Slippery Creatures by KJ Charles needed a little more slip

I’m going to put a [SPOILER WARNING] here for the end of the book, because I will talk about what happens at the end in this post. I’ll put a second spoiler warning, so you know when the actual spoilers start.

If you want the video version of this post (CLICK HERE)

Slippery Creatures by KJ Charles is one of those books that had been floating around in my recommended section for a good long while, and for whatever reason, it took me an equally long while to get around to buying, and reading, it. But if this post is anything to go by, I did perhaps buy and maybe read it. And just maybe these are my thoughts.

So, the blurb told me that the main character, Will Darling, inherits his uncle’s bookshop. And then both a gang and the War Office come knocking at his door, telling him to give them the information that he has. Then a mysterious and handsome stranger, Kim, turns up. After that, Will learns Kim’s true intentions and is left enraged and betrayed, never wanting to see him again. And then in the final section of the blurb, it states that Kim is the only person who can help Will.

Now, you might think that that sounded like spoilers, but it’s not, that’s all just stuff that’s on the blurb. And I will say, from the outset, that I think a good 50% of the blurb could, and should, have been cut. The blurb didn’t need to tell us that Kim betrays Will. Because since the blurb told us that Kim was going to betray Will, I was expecting it to happen all through the book, and when it did happen, it wasn’t exactly a gag.

Something I will give the book however is that both the gang and the War Office turn up in the very first chapter, and Kim turns up in the second, and Will ends up getting attacked twice in the first 30 pages. So, you know that whole thing of how you should essentially sell people, or grab people’s attention, within the first three chapters? Well, that was absolutely present in this book. Even with my prior complaint of knowing that Kim was going to betray Will, at least the book managed to hook me in. But then by chapter four (I believe it was chapter four), Kim’s “true intentions” are revealed, so the majority of what was said on the blurb was just blown out really quickly.

Then a little later, Will is attacked by then gang (for the information) again, only for Kim to show up at the perfect time to save him. Now, at this point, I couldn’t really tell whether the two of them liked each other, because they were in an odd liminal space where they weren’t friendly, but they weren’t unfriendly either. Either way, Kim blows Will, and it kind of felt (to me) like it came out of nowhere. I felt like the two of them could have taken a little more time to define what their relationship was, or at least have given a solid reason for Kim to blow Will.

There’s also one part, in chapter nine, where Will is speaking with Ingoldsby (from the War Office) about the information. Allegedly, Will had found it by that point and was told to stop playing with fire, but Will says he can’t – because no one will explain anything to him. And that exchange basically summed up the entire book. Will, as a character, was sort of just dangling between everything that was going on, and even though he was the main character of the story, he didn’t feel like a main character. Like, he did very little about what was going on, but at the same time, he couldn’t do anything, because no one explained anything to him. And because of that, that just gave Will a very “go girl, give us nothing” kind of energy, and he just let things happen to him.

Will Darling was the main character, but the story didn’t feel like his story.

I will say, the whole story could have been very different had one of the parties actually explained what was going on to Will, and I think had they done that, he wouldn’t have had his “go girl, give us nothing” energy the whole book.

He got done so dirty from every angle, and I just wanted him to do better for himself. When the end of the story came, after [SPOILER ALERT] Kim betrays him multiple times, he and Kim are walking to a pub together, and Will comments to the reader that the drink he’s going for with Kim could either be the end of their relationship, or the beginning of it… And since there’s multiple books in this series, I assume it’s not the end of their relationship, which kind of sucks, because I think Will deserved better than Kim. Kim did explain why he did the things he did. But that, to me, didn’t make up for the fact he still did them and still dicked over Will at every given chance. My whole take from the ending was that I want Will to do better for himself, find a better man than Kim, but I just know he’s not going to. [END OF SPOILERS]

And that’s sad because I actually liked Will as a character. He was just a man that wanted to survive, and he just happened to get caught up in a bunch of mess and screwed over at every opportunity.

One more thing I will say is that the dialogue felt a bit crunchy sometimes. I got the vibe that a few times there was an “oops, I should move the plot along, instead of having the characters talking” moment or two. Because of this, I felt like there were some moments where actual, meaningful, developmental dialogue was dropped in favour of blunt, exposition dump-y dialogue that forced the plot forward. But the book was only 247 pages, so there was space for more of the developmental dialogue that I wanted, it just wasn't used.

For my final point: I’m starting to think that I just might not be the biggest fan of historical settings. I’ve read a few other books in similar settings to this one, and none of them have given me that Gottmik gagatrondra moment. I think I might just prefer modernity, and that’s okay! The wild concept about art, and things like books, is that preference is subjective. I wasn’t the biggest fan of this book, but that doesn’t outright make it a bad book. It just means it wasn’t for me.

So, yeah, this certainly wasn’t my favourite book I’ve read this year… But I wouldn’t call it outright bad, because there are places where I could see where it could have been better. It was more disappointing than bad. I feel as though this book’s biggest shortcoming was the fact it told us that Kim was going to betray Will, and because of that, the gag factor just wasn’t there for me.

Okay, bye!