The Will Darling Adventures (Slippery Creatures, The Sugared Game, Subtle Blood) by KJ Charles
Will Darling came back from the Great War with a few scars, a lot of medals, and no idea what to do next. Inheriting his uncle’s chaotic second-hand bookshop is a blessing…until strange visitors start making threats. First a criminal gang, then the War Office, both telling Will to give them the information they want, or else.
Will has no idea what that information is, and nobody to turn to, until Kim Secretan—charming, cultured, oddly attractive—steps in to offer help. As Kim and Will try to find answers and outrun trouble, mutual desire grows along with the danger.
And then Will discovers the truth about Kim. His identity, his past, his real intentions. Enraged and betrayed, Will never wants to see him again.
But Will possesses knowledge that could cost thousands of lives. Enemies are closing in on him from all sides—and Kim is the only man who can help.
Endorsement from submitter: "Incredible writing style, incredible critique of imperialism (as in Japanese imperialism of Taiwan, in this case), and most importantly an incredibly complicated and bittersweet f/f relationship at its center. The yearning, the pining, the intimacy and the lack thereof. The way these two vibe with each other and don't understand each other at the same time. Truly a book that gently and thoroughly destroys you."
A bittersweet story of love between two women, nested in an artful exploration of language, history, and power
May 1938. The young novelist Aoyama Chizuko has sailed from her home in Nagasaki, Japan, and arrived in Taiwan. She’s been invited there by the Japanese government ruling the island, though she has no interest in their official banquets or imperialist agenda. Instead, Chizuko longs to experience real island life and to taste as much of its authentic cuisine as her famously monstrous appetite can bear.
Soon a Taiwanese woman―who is younger even than she is, and who shares the characters of her name―is hired as her interpreter and makes her dreams come true. The charming, erudite, meticulous Chizuru arranges Chizuko’s travels all over the Land of the South and also proves to be an exceptional cook. Over scenic train rides and braised pork rice, lively banter and winter melon tea, Chizuko grows infatuated with her companion and intent on drawing her closer. But something causes Chizuru to keep her distance. It’s only after a heartbreaking separation that Chizuko begins to grasp what the “something” is.
Disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text by a Japanese writer, this novel was a sensation on its first publication in Mandarin Chinese in 2020 and won Taiwan’s highest literary honor, the Golden Tripod Award. Taiwan Travelogue unburies lost colonial histories and deftly reveals how power dynamics inflect our most intimate relationships.
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"[. . .] He's not asking you to predict where you'll be in ten years, you idiot. He's just telling you he wants you to be with him—you, with your grammar school manners and working hands and punching people when you oughtn't—and asking if you want it, too. That's all a future is."
"It's not, though. There's all the things that could happen—"
"That's called being alive, Will! Honestly, maybe you oughtn't think about things. You aren't very good at it."
The ways Will and Kim say “I love you” and so much more:
Kim to Will:
“‘No,’ Kim said. ‘That’s the daily drip of insult you can expect as things are now, which is why I don’t want them to get worse. Because you are everything more, and I resent to the bottom of my soul that you should feel any other way.’”
“‘but it could ruin us. But I could lose you, because your position will be intolerable, and I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to do without you; I don’t want you to leave me. I can’t stop you, of course, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try. I’ll beg if I have to, and won’t that embarrass us both. I want a future with you.’”
“‘A future. You know the concept? The shape you want the rest of your life to take? I want mine with you, all of it. A future, a forever. I love you.’ He said it quite calmly, as if it was an established fact. ‘People say I love you to madness, but I love you to sanity, because loving you is the sanest thing I have ever done. You are everything to me, Will, and I cannot lose you to my miserable family and an accident of birth.’”
Kim came in SWINGING with words of affirmation. I mean, they both did. But it was lovely to see Kim so vulnerable in this one.
And here’s lovely, obstinate Will:
“He met Kim’s dark eyes. ‘I think about you all the time. I see you hurt and it makes me want to burn things to the ground. I don’t know what a future’s supposed to look like or how it would work, but I’m not letting you go without a fight, no matter what. I don’t know what I’d do all day.’”
“‘Jesus, Kim. I was on my own in a dusty bookshop and you turned up, and now it feels like I’ve got the whole world at my feet.’”
“‘Good thing I'm not going anywhere.’ He grabbed Kim's hand, not caring if anyone saw. ‘And you are exactly the man I want you to be. You always have been.’”
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I’m re-reading the Adventures of Will Darling Series by KJ Charles and I should have been highlighting all my favorite bits, but I’m starting now because I love these two so much.
Excerpt from the book Subtle Blood reads:
Will got up from his chair, walked round behind Kim, and put his hands on his shoulders, gripping them. “I told you. See? I told you she just needed time.”
Kim put his hand on Will’s, spreading his thin fingers over the hardened knuckles. “You can’t expect me to take your word for things when I could work myself into a frenzy about them instead. Where would that get us?”
“You might do something sensible.” Will squeezed his shoulders. “I’m bloody glad.”
