Sins of the Cities (An Unseen Attraction, An Unnatural Vice, An Unsuitable Heir)

Sins of the Cities (An Unseen Attraction, An Unnatural Vice, An Unsuitable Heir)
K. J. Charles, 2017

Premise: A lodging-keeper, a taxidermist, a crusading journalist, a scheming medium, an enquiry agent, and an acrobat. Six people find romance after being brought together in London by lies and murder.

I'm quite a fan of this author's period romances, and these are particularly nice. I like the balance between romance, sex, and action.

I don't read enough romance to know whether this is common, but I also really like the way this trilogy solves the potential contradiction of writing a romance series. Each book ends with its requisite happy ending, but each features a different couple in a set of interlocking stories. The background story (involving a secret marriage, blackmail, and murder), which affects each of the three couples differently, isn't solved until the third book.

This series also features a high number of untraditional traits in the leads, even for LGBT romance.

Clem (book one) is a half-Indian byblow of a prominent British family, and he also appears to be very mildly autistic. Of course they don't have a word or a definition for it in 1873, but his eventual lover is happy to work around his difficulties with crowds and inability with hints.

The third book features a really interesting portrayal of a nonbinary lead, although I wish the non-romance plot of that one had been a bit more interesting.

Overall I enjoyed all three books.

4 Stars - Very Good Books