Wages of Sin gets its first review :)

A great review from Dear Author

Not, perhaps, my highest scoring review yet, but one that makes me want to write meta about my own story.  She’s spot on that in this one I was perhaps more interested in the murder mystery/ghost story than I was in the romance.  Also that it was a deliberate decision to have Jasper’s reconciliation of his religion and his homosexuality already be a done deal.  And Charles come from a family which was used to not worrying about whether something was right or not, if they wanted it and could get away with taking it.  I hear a lot of people saying “we’re fed up of the coming out plot being the only plot in m/m romance.”  So this was an attempt to do something different.

I should be more downcast at the thought that the romance didn’t work for her this time, but I can’t be, because of this:

“Your grasp of the fashions, sights, sound, smells, and feel of the mid-eighteenth century was stunningly vivid. People die of weird medical concerns. Things smell bad. The fashions for men are strange to us. Men are brutal to women and the upper classes brutal to the servants who make their lives comfortable. They cared about things — Papists and class — in ways we don’t understand today. I don’t think I’ve ever FELT like I was *in* a particular time more than I did in this book.”

Which delights my “historical novelist” heart and makes me glad I put in the moment where Charles criticizes Jasper’s tendency not to wear enough makeup.

I’m also very happy that the idea of the woman scorned as a central motif intrigues – though of course she’s not scorned by either of the heroes.  Now I want to write a sequel that helps flesh out the things that Sarah F feels are missing in this one.  I’m actually very fond of these two characters, and it would be nice to give them a new airing.  This time with added vampires.  LOL!

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