The Sugared Game, by K.J. Charles (Will Darling book 2)

[Ulysses]

The Sugared Game (Will Darling Adventures, 2)
By K.J. Charles
KJC Books, 2020
Five stars

“How do we set rules for the game when neither of us is sure what we’re playing at?”

Well, I waited so long to read this long-awaited sequel that the third book in the series dropped. Now I can let that one lurk in my backlog while I savor the memory of this most satisfying follow-up to the first book, “Slippery Creatures.”

At the center of my pleasure in reading KJ Charles are two things: her very fine writing, and her wonderful characters. Even as an American I am biased in my belief that British writers are generally better with words—and I don’t know why they would be, exactly. Regardless, Charles’s prose and dialogue are elegantly honed to reflect the period in which this book is set (1924) and the sometimes-torturous moral complexities presented by the story. Class distinctions are critically important here, both because they illuminate people’s behavior, but also because class is one of the chief difficulties that our characters have to face as they try to stumble their way toward anything like happiness.

To an American eye, Will Darling is an easy hero: tall, handsome, brave; but it is his working-class Welsh roots that make such a big difference in London in 1924. Not only is he marked by his social superiors in a way that never truly existed in American culture (much as we tried to make it so), he also has a visceral resentment for aristocrats that gets in the way of his true feelings about Kim—Lord Arthur Secretan.

Kim, who, I realized, has a kind of James Bond appeal for an American reader, isn’t remotely simple, either. Just like Will, Kim is what he is: an effortlessly aristocratic, younger son of an earl, rich and handsome—the fact that he and Will are the same height is pointed out multiple times, because their physical equality is used to underscore the cultural chasm between them. Will seems to have no moral issues with what he’s done as a soldier serving king and country—although he’s awfully aware of his readiness to kill to protect something he loves. Kim, on the other hand, is so tied up with self-loathing over his perception of failed duty, that he is virtually blind to his own goodness. Kim deceives himself, but also deceives those he loves in order to protect them—which just makes them feel slighted and left out.

“Not a partner. Not an equal. Not included.”

That thought is Will’s, but it could apply to the other two remarkable characters just as well: Phoebe and Maisie. Phoebe Stephens-Price, daughter of a viscount, and Kim’s nominal fiancée, is both stereotypical in her upper-class persona and so very appealing in her intelligence, humor, and generosity of spirit. Phoebe could be a joke, but I love her as much as Kim and Will and Maisie do. Phoebe and Maisie have struck up a true friendship, inspired by Maisie’s design talent; while Will adores Phoebe in spite of her class because he can easily see the person behind the glittery façade. It is a telling detail that both Phoebe and Will get emotionally left in the dust by Kim, not quite realizing that his bad behavior is a sure sign of his own deep unhappiness.

Maisie is a fascinating person, because she is not just a working-class girl from Cardiff, but also not white. I think KJ Charles treads a little lightly in matters of race here, but she handles it deftly. Maisie’s color is an even larger socio-economic hurdle than her class; which makes Phoebe’s honest friendship and desire to sponsor her in the fashion world a truly powerful testament to both Maisie’s gifts and Phoebe’s personal goodness.

The secondary and even tertiary players in this drama—which is at times both heartbreaking and horrifying—are all sharply drawn and vivid. But it is the four young people in the middle of things to whom we give our hearts as disaster swirls around them in ever closer circles.

The narrative is a page-turner, filled with skullduggery and derring-do (good old words), but it is also oddly comical, and sometimes as the most appalling moments. KJ Charles manages to pull this off with dexterity, while giving us, if not the ending we want, and ending that will keep us happy until we turn to the next book.

I will force myself to wait before I read the next instalment, because I have lots of reading to do; but I am really looking forward to it.