Trouble

LoveReading Says

Oh Jesus Christ, it’s getting silly now. Lex Croucher has published four novels in two years (supernatural) and every one has been an absolute banger. 

If you don’t already know Croucher’s MO, this is a thoroughly re-imagined Regency-era romp, blending modern and historical sensibilities in a cast of queer characters and characters of colour, with high tension, low silliness, and wit streaming out of every sentence. Look, you’re not reading it for historical accuracy, – who gives a flying f*ck about historical accuracy? – you’re reading it to have The Best Time. 

As someone who usually forces myself to delay gratification, I felt rather naughty for getting this full novel-length amount of a treat so soon after loving their third novel, Gwen and Art Are Not in Love, which published a few weeks ago. I feel like a child who, after glutting themselves in a sweet shop, has just been allowed to walk freely into a chocolatier. 

It would be easy to assume that the quality of content would be lowered by being one of an astonishingly ambitious timetable – I’m enough of a follower of Croucher’s social media to know it’s been far from easy for them to create to this schedule (er, understandably?) – but let me tell you, this book might have been crafted in an environment of seemingly endless labour (which perhaps inspired the hard graft of our heroine Emily’s past workplace at the mill) but for the reader it’s a pure holiday. Like the setting of the fiercely beautiful clifftop house where Emily goes to work as a fraudulent governess, reading is like a breezy, restorative clifftop walk. It has a breathless momentum that makes it genuinely hard to put down. 

And: two bisexual protagonists. We stan. 

Lily Lindon

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