Slippery Creatures (The Will Darling Adventures #1)

After my partner gave me a soft reintroduction to fantasy through Legends and Lattes, it was my turn to introduce them to what rekindled my reading habits 4 years ago: adventurous romances with a hint of lust. However, I couldn’t just throw them into one of my urban fantasy vampire romances as I knew that wouldn’t quite be to their taste. This is how we landed on Slippery Creatures, a post-war historical setting is not something either of us had seen all too often especially when associated to a gay romance and the mystery guaranteed some interest in the event the romance aspect didn’t appeal to them.

Unfortunately neither aspect is good enough to leave a lasting memory. The mystery revolves around a piece of information Will’s uncle supposedly possessed and now both the local gang and the War Office keep paying Will visits in his bookshop threatening him to hand the information over “or else”. Most of the story is spent figuring out if the information exists, where it is and eventually after much searching what to do with it. There really isn’t that much mysterious going on with it, the War Office wants it so can probably already kind of guess what the information might contain and aside from the joy of seeing Will tell everyone to piss off, it’s not particularly entertaining to read about Will and Kim trying to find the information by cleaning up the bookshop and solving one singular riddle. There supposedly is an additional mystery surrounding Kim’s background, but it’s fairly quickly resolved and mostly inconsequential. It’s fine, it’s not boring but it’s not a page turner by any measure.

The romance on the other hand had the potential of being great. It’s a gay romance in the 1920s, a time where being homosexual was far from being socially acceptable and that in of itself made it that much more rewarding to see Kim and Will being able to have their couple moments and to “get away with it”. The romance also had its moments of sexual intercourse and whilst I’m mostly neutral about those usually, in this case they actually played a significant role both in character and story development and weren’t simply there for the sake of being erotic. Unfortunately, the relationship between the two of them ends up being a bit unbelievable for a reason that cannot be covered without spoilers.

Nevertheless, just like the mystery aspect, the romance aspect works well enough. It’s not a heartwrenching story that will make you go aww nor one that will set your loins on fire but it’s fine.

So what’s left? The mystery and the romance were both just alright so what else is to be found in this game that elevates it above the standard 5/10? The story is simply quite a casual read, the mystery not being all that thrilling almost plays in its favour as this is not a book one needs to be in a specific mindset or mood to read, it’s a perfect casual read before bed. It has its funny moments, its more serious moments and it just balances out nicely. There are a few oddities in the writing; characters spend the day sweating away at work, then have sex, then proceed to go to sleep and start off the next day without ever washing, one character at a point in the story manages to do 1000 pushups every day whilst being starved but as everything stays relatively laid-back, these issues will not break anyone out of their deep immersion into the story and simply add some extra quirkiness. It’s just fine.