Think of England

Show Notes

Today, the Reformed Rakes discuss Think of England by K.J. Charles along with special guest Mel. Set in the early 20th century, the story follows Captain Archie Curtis as he arrives at Sir Hubert’s estate. This isn’t merely a social call, as Archie suspects Sir Hubert of purposely sabotaging weapons sent to British troops during the Boer War. Once there, Archie meets Daniel, a man who also has a purpose beyond the social. Archie takes an immediate dislike to Daniel, a man so outwardly and obviously queer, yet, as they realize their aligned objectives, Archie begins to evaluate his own thoughts and feelings.

Mel’s TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram.

Books Referenced

The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting by K.J. Charles

The Will Darling Adventures by K.J. Charles

Maurice by E.M. Forster

Midsummer Moon by Laura Kinsale

 King Solomon’s Mines by Sir H. Rider Haggard

False Colors by Alex Beecroft

Works Cited:

@bayleyreadsbooks

Transcript

Beth

Welcome to Reformd Rakes, a historical romance podcast that will debauch you for king and country. I'm Beth, and I'm on booktok under the name bethhaymondreads.

Emma

I'm Emma, a law librarian writing about justice and romance as a substack restorative romance.

Chels

My name is Chels. I'm the writer of the romance substack The Loose Cravat, a romance book collector and a book talker under the username chels_ebooks.

Beth

Today we're discussing think of England by KJ Charles. Set in the early 20th century, the story follows Captain Archie Curtis as he arrives at Sir Hubbard's estate Peacomb, a technologically advanced house for its time. This isn't merely a social call, as Archie suspects Sir Hubbard of purposely sabotaging weapons sent to the British troops during the Boer War. Once there, Archie meets Daniel, a man who also has a purpose beyond the social. Archie takes an immediate dislike to Daniel, a man so outwardly and obviously queer. Yet as they realize their objectives are aligned, Archie begins to evaluate his own thoughts and feelings. At 200 pages, think of England is a loving tribute to eduardian pulp fiction, filled with murder door alarms, secret messages, and distracting kisses. And while this is a high energy and high action book, the romance between Archie and Daniel grounds the story. Charles has no redundant scenes, and each interaction between Archie and Daniel progresses the romance set piece by set piece. KJ Charles said on her blog, for me, the chemistry comes when one person really sees another, noticing how they look when they concentrate or when they're miles away.

Beth

The snag tooth or the scars on a hand, a turn of phrase, a coping strategy, an expertise in action, a moment of kindness or courage or vulnerability. That's the ultimate appeal of this story. Two people who slowly see each other as they really are.

Beth

Okay, so today we have a guest, Mel. You may have seen them on TikTok at the handle at page melt. They're pretty awesome. I don't know what else to say.

Chels

Maybe you want to introduce.

Beth

Do you want to introduce yourself a little bit, Mel, and tell us why you picked the book? Think of England by KJ Charles sure.

Mel

Thanks for having me on the pod. I'm a big fan, but yeah, I'm Mel, aka Paige malt. I'm a book toker mainly. I read a bit of everything, really, and I talk about it all on my TikTok page. I picked this book because I love KJ Charles so much. I think she is so smart and so funny, and all of her books have like a sort of bite to them, especially this one. Also, I love historians set in the 20th century, and they've been kind of hard for me to find, I think, because it's an ambitious project to take on as a romance author. You can set a romance in 1813 and not necessarily talk about Napoleon, but you can't set a romance in 1942 and not talk about World War II. You know what I mean? If you want to do a 20th century romance, you've got to seriously engage with the politics of the 20th century. And KJ Charles does her homework. Always think of England as set in 19 four, which is the time on the precipice of this huge change. And you can feel the novel anticipating that. And that's just really interesting to me.

Beth

I feel like if Emma wrote a novel in 1813, she would have, like, Napoleon politics in there and be referencing

Emma

Napoleon would have to be a character if I ever wrote.

Chels

If I ever wrote Napoleon, would be. Would he be the main character or a side?

Emma

I think he would have to be a side side, because I don't know if I could have anyone fall in love with Napoleon, though. There is a romance novel where Napoleon is the hero. There's one from the 50s called

Chels

that he wrote!

Emma

There's that one. He did write a romance novel where his self insert character, they keep being like. Everyone hates him because he's, like, too good at being a soldier. But there's one from the 50s called Desiree, where it's about his first fiance and the great love is between her and Napoleon, even though she ends up marrying someone else. So it's kind of on the edge of a romance. It's structured like a romance novel, but it's not a happily ever after after for her and Napoleon. So it's kind of pre genre conventions. But there are at least two romance novels out there where Napoleon is a main character. I recommend the one written by Napoleon. It's like 17 pages, because it's like fragments. I recommend people read it because you get a lot of insight into what his mind, what he thinks is important. So that's an aside.

Chels

No, only Wellington had that earlier.

Emma

Yes.

Mel

Okay.

Beth

So I just needed to put out there that Emma knows a lot about Napoleon and we love. I've followed your journey, reading all your Napoleon biographies, but KJ Charles, I think.

Emma

It would be hard to write like a wallpapery 20th century.

Beth

Yes.

Emma

I think that's something that's special about KJ Charles and anyone who can successfully write something in the 20th century. And I don't know if that's because there are fewer of them or because people who are reading them, we have less distance. So it's harder to pull off that sort of romancelandia setting. But, yeah, you can't imagine, like a wallpaper-y 20th century novel, because everyone would be wondering, where is World War I? Where is World War II? Which is like, probably like Napoleon is present in the Regency like that. But we can kind of ignore him in the genre. But readers, I think, would be less accepting of that, I think. For good. Cause I'm thinking a lot about wallpapers right now, but I think makes sense if something like we're still dealing with these things like this, not so far removed. It's weird to wallpaper like, your grandparents generation politics, right? That's a little awkward.

Mel

Most readers have a first degree connection still to World War II. At least I do. I have two, so I think it's harder to sort of suspend your disbelief. Like it's just some far away setting.

Emma

And we're going to talk about this. The queer couple, the criminality and the fear of being criminalized in this setting doesn't go away until parents generations in England. So it would be hard to not engage with that directly.

Chels

Yeah, that's something that I really appreciate about KJ Charles here, too. And so something I was kind of thinking about a lot, like, while we were writing this episode, is that when I was researching the Barbara Cartland episode, I read this book called the Glamor Boys, the secret society of the Rebels who fought for Britain to defeat Hitler by Chris Bryant, because I knew it referenced Ronnie Cartland, Barbara's likely gay, likely closeted brother who was anti appeasement and made an enemy of Neville Chamberlain. And, Mel, you've mentioned before on one of your TikToks that it's not uncommon to look up a book on literally any subject and see that Charles has reviewed it, because she reads really broadly and prolifically. And sure enough, Charles is, like, one of the top Goodreads reviews of this book. I don't know, it was just kind of like two worlds colliding, even though it's, like, really similar subject matter. Just like the very upper class people who were closeted, kind of conservative. I guess I would kind of fold Archie into that, even though I think we could kind of debate that a little bit. She has another character, I think, that Beth talked about in an earlier episode from A Seditious Affair who was a Tory.

Chels

She's just very different in how different the politics of queer people of the time could look and what that means to them, and in a way that isn't really easy to swallow.

Beth

Yeah. As we always do, I'm going to relate the entire plot of this book. The year is 1904. We meet Captain Archie Curtis at the start of his visit to Sir Hubert and his family at his estate, Peakholme. Sir Hubert asks after Archie’s uncles—Sir Henry Curtis and Maurice Vaizey who raised Archie after he and his brother were orphaned. Henry is the explorer and Maurice is the chief of the Foreign Office Private Bureau. The house is fairly modern, with brand new electrical fixings. Archie meets up with everyone for introductions. Lady Armstrong is Sir Hubert’s young wife. James Armstrong is Sir Hubert’s son from his first marriage. Peter Holt is James Armstrong’s friend and Archie recognizes him from Oxford. Then they introduce Daniel da Silva. “Curtis looked at the gentleman indicated and decided on the spot that he’d rarely seen a more dislikable man…A foreigner and a dandy, because while his shirt was impeccable and the tailcoat and tapering trousers cut to perfection, he was wearing a huge green glassring and, Curtis saw with dawning horror, a bright green flower in his buttonhole” (7-8). As the party goes on, Archie begrudgingly understands the appeal of a guest like Daniel da Silva as his witty remarks keep the whole company laughing. Archie notices everyone invited to stay is the age of Lady Armstrong as opposed to Sir Hubert’s age. The conversation turns to the war and Archie owns he got injured in war, lost fingers and an injured knee, specifically at Jacobsdal. Archie relays how at Jacobsdal they received a few crates of new guns and ammunition. The soldiers pulled them out to practice and found them to be faulty. The gun Archie used and all others “burst in our hands” resulting in lost fingers for him and the death of his tent mate Fisher. Archie says “My company lost as many men in two minutes’ practice firing than in six months of war before it.” Sir Hubert responds the inquiry into the faulty guns was inconclusive and the man who owned the armament, LaFayette, slipped and fell into the Thames. The next morning, Archie and Daniel stay behind as the rest of the guests go on a walk. Archie takes the time to go through Sir Hub ert’s study. He knows he’s not a spy yet this is what he came for. After Lafayette’s business went under, Sir Hubert, an arms manufacturer, got a lot of money. Archie had been privy to a conversation between Lafayette and his uncle Sir Henry, where Lafayette “raved about sabotage and plots” (16) and his death two weeks later cemented Archie’s suspicions. As Archie goes to leave the study after not finding anything, Archie nearly runs into Daniel. Archie sidesteps Daniel to go investigate the library where he finds a promising door. Daniel discovers him again and offers that the room is document storage and Hubert keeps his papers locked up. They part ways. That night, Archie goes to the door in the library with the intent of breaking in. Daniel finds him again, and it seems like they have similar goals. Daniel offers to pick the lock and as he’s working, Archie discovers an alarm. They plan to meet up again after Archie gets some tools for the alarm and they hash out what each other’s intentions are. When they talk, Daniel asks Archie who he’s working for and if his uncle sent him about the blackmail. Archie replies he’s here because of what happened at Jacobsdal. Daniel shares his friend had been blackmailed after being caught in a compromising position and that it had happened at Sir Hubert’s estate. His friend died by suicide. He asks Archie if he’s surveyed his room because in each room there’s a giant mirror with an aperture behind it. Every room in the house has this. Archie’s confused because Sir Hubert is already rich, so why does he need to extort so many people? Daniel says it’s because of this huge modern money pit of a mansion. They plan to meet up that night and break through the library door.Later that day, Archie reads some of Daniel’s poetry. Daniel catches him and Archie tells him his poetry reminds him of a particular artist. That it’s only when you stand back can you see how the picture comes together. Daniel’s startled to find such an analysis from Archie, and Archie thinks Daniel’s rather handsome. At one o’ clock in the morning, they break into the room. They discover the blackmail photos and Daniel pieces together that James Armstrong invites his contemporaries from Oxford with promising careers and Lady Armstrong chooses the women. The Armstrongs then have one of their servants or friends sleep with the targets. Archie finds a schema for a Lafayette rifle and other related papers and Archie tries to control his rage now that he finds the definite proof Hubert murdered soldiers for profit. They find top secret documents and realize Hubert is likely selling state secrets to instigate another war. As they’re outnumbered and people have already died for what they know, Daniel wants to get out of the house ASAP under plausible reasons to go. Archie remembers most of the groundsmen are ex-army as Hubert hired them after the death of his first son in the Boer war. They had been in his son’s company. Right as they’re about to leave, Archie trips the alarm. Upon hearing the approaching footsteps, Daniel tells Archie not to hit him and then kisses him. They break apart at the arrival of the servants with shotguns. Daniel smooths everything over and agrees with the story the servants offer up that they must have leaned against the door too heavily which tripped the alarm. They head back to Archie’s room and Daniel says they’re not out of the woods yet. Knowing that they’re being watched and photographed, Daniel gives Archie a blow job. They fight after and Daniel leaves. Archie tells himself anyone would’ve gotten off and falls asleep.They meet at the folly the next day to talk about last night. Both men have been invited to stay for two weeks although neither feels safe to stay. Daniel reasons someone will eavesdrop on any message sent out by telegram or phone. There’s also the problem of the compromising photos and getting them back. Neither man can drive so simply taking the evidence and making a run for it isn’t possible. They argue over who should stay. Daniel goads Archie a bit after Archie calls Daniel a “prancing pansy” and this leads to Daniel goading Archie more and then giving Archie another blow job. After, Archie asks Daniel if he’s all right and he responds he’s marvelous and there’s nothing more he likes than having sex with someone who despises him. Archie counters that he doesn’t despise him. Daniel reminds him he literally called him a prancing pansy a few minutes ago and Archie apologizes. They then get back to the conversation about who should stay at the house and Archie asserts he’s the soldier and the one who should take the risk and Daniel realizes that Archie was angry earlier because he thought Daniel wanted him to go because he’s and can’t hold his own. At this point Daniel reveals that while Archie may have guessed he’s a spy, that yes, professionally he’s a spy who works at the Foreign Officer Private Bureau for Archie’s Uncle Maurice Vaizey. He argues his skillset is better suited to their current goal which is why he was pushing for Archie to be the one to go home and hopefully get a message out as well. Daniel asks Archie if he’s planning on hitting him because he abhors violence. Archie says of course not, and Daniel responds “some men appear to feel that it’s less queer to have a chap suck one’s cock if one abuses him afterwards.” And Archie responds “What I mean is, obviously it doesn’t make one queer, having a fellow do that for one. I’m not your sort.” That afternoon they head out to visit some nearby caves, which are fairly treacherous and there is literally a pit that nobody really knows how far down it goes. Before dinner Daniel stops by Archie’s room and instructs him to play up that his knee is bothering him so Archie has an excuse to leave early without suspicion. They have some charged moments and Archie wants to have sex but Daniel reminds Archie that he said he’s not queer. Archie says he’ll worry about that. Daniel declines because they have work to do that night. They head into dinner and review the day’s expedition to the cave. Daniel mentions his disdain for the caves. The next day Daniel has supposedly left for him and Archie grows increasingly worried. He checks his rooms and after a few choice comments from Holt (this is James Armstrong’s friend) Archie concludes Holt’s in on the operation and that something happened to Daniel. Remembering Daniel’s fear of the underground, Archie finds him tied up in the cave. Daniel tells him James and Holt tied him up there and as they try to leave they run into Holt. They fight and it’s kind of violent and Archie kills Holt and then throws his body down the pit. They walk for several hours until they get to this folly. He leaves Daniel there and heads back to the main house for supplies and to get a message out.So I haven’t mentioned them yet but two women Fen and Pat are staying there as well. They’re the main characters from Proper English. Anyway, Archie finds Pat when he gets to the main house and says he needs help. Pat says she’ll tell everyone she’s going out on the moors for the day and grab supplies from the kitchen and gather some guns. He and Fen can get a message out to Archie’s Uncle Maurice who, as a reminder, is the chief of the Foreign Office. The rest of the house wonders where Holt is. They have to put on the illusions that everything is okay although Fen and Archie go to make the call. Since the operator listens in, Fen suggests the operator give Archie some privacy since it’s a medical matter he’s calling about. Pat returns that evening and Archie heads out at night after the house has gone to bed to go be with Daniel. They talk and have sex. Archie asks if after all of this he can visit Daniel who reminds Archie that he’s not a gentleman. While Archie is the son of a duke, Daniel’s father was a locksmith. His mother manages a billiard hall. Archie tells Daniel he wasn’t the first man he’s been with and that his tent mate had been his lover when he died at Jacobsdal. Daniel is the one who calls him his lover and Archie insists they “only tossed each other off sometimes” and then gets emotional describing how his tent-mate, Fisher, was a friend and companion. Daniel then relents a bit and says Archie needs to think about a potential relationship with him for at least a fortnight. Archie knows they have different social circles but he’s tired of all the clubs, events, and house parties. They fall asleep.Daniel wakes Archie up telling him that they’re “besieged.” Archie grabs a gun and tells Daniel to stay away from the windows. The whole Armstrong family has shown up—James, Lady Armstrong, and Sir Hubert. The Armstrongs ask where Holt is. Then they tell Archie and Daniel they got the message Archie sent out and the Foreign Office men are going to help the Armstrongs, not Archie and Daniel. Daniel realizes they must have an informant at the Foreign Office. The Armstrongs then say they kept the incriminating photos of Archie and Daniel together and have gotten rid of all the other evidence. Archie admits to killing Holt, enraging James who starts emptying his rifle into the house. Daniel confirms Archie’s a good shot and then tells the Armstrongs he’s coming out to talk. Daniel heads out of the run down house (folly) and talks about what a good shot Archie is and reminds them his boss and Archie’s uncle Vaizey doesn’t appreciate his agents turning up dead. Daniel then asks the Armstrongs what they want and plays up like he’ll betray his office. They can cover up Jacobsdal together. “You’ll betray your office, will you?” Sir Hubert demanded. “Of course he will,” said James. You can’t trust his sort.” Daniel then asks how are they going to play this. Talking to Sir Hubert he asks if h e wants James and Lady Armstrong “hamstrung, cut off or dead?” Sir Hubert demands to know why he’d want his family dead and Daniel responds because they’re cuckolding you. Sir Hubert says he’s lying and Daniel’s like, right of course your wife wants you at your age over your younger hotter son. My bad. The Armstrongs start to turn on each other and after Daniel says Holt told them everything James swings the shotgun up to shoot Daniel and Archie shoots James through the temple first. Lady Armstrong falls to her knees weeping over James. Daniel says Vaizey expects either Lady Armstrong or Sir Hubert to get a pardon from Vaizey although the other will likely hang. Sir Hubert shoots his wife then himself. Daniel retches. He calls what happened a “wholesale slaughter” and he orchestrated it. Archie says they’re swine who murdered his men at Jacobsdal. Daniel says they lost anyway since all the evidence of the blackmailing operation is destroyed. When they arrive back at the house, they find Fen and Pat holding the complicit servants at gunpoint and the storeroom open with all the intact blackmail papers and photos. Vaizey and eight other men arrive and pick up all the evidence. They get ready to leave the house. Daniel comes to say goodbye and Archie says he doesn’t want to. Daniel says he doesn’t want Archie to get hurt and he doesn’t know what it’s like to be sneered at for being queer and he would be if he was in Daniel’s company. He talks of Archie’s wealth and his connections. If they were together and got in trouble Archie could sidestep the law, so he isn’t worried about Archie on that front. He reminds him: “It’s the gossip and the giggles, the cold shoulders and the awful talks with your uncles, and the looks— God damn it, you can’t even begin to understand can you?” Archie says he has a say in this and Daniel then responds Archie can’t call on him later. Vaizey interrupts them and Daniel leaves. Archie debriefs his uncle on everything. After the inquest and eleven days later Archie arrives in London. He finds out that Sir Hubert left money in his will to the dependents of men who died at Jacobsdal and the survivors. He asks to Archie to be Daniel’s spy partner since Daniel refuses to learn how to shoot and he’s driven off three men already. Archie shows up at Daniel’s house to tell them about their new professional arrangement. There’s a bit of back and forth but obviously Daniel accepts the situation and that they should be together. THE END.

Beth

So KJ Charles said, think of England is a romance set firmly in the Edwardian pulp milieu, with spies, daring, dew reticent British officers and mysterious foreigners. Sort of. As a small tribute to a beloved genre, I rather cheekily grafted my hero Archie Curtis onto the family tree of one of the great Victorian adventurers, Sir Henry Curtis, the warrior hero of King Solomon's minds. KJ Charles has a deep love of the genre, the eduardian pulp genre, and there's another post on her website where she lists her top ten favorite 19th and 20th century pulp novels. She also lists out the reasons why Edwardian pulp might not hit with modern readers, including racism, antisemitism, bigotry, et cetera. I'm sympathetic to Charles here, because you have this deep love for a genre, yet you kind of have to hedge your recommendation on it. And she acknowledges writing Edwardian pulp pastiche. You kind of have to wrangle with the attitudes of the time. So she details her approach this way. I write queer romance. I work on the assumption that my readers are non bigoted humans who don't need to be told that oppression and bigotry are bad things.

Beth

I'm here to do pulp adventure and romance, not overt politics, and I don't want to sit down and write hate. It's draining and horrible. So what do you all think of this?

Mel

I know absolutely nothing about Edwardian Pulp besides what I've learned through Charles, and I think it's a hallmark of a really good writer that she's able to pay homage to the genre that she clearly has a lot of love for in ways that people who are familiar with it are going to be able to pick up one while still granting new readers like me plenty of access. I really respect her for trying to include some of this stuff more directly than I think is currently in vogue with queer histroms. Edwardian or not, Think of England was published in 2014, and I'd say it's really rare in 2024 for the main character in a queer romance to be dealing with -isms as acutely as Archie is here, and I think some readers will bounce off of this book for that reason, and that's fair, but it's also why I like it. Like Charles said, she's working under the assumption that I already know that racism and xenophobia and homophobia are bad and we can move forward with the story from like, I feel her trust in me as a reader, and that allows me to connect more deeply with the book.

Emma

So I love the direct connection to King Solomon's Mines. I think how Charles talks about these books and then repurposes their tropes is a great example of how we can appreciate and even love older iterations of genre fiction, which is obviously a hallmark of Reformed Rakes taste. I've seen the movie of King Solomon's minds. I haven't read the book, but my twin brother loved the movie from 1950 when we were kids, and it definitely has like a camp factor to it, but it's also extremely colonially minded. Obviously that's the premise of the plot, and I'm kind of always growing in my response to these quote unquote, problems of older fiction and how do we work with that? How do we acknowledge the genealogy of things that we love now when they're coming from these places that have problems in them. But I think you can look at like a mini arc of something like King Solomon's Mines to something like Indiana Jones, which is also a send up of the movie adaptations of this Edwardian pulp genre. Steven Spielberg's like, looking at the movies of his youth, like King Solomon's Mines to think of England is illuminative.

Emma

So Indiana Jones is a pastiche of the genre, but it has its own 1981 bent that creates new problems. Like, you don't watch Indiana Jones and think this movie doesn't have any racism problems. It has its own sort of anew problems that it creates because they're thinking about it and creating it in 1981. And I think think of England also has like a 2014-ness to it, like what issues it wants to talk about, like how the queer couple talks to each other. And I think, related to what Mel said, that 2014-ness doesn't necessarily make it worse or better. It is of its time. And I think an advantage of it is that in 2014, authors are more interested in writing these sort of confrontations that we've maybe lost in the past ten years. And so that's an element that's of its time that is actually more interesting, more direct, more confrontational of these problems. And so it's not this linear arc as much as a just tension always between a setting and a time that something is created. So I was onto KJ Charles list of her Edwardian pulp. She also lists The 39 Steps, or not The 39 Steps

Emma

She lists another John Buchan book that stars Richard Haney. The 39 steps is one of my most gifted books. And I love thinking about after the fact, after I read Think of England, thinking about Richard Haney, the hero of The 39 Steps, fitting in with Daniel and Archie, because I feel like it unlocks something for a think of England. I was like, oh, Richard would absolutely be best friends with Daniel and Archie. And I was just like really chuffed to see that. Charles also loved Richard Haney books.

Chels

I was thinking when you were talking Emma, about something that I think Beth says all the time where Beth, you're like, every book is of its time. And then you say.

Beth

I feel like I came up with, oh my God, why can I remember the name of this book? You made me read it for our rake recommends episode bet me by Jennifer Crusie.

Chels

Oh, Jennifer Crusie.

Beth

I felt that the most because we felt like we had a head, because we lived through that time of kind of like we're like, early 2000s is.

Chels

Scary, but I was like, but this.

Beth

Is kind of like, you add 30 years, then suddenly this book is more worth studying in a historical context. More. I'm like, I think it is fascinating that you always can kind of study these dual time periods, essentially, with historical romance.

Chels

Yeah. And then, not to get too self referential, but that quote that you pulled at the beginning, I work on the assumption that my readers are non bigoted humans who don't need to be told that oppression and bigotry are bad things. I think this is something that Mel was kind of alluding to with recent histrom too, where we kind of have to scream from the top, like a bad thing is happening that we don't agree with. And it's like, I think you do have to have, like, sometimes if you want to write something interesting, you do have to have that level of trust, which is like, why? When we were reading Gaywyck, we were just kind of like, whoa. Just because it's a book that's completely uninterested in having you convincing you that this is fine. You're at the conclusion already, so let's get to the nasty stuff. Right? I'm sorry. I think we've referenced, like, four of our episodes already. That's why I'm just like, I'm the.

Mel

Perfect guest for this because I know what you're talking about. I'm a big fan of the pod.

Chels

I'm listening to them all anyways. But yeah, I guess kind of getting that to Charles's influences. I think they play a huge part in, like, obviously she's able to pinpoint issues with work that was published a century ago. But I think it's kind of interesting to kind of frame it a certain way because pulp seems to be under a different type of scrutiny than, say, like, georgette Hare, whose work suffers from a lot of these same elements, but kind of gets the benefit of being referenced fondly, whereas pulp that's older pulp is automatically suspicious.

Emma

I think that's a good point. The Grand Sophy. People have called out the grand Sophie for its Antisemitism. Who's the author? I can't remember which author. I can't remember which author was, but there's a long blog post about the Antisemitism in the Grand Sophie, and it's kind of like, why don't we talk about this more? But people will still recommend the grand Sophie without an asterisk whatsoever. And it's just like, that's mean. I've not read the Grand Sophie. I have read the scene that is particularly anti-semitic is as bad or as worse as the worst of Charles Dickens Antisemitism. I can't believe that people recommend that book without talking about that scene. I was, like, aghast at the description of the jewish character in it. It is odd that hair doesn't get grouped in with that. I think also the Antisemitism for Heyer is very on the surface, you look at it and you're like, that's Antisemitic. But there's also all this stuff that's running throughout Heyer that has problems and is of its time, and not just of the time it's written, but of the time that not of the time it's set, but of the time it's written.

Emma

But people sort of take as like, well, this is foundational for us. We have to talk about it complimentary because otherwise everything crumbles. And it's like, let everything crumble. Be mean to Georgette Heyer. It's fine, she's dead. And also, some of her books are problematic. It's okay to say that she was also very mean.

Chels

She was very mean. So if she can dish it, but she can't take it after she's dead.

Mel

That's why I love y'all. I love learning about witches and romance authors for, like, the meanest, the meanest, nastiest pieces of work.

Beth

My favorite is me being like, Chels for sure, doesn't know who this author is and be like, by the way, actually, and then pull out some fact that I've never heard of before. That's my favorite.

Emma

Yeah. So I just wanted to give some background on the arc of criminal punishment of sodomy in the UK, just because that obviously is a big theme of the book, worry about criminalization because of the blackmail act. I haven't read that many queer historical romance. I've read a handful, but I think this is the one that most acutely, at least ones that I've read, deals with the fear of being criminalized. And I don't know how other people feel about how that comes up, but sort of the arc of it is that we have in 1533, the Buggery Act. So this is the first on the books law that criminalizes sodomy. That doesn't mean that people weren't upset about sodomy before, but this is a criminal act, like in the king's court, sodomy. How it's been prosecuted between 1533 and 1861 kind of depends on all the things that depend on whether your identity gets criminalized. Right? Like your class, who you're sleeping with, who gets upset with you sleeping with them. But we see this sort of move towards. And at that time, in the 1533, it's a capital offense, so you would get the death penalty.

Emma

But in the 1700, early 1800s, we start seeing the phrase like death recorded. And people may remember this phrase from the Naomi Wolf incident, where she was like, all these people were being killed because of sodomy. And this is like what she gets corrected on in the BBC UK interview. But death recorded does not mean that someone dies. It means that they get the sentence of death, but then they get commuted, basically. So they're not actually being sentenced to death. It's a nominal death penalty. And that changes in 1861. They look at it and say, we're not treating it like a capital offense, so we're going to take it off the books as a capital offense. And then connected to this book, I think we can see Oscar Wilde's case in 1895. So this is under the same law, or the new version of it, post 1861. And we can see what does it look like when you get criminalized for sodomy. He gets sent to prison in 1895. It comes out of his prosecution of libel. And this is kind of, sort of notorious for Oscar Wilde, where it's like he had lots of options in his sort of procedural interaction with the court to stop himself from being prosecuted.

Emma

But maybe, depending on what side of Oscar Wilde you're on, maybe he was flying too close to the sun. But he has a prosecution of libel against Queensbury, who's the father of his lover. And then Queensbury is able to prove, because the truth is a defense to libel, Queensbury is able to prove that Oscar Wilde had committed sodomy. And so then that opened Oscar Wilde up to prosecution in a way that he hadn't been before. He ends up doing two years of hard labor. He is in Newgate initially, but Newgate wasn't really a place where hard labor was done for all the reasons we talked about in the Newgate episode, they didn't have the space for it. Then he goes to Pentonville. This basically ruins his reputation, and it also really affects his health. And so pretty directly leads to his death only a few years later. And so this is sort of the most notorious, like, late 19th century sodomy case. And then things move to the shadows. People realize that Oscar Wilde, very famous, very wealthy, much beloved in certain circles, can still be prosecuted for sodomy. Things sort of move even further back into the closet about 50 years later, the Wolfenden report comes out in 1957.

Emma

And this is sort of a sort of social science study from a lot of different people. Politicians are involved, charities are involved. A lot of Evangelical Christians are involved because at the time, they were actually on the side of decriminalization because they saw the effects of this being criminalized. And they make the recommendation to decriminalize based mostly on anonymous interviews with gay men in England and Wales. They were able to have a few people do on the record interviews, but obviously they were worried about not being anonymous. And then it isn't until 1967, under the Sexual Offenses act, that sodomy for gay men is decriminalized. I think sodomy as a consenting act between heterosexual couples is still a crime in England until 1994, which England. I don't know what's going on there. I don't know why they separated those two things. But 1967 is the decriminalization. So that's when we start getting, like, pardons for people like Oscar Wilde, Turing. And so those start coming in the sort of. But this is the big watershed moment. But it takes a long time to get there. But that's where we're going. Post Think of England.

Beth

I feel like Think of England is probably the book I've read that more directly addresses it, except for why am I blanking on all book names? It was published in 2009. Chels, you really wanted to.

Chels

False colors?

Beth

False colors. False colors very directly addresses this. But outside of that book, I think think of England is probably the next one that actually more openly talks about it. I feel like other books I've read, like by Kat Sebastian. It's like alluded to, you can't write overtly loving letters to your lover because that might be discovered. But most of these men are aristocrats, so if they are discovered, they're not going to really get punished. They might go to France or something for a little bit while things die. Like nothing's going to happen to these men. And I think it's because Daniel is from a working class background that it is more prominent because he is more at risk and so is more at the forefront of his mind.

Emma

Yeah, and I think also we talked about this in the Newgate episode, I think, or maybe Bow Street Runners. But the importance of having a complaining witness in these cases, that it's a situation like in Think of England, where there's, like, photos in a blackmail plot that you'd have to be worried about or that you upset your lover's father. There has to be some sort of complaining witness. And that's just the nature of how prosecutions are brought in England is for the Oscar Wilde case. It is like Regina versus Oscar Wilde, so the state is bringing it. But it's because they have that complaining witness in Queensbury and all the evidence that's come out during the libel trial that they're able to prosecute. But again, like a crime that happens behind closed doors, and they have to have evidence of the actual act, which is always an issue with prosecution of sodomy crimes. The evidence can't be circumstantial. It has to be pretty direct.

Beth

So, from the start, it's clear Archie struggles with his own identity as a queer person and has some homophobic thoughts towards Daniel. When Archie first meets and sees Daniel as an outwardly queer person, he looks on him with this kind of horror. Even as the relationship begins to progress physically, Archie doesn't fully embrace a queer identity. After the first time having sex, Archie thinks he couldn't pretend it had been a hardship. Of course, granted, he had enjoyed it, but who wouldn't? Any man would have felt the same pleasure, he was sure of that. Especially a man who had been bereft of companionship for so long. A fellow had needs, and Daniel certainly knew how to satisfy them. He was sure Daniel had taken pleasure in sucking him, too. Those sounds he had made, the purr in his throat, the little moan.

Beth

Did that change things? Make it, well, queer? Surely not. It could make no difference to Curtis whether Daniel had enjoyed the act or not. The fellow might be a pansy, but he's reading.

Chels

This is so funny.

Beth

The fellow might be a pansy, but he seemed a decent sort of chap at heart, underneath the mannerisms and the hard, prickly shell. Archie wouldn't have wanted him to find the act disgusting. I need to add, the next thought Archie has is that what if he'd given Daniel a blowjob? And then he's. No, no, clearly I need to go to sleep.

Mel

Archie's one of my favorite kinds of characters to be in the head of. Like, by his own admission, he's obviously not a very introspective person, and so he has about himself and the people around him are always happening as a result of the action of the story unfolding. And we have to infer a lot about Archie via the way he interacts with the world. And we get to watch him change over the course of the story as he realizes he's likely gay, perhaps demisexual. That's me editorializing that the book obviously doesn't use those words. But like everyone at the party, Archie clogs Daniel's queerness immediately and kind of latches onto it as something that makes him different than Archie and the rest of them. We're in Archie's head, so we hear him think some incredibly homophobic and xenophobic all around unkind things about Daniel. And that compartmentalization reinforces Archie's idea that, oh, Archie can't be queer because queer men look and act like Daniel. Daniel's in the out group, and Archie's in the in group. But Archie's whole arc is sort of about him realizing that he's really not part of the in group at all and doesn't want to be like.

Mel

Archie has these values around fairness and honor that he takes really seriously. And at first, he really takes for granted that everyone in the in group shares those values with him too. And in this book, he realizes they don't necessarily. And on the flip side, just because someone thinks or looks or acts differently than he does doesn't mean they don't share his values. He has to learn the difference between Wickham's and Darcy's. Stupid.

Emma

As I was reading this, I literally did a spit take. I was like, Mel gets us.

Mel

Should I bring up Jane? Anyway? And when he realizes it's actually Daniel who shares his values most out of everyone at the house, he starts to feel real empathy for him, and then he starts to feel attracted to him. And of course, Archie had always thought of queerness as, like, this scary, exotic other thing that's only for people in the out group. So having his whole worldview collapse causes him to suddenly reconsider that too.

Emma

I thought it was really smart the way that Daniel's otherness was in triplicate, especially because we're stuck in Archie's head again. I'm always surprised when we get a one person pov book. Like, I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I think it worked here. So Daniel is Jewish. He's of Portuguese descent. His last name is. So it's. That's not a huge part of his identity, but it does make him seem other. He got his degree on the continent, and he doesn't hide his queerness. So this means Archie gets to compartmentalize himself away from Daniel more. When he does find sympathy in their values, but also when other people are super, super rude about Daniel's identities, particularly his religion, Archie gets to have a moment of like, hey, wait, do I really want to align myself with people who are saying that I think probably religion is the question that Archie's the most open to at the beginning, where he's like, I don't really care if someone's Church of England or like, that's just the way that they're born. He's able to accept these different religions. So when people are very Antisemitic to Daniel, he's like, if you could cool it a little bit on the Antisemitism in his head.

Emma

And so then he realizes the cruelty there extends to the other judgment he's passing on, other identities. And so I think those are the first moments where he sort of decides to move away from that in group, like, menacing nature towards Daniel.

Chels

I do just want to say that it's going to sound so weird, but I was very charmed by the first point of view chapters of Archie, just because he would say something, he would think something really uncharitable, but I would just be like, oh, buddy. Oh, no, he's so clearly we know where this is. Just so. It was kind of a fun time in a weird way.

Emma

I started this without even reading the blurb on Goodreads. So when he first arrives at the house party, I was, which one? Which one is it? And then Daniel shows up and I was like, oh, it's that one. And I was like, oh, is he going to be into the jock who looks like him? Is like, that's the arc we're going to go on. I knew nothing about the plot of the book. And then Daniel comes in and he's so judgmental of Daniel so fast that I was like, oh, obviously they're going to fall in love.

Chels

Yeah, I feel like you could potentially think it was Holt. It was kind of like,

Beth

His paragraph is right before Daniel's, and I didn't read who the characters were. So I was like, is that him? Because it was like talking about how handsome he is. And I was like, okay, this might be him. And then we got to Daniel and I was like, never mind, this is it.

Chels

Oh, my God. Daniel's weak handshake. Oh, yeah, I love that. And then later he's like, oh, here's a real handshake. Still not very strong, but like, okay.

Mel

I love that deal so much.

Beth

So we've touched on Archie's deal, and now we're going to talk a bit about Daniel's self protective irony. Daniel kind of holds people at arm's length and he has this prickly exterior. This is another thought Archie has about Daniel. During their initial meeting, it was quite clear why Lady Armstrong had invited the fellow, though he had an astonishingly quick tongue and his witty, waspish remarks set the whole company laughing. On several occasions throughout the meal, Archie didn't find him any more likable for it, but all the same, he had to admit the fellow was amusing. Daniel's much more aware than the other characters of who he is. Kind of like Mel talked about. And as we've already talked about, Archie doesn't self interrogate. And I'd say Daniel doesn't have that. Like, he's foreign, queer and Jewish, from working class. He knows how the world sees him. So his approach is to embrace all of these identities rather than hide them or try and pass and really embrace English ideals. He's still open to these very awful remarks.

Mel

Yeah, because Daniel's visibly queer and visibly other, and he copes with the flak he gets by sort of, like, playing it up. And it helps that he's smarter than most everybody and he knows it. And so the resulting Persona he's crafted is someone who's fun to have at parties, but also waspish and sometimes even cruel. And the consequence of that being your defense mechanism is that you're preemptively cutting yourself off from people who do sincerely want to connect with you. Even when Archie rescues Daniel from the cave and Daniel is forced to rely on him, he's clearly humiliated by it. He kind of hates himself for getting into a position where he had to rely on somebody else. I love the exchange that Archie and Fen have about Daniel. Towards the end, they're talking about Holt, who's one of the villains. And Holt's been at this party, like, interacting with them and flirting with Fen. And Fen says she can't stand him because Holt made her feel like he was laughing at some secret joke at her expense, like he thought he was better than her. And Archie says, well, Daniel's kind of like that too.

Mel

But Fen says, no, that when Daniel makes a cutting remark, it's a way of seeking connection with other outsiders. Like, he doesn't want to be alone. He wants someone to laugh at the absurdity of everything with him. But to do know, he's got to actually admit that he wants connection. And that's really hard when Archie comes to visit him. In the last scene of the book, Archie points at a poem Daniel had just been writing at his desk. And Archie's like, is that a poem you're writing? And Daniel flips it over in a huff, only to remember there's, like, more writing on the other side of the paper. And I think that's just, like, such a perfect metaphor for what letting someone in feels like for a person. Like Daniel. Hashtag relatable.

Emma

He's like, kind of like Chandler Bing-ing the whole. Right? Like, it's like, oh. Chandler Bing is like, it's totally a defense mechanism. He's like, I use my humor because I'm hurting all the time. And it's like, yes. There's just like, one of the. I feel like we don't get that many heroes who are like that. We don't get heroes who are funny enough. Even ones who are uptight and starchy are not funny. And Daniel's funny.

Beth

Funny is hard to do, though, because I feel like it still has to be part of the book. And too often I feel like in modern histrom, it's like pulling me out of the novel. They make a funny remark, and it's not in character, really. It's supposed to try and make me laugh, if that makes sense.

Emma

Are you making the reader laugh or are you making other characters laugh?

Beth

Right.

Emma

So often they're like, why does nobody do this? And you're like, well, it's really hard. And they should be better writers is the conclusion we draw.

Mel

It's hard to be funny? It's hard to be funny. I think that's the reason why.

Beth

I think one of my favorite funny parts is when Archie comes to rescue Daniel at the cave. And Daniel's like, and this is a callback to an earlier episode when they have sex and they've had sex, they're arguing. Archie's like, but you made me angry about it. And so when he goes to rescue him at the cave, Daniel's like, I can't believe you came.

Beth

And then Archie was like, you made me. I was just like, perfect. This is the humor we want.

Emma

Also, like, Archie trying to be funny. That's one of those things where Daniel's gonna laugh at him. You're like, that joke's not actually that good. It's not the wordplay that Daniel does. It's just like, oh, Archie's like, I'm gonna try something. I'm gonna try a little line here.

Chels

It's kind of a cute little joke that's so funny, but that's kind of like, I think that's what makes them work so well together because Daniel using his wit to kind of keep everybody at a distance. But it kind of works twofold because it helps with his spy Persona, but also, he's not as vulnerable with strangers. And you can see that in a lot of ways. Like, I think in the scene that we're going to be talking about a little bit like the first blowjob scene. Daniel is very defensive the entire way through it, and he's clearly expecting something really bad to happen to him. And so he's, like, working from all of these experiences where things just don't go his way with this group of people. And so there doesn't really seem like a reason for him to even try. And I think Archie is kind of like the perfect person to be paired up with Daniel, just because I don't think it would occur to Archie to try or that he was trying. It's just that he is kind of like slowly coming to his own realizations and is kind of morphing into the person that Daniel needs over the course of the book.

Beth

Okay, so for this discussion point, we're calling it the art snob and the philistine. So along with being a spy, Daniel is a poet and editor. Near the beginning, there's a scene where Daniel demures from going on a walk because he needs to do some editing work on the poetical art. Archie responds, poetical art? And then we get this absolutely savage response from Daniel. I have the honor to edit Edward Levy's latest volume. Daniel paused invitingly. Archie gave him a blank look. Daniel raised his dark eyes heavenwards. "The fragmentalist? The poet. You're not familiar? Of course not. Ah, well, genius is not often recognized. You may prefer to draw your intellectual sustenance from Mr. Kipling's barrack room ballads, which are perhaps more to a man of action's tastes. They rhyme properly. I'm so very often informed." Later on, Archie finds Daniel's poetry collection, the fish pond. He says his tastes don't run to poetry. He finds Tennyson tolerable. And what's so wrong with Kipling and his proper rhymes, anyway? So he finds Daniel's poetry unlike that, and his poems are like broken fragments. Daniel discovers Archie reading his poetry, and Archie says his poetry reminds him of the impressionist Seurat.

Beth

Up close, they're only dots, and it's when you step back far enough, you see the picture. Daniel says, that's the most cogent analysis I've heard in a while. You should review for the new age. Archie responds, oh, above my touch. Perhaps the boys on paper needs a poetry critic. So what do you guys think of this dynamic?

Mel

I love a philistine and Artsnob pairing so much. I think it's just the right amount of challenging on both ends. Like Archie is very unselfconsciously not that interested in highbrow art, not out of contempt, but because he's never had an experience where he's been moved by it. As a reformed art snob myself, I relate to Daniel a lot on multiple levels, but I think that we art snobs can sometimes use our taste as a shield, as a way to intentionally feel superior, especially against people who look down on us for other reasons. In that library scene where Daniel catches Archie reading his poetry, we can see Daniel sort of, like, bracing for a bad reaction and ready to bring the shield up. But Archie has, like, a very sincere reaction to it that puts them on this sort of, even if uncertain, ground, because Archie wasn't like, wow, that's the best thing I've ever read, which is how a less talented author would have written the scene. I think, in fact, he was kind of unsettled by Daniel's poetry and he's able to recognize that was probably the point and he was clearly challenged by it.

Mel

And that sort of catches Daniel off guard, like, he's clearly underestimated Archie. But Archie still doesn't have the high art vocabulary, so they have to meet each other where they're at and share in the experience of this art object. And that's literally what art's about. I love it so much.

Emma

This scene and a few other ones, sort of where Archie is maybe becoming more poetical in ways by his relationship with Daniel made me think that KJ Charles might be referencing the relationship between Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. So Siegfried Sassoon was a gay poet who, born in the 1880s, I think he died in the 1960s, but he had a lover when he was in the army in World War I. Wilfred Owen, who he sort of mentored into writing poetry, and Siegfried Sassoon's poetry is very, like, metaphysical. He later converted to Catholicism later in his life. And so it's about war in some ways, that sort of deals with these bigger things. While, Wilfred Owens, the sort of less artistic of the pairing, also wrote poetry, but he wrote these poems about trench warfare and the experience of being in the army. And I think the references to Kipling's sort of barrack room poetry and the assumption that that's the poetry that Archie would like. I imagine that if Daniel encouraged Archie to write poetry, Archie would write these sort of practical poems about processing externally what's happening around him and that they would write very different types of poetry.

Emma

And also that's sort of where we talked about that. World War I is on the precipice, we're going there these men are going to be affected by this, whether they know it or not. Wilfred Owen died in November 1918, right before the war ending, like, I think 25 days before ceasefire was called. And this affected Sassoon's poetry for the rest of his life. And so I think this sort of very iconic World War I queer relationship of mentoring through poetry, I feel like there's a connection there with these conversations about what does poetry mean in a relationship.

Chels

I like that you mentioned that because I think that kind of gives the tenor to the Kipling slander in this. Like, it makes me look at it in a little, slightly different light. Like, oh, that's like. It's an insult, but it's also an insult.

Emma

And then Owen's poetry, I think it's like the distinction between Kipling and Owen is that Owen is not, like, romanticizing this experience. He's processing this experience while Kipling. It's like, Kipling's poetry that rhymes is like a tool of the empire to make this India project seem worth it and to have England experience India. Right? Owen's the next generation. Owen is the disillusionment with warfare.

Chels

I highlighted every time he was mentioned because that made me laugh. I was chuckling.

Emma

Kipling's poems do rhyme in a way that's, like, aggressive.

Chels

It's a little unsettling. It's a little. I. I don't like. I didn't know I had so much beef with Kipling until I read this, and then I was just like. I felt vindicated. But, yeah, I do really love this dynamic so much. I think in Think of England, there's this rawness with Archie's response to Daniel's poetry. He doesn't get it enough to make loud proclamations about it, but he does recognize it as something that's cavernous and deeply personal to Daniel with just someone that he's coming to care for. So the way that Archie is viewing Daniel's writing is kind of like mimicking how he views Daniel. Like, Daniel's a little elusive and intriguing and overwhelming to his senses. Archie can recognize Daniel's value, but he doesn't really have that vocabulary to categorize him yet, which is something that kind of comes up when he has that conversation with Fen a little bit later where he's like, Daniel's like this. And she's like, no, Daniel's not.

Beth

As we've talked about how this is a pastiche to Edwaridan pulp that comes with a lot of violence as well. It's not only the actual murders that happen, but also the threat of murder. Daniel and Archie have to be careful in how they appear to their hosts in case they tip them off to their real purpose. The Armstrongs have, as we've talked about, built this blackmail network that extends out to trusted servants and James' friend Holt. So several people get pulled into this. The violence isn't limited to the Armstrongs, though, where Archie kills people, too. And although Daniel doesn't participate in the actual violence, he's chosen an interesting profession, considering he calls himself a pacifist. What do you think of the violence in this book?

Mel

Yeah, this book is very violent for a romance novel. I was realizing that on a reread, for whatever reason, that didn't really hit me the first time, but it hit me this time for sure. And the whole book is built on a foundation of violence. The whole reason that Archie is at the country house in the first place is because the arms accident that disabled him and killed a bunch of his fellow soldiers and friends was orchestrated by his host. And I think one thing the story is asking us to do is to consider what violence even is. Archie does a lot of violence in this book. He kills a man with his bare hands and shoots another one both times to save Daniel's life. But what these people, the Armstrongs, were doing, the extortion, the blackmail, the hiring hitmen, is also violence, even though they've never laid a hand on anyone until they turn on each other at the end, which I think is like a bit of a thesis on violence in itself. Archie and Daniel are set up to work together at the end of the book, in part because Daniel, who, again, is a literal secret agent, refuses to fight or use guns and calls himself a pacifist, which is funny.

Mel

I think it's meant to be funny because how effective can that political stance be in this line of work?

Beth

Really?

Mel

One of the reasons I love KJ Charles is, like, she doesn't force it as a writer. She's like Daniel in that way. You're either in on the joke or you're not.

Chels

Yeah. When Archie is telling the members of the house party about the faulty gun accident, he concludes, like, the entire crate of guns was deadly. And then Daniel has, like, the first line that I thought I was like, oh, he's pretty smart, where he just goes inappropriately deadly. And I think that's kind of. And it's like that inappropriately part where Daniel's kind of like the whole point of war is killing people, but it's like the unexpected death. Like, that's what's throwing us off. That kind of mirrors how I feel about the violence of this book. I feel very similar to the way that Mel described. Like, you have all this off page violence, but then suddenly when it's on page, it does feel kind of shocking, and it does feel like too much. So it's kind of like that inappropriately deadly, the way that the gun's going off to. In another book, these characters would get apprehended, like, these bad guys would get apprehended and swiftly hanged off page in a way that the heroes don't have to be confronted with the violence of their actions, no matter how justified they are. But that's kind of like a remove that I don't think Charles is interested in giving you.

Emma

As Beth and Mel were both talking, I was thinking about the violence in romance in that sort of like, the blackmail plot is inherently violent. I was thinking about how Martin Scorsese calls his most violent film The Age of Innocence. And people are always like. It feels like a joke, right? It feels kind of like that KJ Charles like, cheeky comment because it's the movie he's made that has no guns in it. But what is violent about that movie is it's like people ruining each other's lives with this abject cruelty and moving through the world without a whole lot of care or compassion for other people. And I think that the blackmail plot has that sort of baked in violence, where it's violent in this way that we wouldn't call violence. It's like systemic violence, or again, like the systemic violence of the Boer War. These things that are often on the outskirts of a romance plot are violence in a way. But then the subtext becomes text with the spy plot in Think of England. But also if they weren't spies or it wasn't on the page, like the shootings, the Boer War is still violent in the background.

Emma

The blackmail plot is still violent on the side. So it just is making you more aware of violence in this world. But there's still violence even if on page there wasn't people being shot.

Beth

And that's like, one of Daniel's motivations is because it's insinuated that it's like his former lover, I think, but I don't remember the character's name. But he goes to Sir Herbert's house and is blackmailed there, and then later dies by suicide. That's kind of the motivating factor here for Daniel.

Chels

Yeah, I think this is kind of like maybe a 20th or 21st century way of saying things. But when people say, like, outing is violence, that's kind of like for here, it becomes a lot more literal. Although, I don't know, it's still literal, but just different, I guess.

Emma

Yeah. I think the buggery laws are a type of violence? That's like if you're writing a queer romance before 1967, set in England, there's going to be a layer of violence. So it's not out of the genre to have guns firing across the page.

Beth

So as a reminder to everyone listening, the first time Archie and Daniel have sex, it's as Mel will explain to us, "an aliens made me do it" situation. So they trip an alarm while doing spy stuff, which they try and pass off as a romantic liaison for why they're in that area. So once they're back in Archie's room, they hear people moving around behind the mirror, getting in place to blackmail. And Daniel realizes that they don't quite believe their story. Daniel initiates the liaison and tells Archie, if they decide we were faking, that you were at that bloody cabinet. I feel like I said that so american.

Emma

The cabinet with blood on it.

Chels

The part where earlier where you were saying pansy was just like, sending me.

Beth

I feel like, as a Canadian, my a's, I always pause and think about them because I've changed my accent. So it's like any a. I'm like, how am I saying?

Chels

I might giggle.

Beth

If they decided we were faking that you were at that bloody cabinet, we're probably dead. So we're going to make it convincing. Understand? Or. He trailed a finger back down Archie's chest. You can sit there like a sack of potatoes till they decide you weren't pouncing me in the library and come back with shotguns. So yes, Archie agrees to the sex, but it's not exactly enthusiastic consent.

Mel

Yeah. Another reason I wanted to talk about this book with y'all is because I'm too scared to talk about it on TikTok because of the dubious consent. I found. And y'all can tell me if this has been your experience too at the romance community. Like, especially on TikTok, it's pretty hostile to any kind of depiction of Dubcon or non con that doesn't involve a character being explicitly condemned by the narrative for it. So the first time Archie and Daniel have sex is to throw the Armstrongs off their tail, because if the Armstrongs find out they know about their operation, they're dead. So we're now in a fuck or die scenario, which is an umbrella. Y'all knew I was going to talk about fan fiction. You invited me on the show.

Mel

That's part of the package..

Mel

We're now in a fuck or die scenario, and that's an umbrella trope. It's commonly credited to fan fiction, although there's a lot of interplay between fanfic and genre romance, as is happening here. KJ Charles has never written fan fiction, to my knowledge. I could be wrong. She doesn't really seem to know much about it based on what I've seen on her social media, but this first encounter between Archie and Daniel aligns pretty neatly with a trope under the fuck or die umbrella called aliens made them do it, whose origins are credit to the Star Trek fandom because of course they are. The existence of Dubcon and Noncon are largely accepted as part for the course in fan fiction, in part because of the culture around tagging fics. Like if you write a fic, it's understood that you are responsible for labeling its content as accurately as you can. That's called tagging, and it's a huge faux pas to inaccurately tag your fic, especially in regards to its sexual content. Tags are super useful as a reader because the filtering works both ways. You can filter out, but you can also filter in. And so that mechanic alone eliminates a lot of the judgment that can be associated with content and trigger warnings in published original work.

Mel

And so the result is a community that's created a lot of useful language to talk about this stuff pretty precisely. So aliens made them do it refers to a scenario in which characters are forced to have sex due to external contrivances, like aliens kidnapping them and studying them for science, for example. You'll see it a lot with crack pairings, or pairings of characters who need some kind of in fic justification to have sex with each other because it wouldn't happen in canon. Like the justification doesn't exist, but you see it with canonical pairings, too. So it's clearly not just about inventing reasons for characters to have sex with each other, it's also about how those characters navigate that situation and move forward, just like with all challenges characters face in fiction. And here for Archie, it's a turning point where he begins to allow himself to feel attracted to Daniel. But Daniel, even though we don't get his POV, is clearly feeling some kind of guilt and or shame about it. So much so that he puts himself into another sexual scenario that he maybe doesn't want to be in to sort of make up for it.

Mel

This is interesting character stuff. So the question isn't, is Dubcon bad? I think KJ Charles trusts us to know the answer to that. The question is, how do these characters navigate it? How do they move forward? And what does that tell us about who they are?

Emma

When I was reading Mel's script for this section, I felt like the light bulbs were, like, going off in my head. I am not from fan fiction background at all, but there's so many useful concepts from fan fiction. I'm like, I wish we could bring this over to histrom, because I think it's so useful because something I see with bodice trippers and also books keep the aura of bodice rippers, but are very careful to stay just on the side of good consent politics. Like I'm thinking, Lisa Kleypas, is that sometimes if someone enjoys a book, the reader will do mental gymnastics to retrofit their concept of consent onto a scene with dubious consent. And then if they don't like a book, they will stretch legal language like rape or sexual assault to fit a scene that the characters don't really view in those terms. And so we have all this gray area that we wouldn't accept as gray area in real life, but in the book, it frames it differently. This is on my mind because we just recorded our Midsummer Moon episode and a few of the top Goodreads reviews there call the first sex scene a rape, but there are interesting elements of Dubcon there.

Emma

Merlin is really naive and doesn't understand the consequences of sex. And Ransom is under an aphrodisiac spell, but neither character frames it as a trauma or an assault. So to call it a rape and then write off the book because of it means you don't get to talk about these interesting elements. It just is totally flattening to lump all these things together and you miss all this interesting stuff, like the stuff we're talking about with Daniel and Archie.

Chels

Yeah, that's kind of what is always so frustrating about trying to talk about bodice rippers. So, yeah, to Mel's kind of point earlier about talking about this on TikTok. That is absolutely my experience. I can't put it on TikTok entirely because this comes up in romance spaces a lot where the depiction of consent is kind of like a barometer for progress. So mutual and enthusiastic consent is like the baseline for a progressive novel. And I'm saying that with scare quotes, which leads us into a lot of repetitive and boring conversations. And it does get very frustrating too, because on my account, I talk about bodice rippers a lot, and a lot of things that people are taking issue with are just things being presented to you as they are in the text and not kind of what Emma was saying. These other books that have these same dynamics, kind of the same things are happening, but it's not spelled out for you or it's depicted in a way that's a little bit easier to ignore. And so when I was writing this, I had just seen Poor Things. And so I don't know if you know what happens in that, but a pregnant woman dies by suicide, by jumping from a great height into water, and her body is found by a scientist who puts the brain of her fetus into her head as a sort of rescue.

Chels

So this new woman, Bella, has these childish mannerisms and expressions, but is also very sexual with her adult body. And this is something that's difficult to talk about if you frame it as a statement about capacity and consent, rather than view it as a fairy tale. So there's this moralist versus formalist argument. Is there a statement or lesson or point of view we can isolate, or is it about the feeling invoked? I think that's kind of like my rebuttal in general, to prescriptivist takes on consent and media. I think consent is worth talking about always, but as a barometer of a quality of work, it's useless because the brush is so broad and it gets applied to works that are trying to do very different things. So, back to Think of England. The initial blowjob scene is dubcon, but if Archie was immediately on board, and not just subconsciously on board, you wouldn't really get that arc of him reckoning with his internalized homophobia. Throughout the book, the scene also brings the vulnerability of Daniel, like he's doing something absolutely desperate to save both of their lives. But he also knows there is a good chance that Archie will abuse him, for he's.

Chels

He says several times, he's like, don't hit me. So that scene is very complicated, and I think it's definitely worth talking about. But I think for different reasons than I think maybe some people who like to have these weird Dubcon consent conversations do.

Beth

I feel like our motto, our other motto on this podcast is romance novels shouldn't be didactic.

Mel

Yeah, I think we're all aligned.

Chels

Yes, but that's just something that I can never understand. I can never, ever understand it. I'm like, do you not like reading about bad things happening to people, or people being nasty or cruel, and then falling in love. Do you not like conflict? Do you not like joy? I don't know. And I don't even really want to put this onto authors because I think a lot of times what authors are thinking when they're writing and what weird conversations are happening, which maybe we're just seeing more of because I've been on some all them out romance message boards from the think these were still conversations we were having, but it's just like, I think that we're giving them too much space. But then also, we do want to talk about this Dubcon scene because it's so important to the story. So it's just kind of like, reframing it away from these questions that Charles is also not interested in. Is like, is this a good thing to. We're. We're not interested in that. Like, we don't need to tell you, you're an adult.

Emma

I think with the is a maybe because of the aliens made them do it trope. I think reading the scene and framing it as Dubcon for Archie is kind of homophobic because it's like Daniel is also not in a relationship with Archie, like, Daniel's idea, but he's also doing it under duress. And so it's Dubcon for both of them for the same reasons. Like, Daniel, even though he has enthusiastically given blowjobs before, that doesn't mean that in this moment, because, again, the fear of him being hit, he's like, I'm doing this to save both of us and save Archie. They're both. They're in the same sort of position. And if anything, Daniel is the one who's more vulnerable because of his social position. So if you were to read this thing and say, oh, Daniel assaulted Archie, it's like, that's edging on a very homophobic reading of the situation, I think, where you're assuming this lecherous gay man attacking Archie, who's pure and innocent and naive of his own homosexuality. So it's equally Dubcon, I think, for both of them, which makes it interesting, but also, it's like Dubcon without assault, and that they can still have feelings about it.

Mel

That's a really good point.

Chels

And he literally says, Think of England. I just have to say that I've only read one other book that had a Think of England scene, and it was a Mary Balogh, and nobody calls that one Dubcon.

Emma

I don't know how people feel about the name of the book being in the book. I love it. I always feel like a little shimmy of excitement.

Beth

It's like a little treat.

Chels

Yeah.

Emma

Also, I feel like it's indicative that the author may be named the book, because sometimes we get these silly names that feel very marketed. I feel like Charles is thinking about the plot of this book and the name of it, and you can attach meaning to the title when it's integrated in a way that you can't with, like, a duke pun.

Chels

I've become that, like Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the tv meme. I'm just like. It's kind of like when we were reading Gaywyck and he made a Wuthering Heights reference, but it was literally the most recognizable line from Wuthering Heights. So I was, like, patting myself on the back, like, I got this. Like, that's me reading Think of England being like, that's the book name. You didn't trick me, Charles. So I was thinking of this book as a starchy hero gets on starch book for Archie, particularly how he calls himself distinctly Victorian in the Edwardian years, so you know how people will collapse. Regency and Victorian mores, making the regency seem more strict. So I thought this was kind of an interesting way for Charles to frame it. So Starchy hero gets on starch is, I think, a bit more complicated for closeted characters, which is why I think I've noticed it more in Charles's books, like band sinister, and you could maybe even say that for seditious affair. I wonder if y'all have any thoughts on this.

Mel

I think Archie's a good old boy, and I don't know what the name of the british equivalent of that is like. I'm sure it exists, but in the American south, it's a shorthand for a collection of aesthetic and moral values that certain conservative, usually white, men use to signal to each other. There's a shared manner of dress. There is an emphasis on sports and other appropriately masculine hobbies. There is a prestigious education that's more about social opportunities than learning. And I think Archie has sort of thoughtlessly ended up aligning himself with these values because of his upbringing and his natural disposition. The thing about being a good old boy, though, is, like, you've got to fall in line to preserve the social order, and I think that's where it can feel starchy. So Archie's arc isn't a matter of him needing to loosen up so much as he needs to wake up, because these values hurt people. They exist to hurt people, and they hurt him, too.

Emma

So this relates to what other people have said about sort of, Archie's characterization throughout the book. But I think one of the marks of a starchy hero is that they thought so much about his operating worldview. He's taken in all the evidence, drawn conclusions, and then the conclusions get confused when he falls in love. Archie, I feel like, is maybe like, starchy by proxy or socially victorian, because he's marked by a lack of self reflection. I think that's one of the reasons this starchiness manifests differently. And his unstarchiness feels slightly different, because I think if he self reflected and when he has moments of self reflection, that's sort of the process that unstarches him, because that's the thing that's scary to him, is like when he looks inward and realizes his own queerness, it's like received starchiness. This is just the way things go. And I think maybe this is the difference between regency heroes and Victorian heroes, is that Regency starch is like, you have to make your own. But by Victorian period, it's like everyone is so repressed. It's like everyone's starchy. And so, Archie, is that Victorian starch where it sort of socially has to be undone.

Emma

It's not like a personality trait.

Beth

I feel like I'm not going to answer this question quite directly, but just kind of point out, like, a pattern that KJ Charles does that I think is consistent throughout all her books. And this kind of relates back to Emma's remark that Archie doesn't self reflect. And Mel talked about how he's kind of absorbed the social values around him. So fairly often, KJ Charles has her more privileged character finally examine their belief system. So there's a speech from Charles's book, the Gentle Art of fortune hunting, that I know Mel likes as well, and they had to take a talk about it, and I'm going to reference it here just as a quick synopsis. The book is basically Robin Hood and the regency and our love interests are Robin Hood and little John. But little John is called. His name is Hart. So Hart is a baronet. And in this scene, he's criticizing Robin's sister for going after a titled man only for his title and money, especially because this man she's pursuing is very selfish. Like, he doesn't have any redeeming qualities, really. So heart says wealth and title shouldn't be a consideration for a, quote, a decent woman.

Beth

Chels, can you do me a favor and read Robin's parts? And then I will read Hart.

Chels

Okay. What tone of voice should I use? Like, am I sexy?

Mel

He's a little sassy.

Chels

Okay. You were born with wealth and a title. You're condemning other people for wanting things you were handed when you came out squalling from your mother's belly because you had the double fortune of the right parents and the right parts. Who are you to judge someone else for wanting what you never had to earn?

Beth

If I didn't have a title, I would have stooped to acquire one.

Chels

Aren't you grand? It must be wonderful to stand apart and judge the rest of us from the superior height of your moral high ground. I fear those of us not born to the peerage cannot aspire to your nobility and claiming to not want what you've already got.

Beth

Careful, Robin. Your envy is showing.

Chels

Envy. I heard a sermon about that once. The poor shouldn't envy the rich, it said. They should accept their lot in life and not want to possess just a fraction of what others have. I wonder who paid the first priest to declare that from the pulpit.

Mel

Perfect.

Beth

Thank you. So I can honestly see Hart thinking that being a baronet hasn't even helped him that much. And he doesn't have as much power as an earl or a viscount. But you can't see the opportunities that are like open doors for you and closed doors for other people. So relating this back to think of England, I think a lot of Daniel's worry about a relationship with Archie stems from that. Archie doesn't know what it's like to be openly queer, and Archie is the son of a duke, has had a lot of open doors. So Daniel reminds him many times throughout the book how hard the social stigma is. And even when Archie is verbally saying, I get it, I think Daniel knows intellectually, understanding something is very different from experiencing it. So Daniel's like, I don't think you do, actually.

Chels

So a friend of the podcast Bailey, who's at Bailey reads books on TikTok, once had this video where she asked, how late can a historical romance be before you start thinking about World War I? And I think anything eduardian falls into that for me. So this is a very interesting and sad part of history. The war that Archie was injured at was the Boer War, sometimes called the Second Anglo Boer War, and Victoria died before it ended. But it was kind of like a distinct turning point for the British Empire, the end of the Victorian era, and a really rude awakening for the British regarding the cost of warfare. The British thought it would be a quick victory, but instead they were in over their head. The Boers were way better armed than they were expecting and put up much more of a fight than they allotted for. So the British have these mass amounts of casualties, the war stretches on and is increasingly scrutinized by reformers because in order to win, the British resorted to some pretty desperate guerrilla warfare tactics and even herded people into concentration camps. So Think of England is a few years out from this war, and the politics of the war itself aren't laid out for you.

Chels

But Charles communicates like the casual cruelty and xenophobia of the good old boys. And I put that in there before I knew. I'm like, is that a southern thing? Because I'm also Southern, but the good old boys through characters like Holt. So now we're about a decade out from World War I, and I was wondering if knowing what's coming for all of the surviving characters has impacted your reading.

Mel

Think of England as actually a prequel book, kind of. It takes place in the same universe as the Will darling adventures, which are set post World War I and deal directly with the consequences of World War I and the fallout. Will is sort of Archie's analog in those books. And if Archie's experience at war was futile, because look at the cost. He was disabled. He lost his friends in service of what Will's experience was futile in spite of his success. He was a trench raider. He was really good at it. He killed a bunch of people. He got a bunch of medals, and for what? Once he got back home, he couldn't get a job. He almost starved to death. I kind of cheated, though, since I'd read Will Darling before think of England. I knew at least that Archie and Daniel were going to make it through the war. Which isn't to say they made it out unscathed. Like, the Daniel that shows up in Will Darling is very different than the Daniel we see and think of England. And part of that is just that it's someone else telling the story. But because we know Daniel's line of work, I think it's safe to say that World War I played a significant part in the changes we see in him, too.

Emma

When I was thinking about this question, my first thought was, has KJ Charles ever talked about Maurice? So the book by EM Forster that's published posthumously, I didn't turn up anything, but part of that may have been that there is a character named Maurice in this book. So when you google KJ Charles Morris, a bunch of stuff about this book comes up. But EM Forster was my first thought. Em Forster is almost always my first thought when I'm thinking about anything. Kind of. This is the closest thing I have to a roman empire. So World War I haunts most of Forster's work, but kind of preemptively everything before his novel A Passage to India, since these novels are written between 1905 and 1910, that the world will never be the world of the parents of the main characters. But then what is the big tragedy? All these novels are written pre World War I. So it really is like a retrospective thing for the reader to do. The characters don't know, but we do. And then Forster was a conscientious objector during World War I and also had his first liaison with a man during the war.

Emma

He has this crazy output where he writes like five novels in five years pre World War I, and then only writes one novel in between World War I and World War II, A Passage to India. And this is sort of his masterpiece that gets as close to. It's as close as he gets to a condemnation of the world that makes him the Edwardian world. And it sort of deals the most directly with the benefits of colonialism that England experiences. And then he stops writing novels completely. But he lives much longer than that. But the most relevant to this novel, Think of England, is Maurice, which was published posthumously. It's about a gay man who has two lovers, one who is of his class, who turns his back on his identity, and then one with a working class man who Maurice, the hero, is able to work with to find a place for their relationship, and they get a happily ever after. Forster was really invested in the couple having a happily ever after, which is one reason for the posthumous publication. Forster died shortly after sodomy was decriminalized in the UK. And then Maurice gets published shortly after that, like A Room with a View, Forster's other sort of happy ending novel.

Emma

There's this specter of. But then what happens, right when you read Morris because you butt up against, you have this hard stop of World War I because Morris was written during this period of before World War I in the 1905-1910 ten period for Forster, in the 1958 epilog of A Room with A View, Forster admits that he can't quite think where George and Lucy live, the couple from that novel because he imagines all these terrible things that happened to them as a result of World War I and World War II. The unpublished epilogue of Morris is not as explicitly tragic or as connected to geopolitics, but clearly for Forster, the great Edwardian novelist, he's kind of at a loss for how exactly romance can work post World War I. Just the scale of the loss that England sees. Forster can't imagine happy endings for his two happy ending couples.

Chels

Yeah, I can definitely see when you read interviews of people who are from this time or something, it's just like. Or even, I don't know, even thinking of Barbara Cartland.

Mel

Right.

Chels

Like her father in World War I and both of her brothers at Dunkirk. Just like, the amount of people that you know that the likelihood that something terrible is going to happen to you, you're going to be impacted terribly. And this was also, I don't it.

Chels

I can see that we're not too far out from. It is kind of like what we were kind of talking about at the beginning of the episode.

Beth

So do we have any final thoughts then on Think of England?

Emma

This book was a blast. Thank you so much for picking it. I had wanted to read more KJ Charles because I read the first Will Darling adventure on your recommendation, Mel. And then as soon as I picked up Think of England, I was like, oh, this is why I loved Will darling. I was like, nobody really writes books like her.

Beth

We mentioned before, KJ Charles worked for Mills and Boon, but she worked as an editor. And you absolutely see that in her work. Tons of her books are like 200 pages, but everything in the book is just like.

Emma

It didn't feel like 200 pages. Other than the fact that quickly I read it, I didn't feel like there was stuff missing or, yes, it didn't feel like a novella. It felt like fully formed completely.

Chels

But it's very well paced.

Mel

They're tight. She knows how to do.

Chels

It was. It was so much fun. I have so many highlights. I laughed at a lot of Archie's thoughts. It's his point of view. So I think that is probably why. Yeah, I have so many highlights for this one. I'm so glad because I think. I don't know. I don't know why it took. Maybe just because Charles has so many books that I haven't read yet that sometimes I'm kind of like, I don't know where to start.

Beth

Right. For sure. Okay, well, thank you, Mel, for joining us.

Mel

Thank you so much for having me. This is so much fun.

Beth

Where can people find you? You want to tell?

Mel

I am at page Melt pretty much everywhere. Mostly talking most seriously about books on TikTok.

Chels

Follow Mel.

Beth

Yes, follow Mel.

Chels

Mel is great. Mel is one of my very first mutuals. Mel is so fun. I makes it so much easier to be alive on the Internet knowing that there are people like you, all of us.

Beth

I'll be like, I don't know this book, but I'm sure Mel's got a good view for you.

Chels

Sometimes I recap your reviews to other people. They're like, what do you think of this book? And I'm like, I haven't read it, but I know someone who's read it.

Mel

That is very nice. Thank you. I feel I feel the same way about y'all. I trust you implicitly.

Beth

Honorary rake yeah, it's so nice to.

Emma

Be adding to our coterie of favorite people are now being on the podcast. I love it.

Beth

Okay, thank you so much for listening to reformed rakes. We're so glad Mel could join us today. If you enjoy the podcast, you can find bonus content on our patreon@patreon.com reformdrakes. Please rate and review us on Apple and Spotify. It helps a lot. You can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram for show updates. The username for both is at reform drakes. Thank you again and we will see you next time.