The Gentleman's Book of Vices

By: Jess Everlee

Tipping the Velvet meets Bridgerton in this steamy, heartfelt Victorian romance, in which a?collector of illicit erotica and his favorite author have to write their own love story in a society that doesn't accept them.

London, 1883.

Finely dressed and finely drunk, Charlie Price is a man dedicated to his vices. Chief among them is his collection of illicit erotica, and he intends to enjoy his waning bachelorhood as thoroughly as possible. His impending marriage to a woman he can’t love will force his carefully curated collection into a safe deposit box until the end of time. But before it does, Charlie is determined to have one last hurrah: getting the autograph of his favorite author, the secretive Reginald Cox.

When a cheerful dandy appears out of the mist with a highly-secret pen-name on his pretty lips, erotic novelist and bookshop owner Miles Montague assumes blackmail. But Charlie Price is no blackmailer; he’s Reginald Cox’s biggest fan. Miles is more gifted as a smut writer than a shopkeep, and uses his royalties to keep his flagging bookstore afloat. It’s all that remains of his old life, and he doesn’t want strangers disturbing it, no matter how handsome they are.

A scribbled signature on a worn book page sets off an affair as scorching as anything Miles ever wrote. But Miles is clinging to a troubled past, while Charlie’s future has spun entirely out of his control. Is their real-life affair as doomed as the novels say it is, or can they create a new ending for their love story?