A Pocketful of Lies: Collected Stories

by K.J. Charles

A light-fingered drifter encounters a landless earl…

A music hall singer finds the man of her dreams in a thieves’ kitchen…

A detective is plunged into a Christmas conspiracy…

A rogue magician needs the help of a waste-paper seller…

Chaos reigns in a dark and twisted alt-Victorian London...

KJ Charles’ shorter stories are collected in print for the first time, in five tales of queer historical romance spiced with song, larceny, mayhem, magic, and defenestration (just the one, though).

Includes the stories:
A Thief in the Night
The Rat-Catcher's Daughter
Masters in this Hall
A Queer Trade
The Price of Meat

Genres: Romance, Queer, Short Stories, Historical, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Horror

430 pages, Paperback

First published April 14, 2023

About the author

KJ is a writer of romance, mostly m/m, historical or fantasy or both. She blogs about writing and editing at http://kjcharleswriter.com.

She lives in London, UK, with her husband, two kids, and a cat of absolute night.

Bluesky @kj_charleswriter.com
Join the lively Discord group at https://discord.gg/fmPTWSZfT6
Sign up to the (infrequent) newsletter at http://kjcharleswriter.com/newsletter

Please **do not** message me on Goodreads as I no longer check the inbox due to unwanted messages.

Reviews

[Emma Goldman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally, a printed collection of K J Charles short stories. All of them are well worth re-reading, in particular A Thief in the Night, where a young man living on his wits (and other people's money) encounters one of his victims in unexpected circumstances. The encounter changes life for both of them. The Rat Catcher's Daughter invites us to the music hall, where delight and danger can be found, and even love and affection. For a complete change of atmosphere, read the final story - The Price of Meat. You think meat is expensive today? Find out just how expensive it can get, and where the supplies are coming from.

[Jess (JustMaybePerfect) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Price of Meat: A short story set in alternate universe England, dark, cannibalism, light horror, murder mystery

A Thief in the Night: A progressive, lighthearted, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, workplace, consent forward, hot, funny, romantic, and quick but complete, love story between Toby, a thief, and Miles, an Earl.

The Rat-Catcher's Daughter: Lilywhite Boys prequel novella starring Stan (The Lillywhite Boys’ fence and all around gem of a human) and Miss Christiania a singer and the target of cruelty from a series repeat villain. Stan has a bit of a crush (from afar) and goes to the Boys when he learns of Christiana’s trouble. They rescue her (and in so doing earn their, ahem, defenestration reputation). Stan’s initial meeting with Christina after the rescue is tense. She’s a trans woman more familiar with the harm men do than good. Stan, as you may have guessed, is very very good. The Rat Catcher’s Daughter is an ace romance.

Masters in This Hall: Masters in this Hall takes place some years after the conclusion of Gilded Cage (Lilywhite Boys). Set at Christmas this novella is a house party, murder mystery, opposites attract, lovers to enemies to lovers, second chance, class differences romance between John, a disgraced former hotel detective, and Barnaby, a set designer and party host, who John believes responsible for the destruction of his career. Needless to say it’s a bit more complicated than that and they work it out in the end. A Lillywhite makes a few exceptional appearances.

A Queer Trade: The beginning of Ned and Crispin’s adventure, journey to forgiveness, and their HEA (concludes in Rag & Bone), which kicks of with the alarming news that Crispin’s deceased master’s writings are missing, sold to a waste man (Ned), and wreaking havoc.

[Martha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my goodness! Absolutely brilliant stories with wonderful characters. I've 'met' several of them before in some of her other series (The Lilywhite Boys, A Charm of Magpies) on Kindle but these stories are new to me and I'm pretty thrilled to have them on paper as you never know when the "Cloud" could go out of business or be unavailable.


A light-fingered drifter encounters a landless earl... (really sweet and I love Toby and Miles)

A music hall singer finds the man of her dreams in a thieves' kitchen... (Chris and Stan are perfect! and I really enjoyed watching Jerry and Temp handle the bad guys! Kind of felt like I might have read this before on Kindle but it sure doesn't hurt to read it again)

A detective is plunged into a Christmas conspiracy... (Wasn't sure how this one was going to turn out for John and Barnaby, but I was cheering by the end; another appearance by one of our Lilywhite Boys. I do wonder if one of the statements early on is a 'red herring'; kind of hope it is or I'll be sad)

A rogue magician needs the help of a waste-paper seller... (This one had me very worried, even though I'd read a story about these two that takes place *after* this. Ned and Crispin are great characters!)

Chaos reigns in a dark and twisted alt-Victorian London... (This one gave me chills. Period. 'Nuff said)

KJ Charles' shorter stories are collected in print for the first time, in five tales of queer historical romance spiced with song, larceny, mayhem, magic, and defenestration (just the one, though).

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection of K.J. Charles's short stories, it's nice to have some of them all in one place, particularly the two that build on the Lilywhite Boys books. I enjoyed the Lilywhite books, but I think I almost enjoyed more reading about them as side characters, seeing them from other characters' perspectives. It ends on quite a dark note with The Price of Meat, there are some grim details in it, but it's a good collection and nice to have the separate stories brought together in one volume.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always Charles delivers an amazing story (x5 this time). The art of the short story is hard, the author has so much less time to build a character and plot and make the reader care but Charles carried off wonderfully. Each story has wonderful characters full of delightful quirks and tricky relationships that made it so easy to read. I loved every one of them and for those that took place in the same universe as her other works it has only made me more eager to read those books.

[Aldi · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not like I NEED an excuse to reread The Rat-Catcher's Daughter and A Queer Trade, but I'll happily take it anyway! Wonderful to finally have these shorter stories in print. However, I'm not super-impressed with the book-binding on this, as a couple of pages fell out as soon as I opened the book. Oy.

[DKSDGM · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 fantastic novellas with very different feels and types of romantic pairings

My favorite is the first, A Thief in the Night, but all 5 were enjoyable reads.

A Thief in the Night (MM)
The Rat-Catcher's Daughter (TransM/M)
Masters in this Hall (MM)
A Queer Trade (MM)
The Price of Meat (FF, slight MM)

[notachance · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read all of these over the past few years, and they're well worth a browse. A Queer Trade is my favourite, I'd have loved more Rag and Bone.

[Miccaeli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simon Feximal and Bobby Caldwell are my whole life actually

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this, except for the last short story. Horror just isn't my cup of tea. But otherwise, they were fully developed stories that I thoroughly enjoyed.

[Akiva ꙮ · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a bit too long since I read this unfortunately! I think my favorite was the first, but FYI it contains hoarding and complicated parent relationships. I didn't read the last one due to too much horror, hah.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

2) placeholder for short bonus story "This Lord's Father (The Will Darling Adventures, #3.56)" - 4/30/24;