opening epigraph from Cymbeline! We follow Jem, "a drab man in a drab world," a little over 10 years after dropping out of Oxford just days before graduation in 1895. We quickly learn that one of Jem's closest friends at Oxford was murdered...and the only possible suspects are the rest of Jem's Oxford friend group. A dual timeline takes us alternately through Jem's golden years at St. Anselm's college in 1892-1895 and the fallout in 1905 as Jem decides to investigate the murder.

While the content of this book didn't feel any darker or grimmer to me than, say, the Sins of the Cities series or the Will Darling Adventures, it was definitely different to go into a KJC novel without a guarantee of a HEA. The mystery and the dual timeline were both propulsive: if my husband asks you, I totally didn't read this in one big gulp from 9pm to 3am on a work night! There was a palpable sense of unease hanging over Jem's happy Oxford memories from the moment Toby, a future marquess, declared that he had decided to "collect the interesting people" at St. Anselm's and this turned out to be two queer men (one of whom is also disabled and a scholarship student), a Black man, and two female STEM students from the nearby women's college. With a cast like that, I assumed from the get-go that we were going to be examining plenty of axes of oppression, and I was not disappointed.

My favorite part of this book was watching Jem gradually come back into his own after ten years of trying to stay invisible. This was paralleled by the reawakening of parts of his old friends' youthful personalities, for good and ill.

I will admit that this probably falls near the bottom of the KJC canon for me. I have never been a fan of dual timelines as an exposition method, and the pacing of the whole book felt wonky, as if Charles didn't know what to do with the throughline of the plot when foregrounding mystery instead of romance. There were several points where I felt the characters had unrealistically modern values or at least methods of shaping those values. Additionally, the whodunnit felt regressive--and I keep wondering if Charles hadn't set herself up to fail there given each suspect's combo of marginalization and genuine friendship with a very privileged murder victim. I found the final twist and resolution satisfying, but I did know what they were going to be in pretty explicit detail at about 70-75% of the way through.

That said, the main romance may be one of my favorites among KJC couples and the setting and characterizations were impeccable. I was also pleasantly surprised with the nuanced and even fond portrayal of Oxford given that Charles had declared this novel "possibly hate mail" towards the place.

This hit somewhere in the 3.5-4 star range for me. I think once Charles gets the kinks worked out of her mystery novel plotting, she will absolutely be up there with my favorites of the genre. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to seeing a whole new set of readers become rabid KJC fans through this book!

Thanks to NetGalley and Storm Publishing for feeding my KJ Charles obsession in exchange for honest feedback!

Disclaimer: Thank you @stormbooks_co for providing an advance reader copy for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

In 1895, Oxford student Toby Feynsham is murdered. A decade later, Jem sets out to discover which of their five former friends committed the crime.

1. I’ve previously enjoyed Charles’ romances with their usual crime/mystery elements, so I was quite excited for this mystery with romance elements.

2. Lots of literary allusions! I wish every book added five more to my mental “must read” list.

3. I appreciated the critical approach to true crime and acknowledgement of the (even life-ruining) harm it inflicts on families, friends, and potential “suspects.”

4. The beginning of the novel dragged as Jem formulaically visited each of the friends in turn, but as the plot gained momentum, I could not put it down. I became attached enough that I was desperately hoping that none of the friends had done it and kept trying to peak ahead a few pages to prepare myself. My sympathies with the characters and their relationships leant real tension to the whodunnit elements of the plot.

5. Charles deftly depicts the real life diversity of turn of the century Oxford (women, POC, and the LOWER CLASSES attend university—what has the world come to?), balanced with the historically accurate—though not uniformly held—discrimination and social norms of the late Victorian and Edwardian elite. The gap between legal justice and social justice is particularly raised during discussions of abortion practices of the time period.

6. I loved the chapters set in the past! The acerbic dialogue and sense of camaraderie in the early years highlights the loneliness and loss of Jem’s present.

Overall: A solid murder mystery with enough twists to keep me on the edge of my seat and a satisfying conclusion.

MM Historical Mystery set in England 1905 in which a man who's life's been haunted by his best friend's grisly murder a decade ago becomes obsessed with finally uncovering the truth.

5/5 stars: This is a MM Historical Mystery stand-alone by Charles that takes place in England 1905 and features a man who's life has been destroyed by the unsolved murder of his best friend at Oxford a decade ago. After receiving another anonymous letter accusing him of the murder, he's determined to solve the crime only to find his former university friends as tormented and broken as himself. Could one of them be the killer and will his pursuit of the truth be the death of him? With plenty of twists and turns, Charles has masterfully crafted a mystery that deftly balances the suspects, clues and red herrings and will leave you pondering the whodunit until the final reveal. Charles employs flashbacks to 1892 to give us the backstory of the “Seven Wonders” dynamic and the events that lead up to the grisly murder. Charles' writing and character work is stellar; the characters are well-rounded and complex while remaining incredibly likable. Jem's lead a tough life and I really liked seeing him take on the task of the murder investigation. The surviving members of the “Seven Wonders” all have unique voices and I especially liked seeing Jem reestablish his friendships with Nicky, Aaron and Ella. This does feature an MM relationship but doesn't have any OPS scenes. Additionally, Charles tackles some heavy topics, so take care and check the CWs. Highly recommend!

I received this eARC thanks to NetGalley and Storm Publishing in exchange for an honest review. Publishing dates are subject to change.

Jem is a stubborn character that won't stop at anything to find out who kill his friend Toby all those years ago.

I'll admit this did take me a bit to get into. It did however get better. And I quite enjoyed it.

This is very different then kjs usual story and I wasn't sure what to expect. Thankfully it was a fun read. Trying to work out who did it and the fun of meeting each other the characters along the way. I also loved the flash backs!

Jeremy's university life knew no bounds when he entered Oxford and was pulled into a group later known as the Seven Wonders. His life crashed when one of its members was murdered and friendships shattered. Ten years later he's had enough and is determined to find out who murdered his friend and destroyed his own life. This dual time period mystery is engrossing to the point I could not put it down. Read it!

This is near perfection from all angles - as a multi-layered mystery, as a reflection on class and power, and as a thriller with romantic elements. This is a book the description of "page-turner" was made for.

I'm maybe in the minority, but while I love romance novels with mystery/casefic elements, I love this sort of book even more - a full-fledged mystery with twists and turns and elements of romance underpinning the human heart of the case and the characters. As we know from her earlier books, Charles is really good at writing mysteries, but it's been a while since the mystery has really been allowed to take center stage. Here, it really shines, with the cases both past and present unfolding with so many twists and turns and character revelations that I was going back and forth on what could have really happened until almost the moment of revelations. And even then there's more!

It's the sort of mystery that you want to re-read to go back and catch all the small moments that hinted at the truth - they're all there, but so deftly woven in the story of seven friends who believe it is their golden years and their lives are full of possibility only for everything to come tumbling down, that you become instead absorbed in the youth and interplay of personalities and their relationships when the narrative flashes back to their time at Oxford.

There's one point, about 50% in that I thought things were coming to a conclusion or at least a consolidation, but NO THERE'S MORE and I was so glad there was more. It just ends up giving so much depth to all seven and makes the last third all but fly by. It's the sort of book you both don't want to put down but also can't because everything begins to come together all at once while revealing all the layers of tragedies that came together to form this mystery.

Anyways, Jem is a gem and I have a secret hope in my heart that this turns into a series.

This book is brilliant! I was invested in the story from the very start, and it was impossible to put down! Jem and the other characters were beautifully drawn and realistic. The mystery (or really mysteries) were all intriguing and believable given the historical time period and the setting of Oxford. I have read a great many books by KJ Charles and I am so happy she decided to turn her hand to the mystery genre! I truly hope she writes more! I will highly recommend this to readers of mysteries and historical fiction.

Thanks so much to Storm Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC!

These characters got under my skin and will remain there for a long time. It's gripping, tense, and atmospheric, but also insightful and compassionate. Exploring themes of the law of man v. the law of humanitarianism, and the balance of justice with forgiveness, it takes us on a nostalgic journey into the past and a compelling adventure through a shattered present.

I don't read a lot of crime, as I generally find that it provides a rather depressing view of the human race. But, while this novel does explore the dark underbelly of love, it does so in a gentle way that left me feeling moved and hopeful. Add in the allegories drawn from Shakespeare and Anglo-Saxon poetry and there's also a delicious hint of dark academia to give it an extra boost.

In Victorian England in 1895, seven very different Oxford college students have become friends. The ‘Seven Wonders’ as they were called had their whole lives ahead of them until one night one of them was murdered. Now 10 years later, one of them is not content to let another year go by with the murder still unsolved. As secrets and lies are unveiled and the lives of the remaining six are revealed to be still overshadowed by the murder, only one can be the killer, but they are all guilty of something. This was an excellent mystery with a shocking reveal. The author, K.J. Charles is well known for her romance novels. This being her first foray into the mystery genre is well worthy to be read and I look forward to reading her next novel.
Thank you Netgalley and Storm Publishing for an early copy. This review is my personal opinion.