A review by wardenred
An Unseen Attraction by KJ Charles

emotional hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

What he wanted from Rowley now was that sense of someone on his side in a world that seemed very hostile and loud and more than usually inexplicable. What he wanted for Rowley was the same thing.

I think I enjoyed this novel much better this time than I had the first time I read it what feels like ages ago. Still, it's far from my favorite of K.J. Charles's works. For once, even though I obviously knew what I was getting this time, I still found myself really annoyed by the discrepancy between the summary and the actual book. This isn't a slow burn romance! I mean, it technically is—the characters have been friends for a while, there was mutual pining, yadda yadda. But all of it largely happens in the backstory. A bit of it is condensed in a couple of chapters, but really, almost as soon as the story kicks off, so does the actual relationship. And I feel like this romance would work so much better if it was actually a proper slow burn, if we got to see more of that pining stage.

Even so, I still enjoyed it a lot. I got really attached to Clem, and I really liked the portrayal of his neurodivergency. Rowley grew on me a lot more than I expected as I read—he's got a beautifully layered personality that I feel I didn't fully appreciate on my first read-through. The conflict, drenched in these two men's respective pasts and formative experiences as well as their present world views that were born of those, was believable and engrossing. All those beats I love about friends-to-lovers romances were perfectly executed: the "we already know and understand each other so well!" feeling, the growing proximity, the part where the pair stumbles upon things they didn't quite expect from/in each other, not knowing how to deal with this, then learning how to deal. I also really liked the quiet slice-of-life feel of the romantic storyline, all the historical details, and everything related to the Knight and Knave Club.

The one thing, apart from the lack of actual on-page slow burn, that stood in the way of my enjoyment was the balance between the romantic storyline and the mystery—or rather, lack thereof. The mystery works really, really well to showcase Clem's and Rowley's respective deals, the scars their pasts had left on them and the conflict they need to overcome on their way to their happy ever after. However, that only becomes evident around the final third of the book. Before that, the parts of the plot that focus on the mystery felt like these... kinda disruptive flashes of high stakes and violence that clashed, for me, with the quieter slice-of-life feel of the rest of the story.
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