There’s some M/M shenanigans on page but less than average. I like the author so if this is a series, I’ll keep reading despite finding the romance more frustrating than not. I need see Kim & Will deliberately work together more before I will believe that they’ll have a reliable future. While I don’t think the guys will sell each other out, they are a long way from being a couple that collaborates. We mostly know they’re “good people at heart” because their friends think so, but their friends are few and rarely in scenes. Kim & Will spend this whole book working independently, hoarding secrets from each other, then playing catch up.
I’m not sure if it’s entirely fair to be disappointed in the romance because I can’t tell if it’s a matter of false expectation on my part.
Having just re-read the Magpie series, again, where the romance is solid by the end of book 1, I was a little thrown here. But the romance barely reaches infancy by the end of the book because Kim is a secretive loner whose motives are murky to both Will and the reader. Clues and action came along often enough to keep the plot moving, the stakes make sense, and the conclusion was satisfying. I would have enjoyed it more if I could have. I was unable to tell if they were working together by the end. This might be because the story has a single POV from Will, or it might be because Kim’s a secretive guy with trust issues who never really worked with Will, only adjacent to him. Kim was a chaos generator and kind of irritating. I only wish he was more stubborn about carrying his knife. Normally I don’t root much for characters who are stubborn just to be stubborn, but I was fully rooting for Will & his stubbornness the whole time because he wasn’t wrong to be so stubborn. The least bad person coming after the package is Kim, who comes from money. A broke world war 1 veteran, Will, inherits a bookstore and a pile of trouble via a wayward package. I was expecting a romance with some action. The timing of a book that doesn’t glorify war is spot on.
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