The Counterfeit Viscount

by Ginn Hale

Return to the World of Wicked Gentlemen with The Counterfeit Viscount

When Prodigal devils begin disappearing, Archie Fallmont, Viscount of Granville, finds himself in the unenviable position of being required to investigate. He has, after all, sold his soul to the handsome devil—and flashy dresser—Nimble Hobbs. Now Archie must join Nimble, sleuthing out the knotty scandals of noble families and an infamously exclusive club.

But Archie and Nimble are soon up against much worse than absent actresses, debauched drunks, and dreadful poetry recitals. Bullets fly and top hats fall, as secrets are unearthed and a murderer decides to put an end to their inquiries.

Genres: Fantasy, M M Romance, Romance, Audiobook, Historical, Mystery, LGBT

132 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 16, 2018

Reviews

[* A Reader Obsessed * · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

My debut read with this author and I’m impressed!

Bridging historical and fantasy, this is a world where descendants of demons perpetrate the human world, always deemed less but always wanted and used for their extra abilities and magic. Here we meet Archibald, a human bastard who sells his soul to the charming Nimble, to enact revenge on an evil uncle. What slowly unravels is a plot that has far reaching repercussions, not just for Archibald but for the underprivileged and many more innocents caught in the crosshairs.

Full of mystery and intrigue, this smartly shows class and species divide and the carefully laid out plans that can all go awry. Effectively complex, along with an equally swoony sweeping romance (with nice smexy) and an ending that brought a huge smile to my face.

Originally read in the anthology Devil Take Me

[Rosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a treat! I loved to come back to Wicked Gentlemen universe and have a fast glimpse about what had been of Belimai and Harper. I also loved to learn how Grenfell patronage made a difference for Belimai and even for other Prodigals. And coming back to this story and characters, I liked both main characters, Archie and Nimble, and the story was very engaging. It kept me guessing until the very end. I was right about some of the things going on like Phebe being Charles daughter but I was surprised at the revelation Nimble didn't have any powers at all. That, I wasn't expecting at all. I wish the author would come back to this world again because the stories set in this world are a delight.

[Ariana (mostly offline) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5 stars

No doubt Ginn Hale is a very gifted author.
I was more than impressed by her amazing worldbuilding and her highly imaginative language and imagery. I genuinely liked Archie and Nimble, and the detective plot is very captivating.

However, I sorely missed the romance in this book. I guess it falls more in the ‘fantasy novel’ category, which is fine, but I had high romantic hopes for the two MCs who are both interesting and engaging characters.

I also freely admit that, not being an English native speaker, I had to (and wanted to) look up quite a lot of the sophisticated vocabulary used here. While educational and illuminating, it did interrupt the flow of my reading.

This is clever and very well written, but I would have loved a stronger romantic involvement.

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun short historical-fantasy, part mystery and part revenge story, a little underlying romance.
Several twists along the way.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice mystery novella set in the world of of Hale's Wicked Gentlemen where the demons (called prodigals here) have repented and now live as an oppressed class in the human world. (17-1800s-ish?, lords and ladies w guns.)

Since the m/m crowd just loves claiming everything with two gay guys in it as their own and subsequently complaining about it when it fails to deliver m/m tropes, I will repeat myself. This is a MYSTERY, it is not a romance. There's an established couple who goes through some changes in their relationship, but it's primarily a mystery with a dash of revenge thrown in.

While I absolutely adored Wicked Gentlemen when I read it, it's been quite a while, so I occasionally felt like I should get more out of a particular reference or understand how the world works a bit better, but if you're not bothered by a story not filling out every detail of a world (which it shouldn't) you're probably okay to read this on its own.

I think I wasn't quite in the right mood for this when I started it, and that's likely why I took my time getting through it and am feeling like it's only about 4 stars.

[k reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ginn Hale, always a pleasure

[Shelba · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this, but I did find it a bit draggy at times, and then the ending was almost anti-climatic for me. It was good, but not the best that Ginn Hale has delivered.

I read this on Scrib'd, and dor whatever reason, the font was in bold for the entire book which made it very hard on the eyes to read. I tried it on three devices with every font option and it was the same thing, though when I downloaded the sample to read on Kindle, it was fine there. I actually had to take a few breaks from reading it as it was a bit too straining to read, which I think also affected my enjoyment a lot.

[MariF · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I've got a BookBub notice, I thought it's a brand new book and decided to check it out on GoodReads since I bought books I already had one too many times before.
I read this story as part of Devil Take Me anthology. Here is my review for this story specifically:

"Counterfeit Viscount" by Ginn Hale was my favorite story and the first one to me by the author.
I absolutely loved it. The wold-building was fantastic, the story itself very lyrical, gentle and heartwarming. The setting with the Hell spawns (Prodigals) who are trying to get away from the underneath the city and get some basic rights as the natural-born humans living and lording over them is a great background for a forbidden love and the disappearances mystery solving.
I have to check other works by the author. It was this good."

I became a huge fan of Ginn Hale after reading this short story and binged on others works since then.

[Lori¸¸¸.•*❀Ɍɛɑɗs̱LɪƙɛIʈs̱H̱ɛɍJɔɓ 유❤유 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought I had reviewed this before but I guess I didn't. It was very good in my opinion but entirely too short. This could have been an amazing expanded story but that being said, I still loved it. Harper Fox has an amazing imagination and this book told a good solid story from beginning to end even if I wanted more.

[PaperMoon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was such fun ... and the mysterious and potentially horrific disappearances of already stigmatized and under-classed Prodigals ended up being nicely resolved and much less horrific than imagined. An appropriate number of hot M-M action scenes were well interspersed between the investigative/action with the plot flow not unduly interrupted. 3.5 stars.

[Rozarka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok, wow, I didn't expect it to be this good! Amazing worldbuilding (this alone got me hooked; I loved all the flashbacks, they gave me goosebumps), compelling plot, and adorable (yes, I mean it!) main characters <3 I'd love to read more if the author ever decides to write a sequel.

[Kassu · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐

Loving this historical fantasy with the devil-descendant prodigals, wouldn't mind if there were even more stories in this universe. This is a love story of two young idiots but also a mystery and a tale of inequality. I think one gets a little bit more out of the story after reading Wicked Gentlemen but it's not needed.

Read as a part of Devil Take Me.

[Eva Müller · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly? I have no strong feelings about this book. I was almost 2/3 through it before I could really make sense of the worldbuilding though that can probably at least partly be blamed on the fact that it's not the first book in this series. But I also had no strong feelings about the couple...either together or as single characters. I vaguely cared about the mystery which is why I finished reading it but I have no desire to go back to that world.

[Mysterious]

Skimmed. Doesn't make much sense as a standalone. More mystery than romance.

[L Monster · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a very hard time getting into this one. It probably took me an entire month to finish, and that's with the audiobook too. I dunno, I just kept falling asleep. While I do adore Ginn Hale's prodigal universe and Wicked Gentlemen was just delicious all the way through, this time the story fell kinda flat.

But that's unfair. I'm pretty sure I am the problem here because the premise is fantastic: Archie, former soldier and now viscount impersonator, has sold his soul to Nimble, a handsome prodigal conjurer who fought with him in the war in exchange for the means of getting revenge on his evil uncle. The contract between them stipulates that once a month, Archie must give himself to Nimble, which Archie does only too willingly, and in fact, he's been dreading the approaching end of the contract when he won't get to enjoy being on Nimble's bed anymore. Then, prodigal disappearances require the help of Nimble, who's also some kind of prodigal private investigator, and Archie is too invested in him not to help him out.

But I still kept falling asleep. I'm not even sure if there's more than one sex scene. But there is at least one sex scene in this book and it's not bad actually.

Anyway, I want more Ginn Hale books to be in audiobook format cause I really really really like her writing style and the crazy premises she comes up with, but I much prefer listening to them!

[JJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a fantasy novella this was fine. It had a good premise, great world building, and very engaging characters. There's just wasn't quite enough of it. Though I read a lot of Romance I don't generally ask for it to be included in the other genres I read, but here it was set up and barely followed through on. There was opportunity to explore great longing/pining, and class differences, that was mostly breezed over. And the ending didn't quite satisfy in regards to the set up. Like a mystery where the main character spends the books diligently searching for answers, and finding clues, only to have everything resolved by well basically by accident, or happenstance anyway. It's just disappointing. And I'm disappointed here because this had everything it needed to be fantastic, all the set up was there. It just felt rushed and like author couldn't be bothered to plumb the full depth of what she'd created. Still would recommend. I find I'm much more fussy and critical about stories than most any other reader, so if you don't want prolonged pining in your fantastical historical fiction, then this might be great for you.

[Natalie Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

An illegitimate guy takes the place of his half-brother that was killed in the war but he himself was gravely wounded and makes a deal with a handsome Prodigal devil, Nimble Hobbs, to save his life and gain all that his half-brother, Archie Fallmont, Viscount of Granville, owned. When Prodigal devils start disappearing, Hobbs is charged with investigating the nobles and he needs Archie’s help to provide his cover and in exchange, he’ll release him from his obligation. The investigation puts them at greater risk than they expect as some dark secrets are uncovered. After reading Ginn Hale's Counterfeit Viscount, I have added all of her work to my TBR list! This is awesome Halloween reading, folks! Check out Ms. Hale's backlist and consider following her on Amazon, BookBub, and of course GoodReads! 🎃

[Thesincouch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a whole surprise, even though it shouldn't have been. I got this as part of the Pride Storybundle a few years ago. This is precisely the purpose of these bundles to allow readers to discover new gems. A+, objective accomplished.

Archie is pretending to be his brother, the Viscount, to get revenge on his uncle, so close to succeeding he can almost taste it. Of course that would mean his bargain with the Prodigal (demon-descendants that are second class citizens) Nimble is on its last legs. Archie is not happy about that but disappearances at this new club will bring them together once more.

I really loved this and I'm gonna read everything that Ginn Hale has written.

[Kari · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't know what to expect with this but I really enjoyed Hale's other book in this world so I took a chance on the audiobook and really enjoyed it.

Although this isn't in any way a sequel to Wicked Gentlemen, I think it makes sense to read Wicked Gentlemen first because it's much better at giving you some explanation. This being closer to a novella, there's less time to explain things.

[Eden Winters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous worldbuilding and a unique take on demons living in human society and the ostracism they face. It's a brutal world, where some suspected villains turns out to be heroes. There were a few parts that left me wondering, but that's a good thing, right, when you're still thinking about a book long after you finish?

Grey Trembley did an awesome job with narration.

I highly recommend this story.

[Abi Walton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ginn Hale' Wicked Gentleman has always been a comfort read to me.. whenever I am not sure what to read I tend to gravitate towards Hale's Wicked Gentleman. The Counterfeit Viscount was a wonderful addition to the series. I loved Archie and his notorious Prodigal Hobbs. I hope we will see more of this world and these characters again in a novel?

[Juli · Rating 2 out of 5]

Without the novelty of the worldbuilding, which is the special thing about the first book, this is mostly boring. The nicknames are very annying, and I have no feelings about them as a couple. Also, everything about smuggling Prodigals out of the city seems moot when literally days later the ban is liftes and they can legally leave.

[Teki Pawsome · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ginn Hale - is a rare author of a nice small books of BL genre with some cute characters and interesting plot (and some erotica as well, but it's a minor point). And satisfying ending to boot!! Totally recommend, there are not many such authors.

[sas · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

We're back in the world of Prodigals and Hells Below!!

It was an absolute treat, my only complaint was there's never enough!!

[Isabelle Adler · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful treat for the readers of "Wicked Gentlemen". As always, superb worldbuilding and characterization.

[ivy]

DNF - halfway through and I still have no clue what is going on.

[_eol_ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, quick read, if a bit formulaic.

Well, a bit too quick, to be completely honest. The world building was nice, and the couple has a lot of emotional & story potential, but everything was glossed over. The romance is cute but just - mentioned, like an afterthought. This story deserved at least twice as many pages and a more complex plot.

Fun and nicely written but not enough.

[Elysia]

dnf

[Fi · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Is this book a standalone? I felt lost for the biggest part of it.