Stephen is much more cautious than Lucien about being outed as gay.He doesn’t hold Lucien responsible but he definitely feels that the entire set up is a little weird and uncomfortable (he’s right). Lucien’s father destroyed Stephen’s family and Stephen is really put out about this.In the course of events Stephen and Lucien fall in love, but they have the following obstacles: Stephen quickly figures out that the curse is linked to Lucien’s ancestral home and to the many horrid things the family did (really, they were pure scum) and to the many enemies the family made. He hires a magician, Stephen, to find out what’s going on and to put a stop to it. The reason Lucien keeps trying to kill himself is that he is under a magical compulsion to do so.

So Lucien figures he’ll hang out in England long enough to tidy some family affairs now that all his shitty relatives are dead and then he can always go back to China if England proves inhospitable. His father exiled him to China where he lived for twenty years, and where, according to the author, sexual relationships between men were not considered terribly unusual or vile during that time period. Lucien is gay, but he feels no shame or self-loathing about this. His family was abusive and awful, but he’s come to terms with their awfulness and now that his father is dead he’s pretty much rid of them. I assumed I was in for a story about angst, but actually, the guy, whose name is Lucien, is generally pretty angst free. The story launches right into a grisly scene in which a guy who is wallowing in guilt and self-loathing tries to kill himself. It has a historical Victorian setting, it involves magic, one of the two heroes is short, skinny, and booksmart, and above all the main characters are presented as real, multi-layered people in a real relationship. The Magpie Lord has everything I could possibly want from a m/m romance. Genre: Historical: European, LGBTQIA, Paranormal, Romance

The Magpie Lord by K.J. Charles