For those who haven’t read the first book The Stranger Times, I strongly recommend reading it before starting this one, or you will be wondering ‘what the hell is going on’ every other page.
Continuing its quirkiness from the first book, the gang gets back together and now they have bigger issues to deal with. At first look, there might be a lot going on within the book as The Stranger Times are facing not one, but TWO problems! Whilst trying to keep up with their weekly update on weird and mysterious things, someone is attempting to kidnap one of the employees and Vincent Banecroft is desperate in finding the culprit. Furthermore, there have been reported cases of supposed ‘vampires’ roaming the streets of Manchester. Vampires in Manchester, isn’t that a bizarre tale? (Note: these are not like the sparkly vampires from Twilight, nor the vervain-fearing vampires in The Vampire Diaries). But when people with pointy teeth started murdering people left and right, an investigation starts, which will lead them to revealing something more gruesome than what they had imagined. Yes, they had dealt with mysterious stuff before, but are they ready for another even stranger adventure, which might possibly endanger them all?
Personally, I enjoyed this book a lot more than the first one, one of the reasons being the intriguing plotlines and found myself more invested in the events than the previous one. There is more action, more humour, and more strange events happening. The first book I believe works as a great build-up of the cast and introduces us to this gang of ridiculously quirky and for lack of a better word, weird people. The characters were all written in such funny ways and there contains bits and pieces of dark humour every now and then for those of you who enjoy them. They are all flawed in different ways which makes their personalities more dimensional in a way. Are all the characters likeable? I don’t think so, they can be annoying and frustrating sometimes. But are they funny and always make me laugh? Absolutely.
What I was really excited about in this upcoming sequel, is that we get to see more of our endearing side characters. It feels like we have learned quite a lot about Hannah in the first book and now is the time to give the others the appreciation that they deserve. Additionally, there are a few new characters that are introduced, including *drumroll*, A TALKING DOG!
Even though I enjoyed the book a lot, some parts might seem a little unnecessarily long. Granted, there are multiple events happening at the same time and the author chooses to use multiple POVs and short chapters to separate all the events (which is a plus for me), which contains quite a lot of dialogue, especially banter and jokes exchanged between Banecroft and Hannah and that can get a bit repetitive. This is not to say they are not funny—quite the opposite actually—but it would have been equally interesting to perceive more banter between Banecroft and other characters, especially his colleagues and co-workers.
Needlessly to say, this novel delivered! If you are searching for something that contains some supernatural elements, but also set within the actual world (or just fun urban fantasy in general) with lots of jokes and banter that makes you chuckle every now and then, don’t forget to pick up This Charming Man!
This Charming Man is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of February 17th 2022.
Will you be picking up This Charming Man? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
Vampires do not exist. Everyone knows this. So it’s particularly annoying when they start popping up around Manchester . . .
Nobody is pleased about it. Not the Founders, the secret organisation for whom vampires were invented as an allegory, nor the Folk, the magical people hidden in plain sight who only want a quiet life. And definitely not the people of Manchester, because there is nothing more irksome than being murdered by an allegory run amok. Somebody needs to sort this out fast before all Hell really breaks loose – step forward the staff of The Stranger Times.
It’s not like they don’t have enough to be dealing with. Assistant Editor Hannah has come back from getting messily divorced to discover that someone is trying to kidnap a member of their staff and while editor Vincent Banecroft would be delighted to see the back of any of his team, he doesn’t like people touching his stuff – it’s the principle of the thing.
Throw in a precarious plumbing situation, gambling debts, an entirely new way of swearing, and a certain detective inspector with what could be kindly referred to as ‘a lot of baggage’ and it all adds up to another hectic week in the life of the newspaper committed to reporting the truth that nobody else will touch.
This Charming Man is the second book in the critically acclaimed The Stranger Times series.
