The reason I picked up K. J. Charles’s Jackdaw, despite not having read any of the books in her Charm of Magpies series, is simple. On her blog, Ms. Charles said that when a reader found out who one of the heroes is, they couldn’t believe that someone they hated was going to get a happy ending. And I felt sure that if K. J. Charles wrote a hateable character, he would be seriously flawed, so I had to find out more.

Ben Spenser is seriously down on his luck. He’s been released from gaol, where he did hard labor, but other than his freedom, he has nothing. He was once a police constable, but he’s lost his job and his parents have disowned him. And it’s all thanks to one man, Jonah Pastern, who Ben was once in love with, but who committed some crimes and then fled, leaving Ben to pick up the pieces. So Ben wants nothing more than to find Jonah and deliver him to justice – in this case, the justiciary which polices the doings of magicians. Jonah is a windwalker, someone who can walk on air, which is why he’s so good at stealing and escaping, but Ben tracks him to a molly house where they have a bitterly charged confrontation. 

I have to admit, this scene was painful to read (and if it was difficult for me, I can’t imagine how it must feel to someone with even more of an emotional investment in these characters). Ben tries to do things by the book at first. He shackles Jonah to a bedpost with an iron cuff, since this prevents magicians from using their powers, but Ben has clearly gone through too much to be calm and businesslike. On top of that, Jonah – even after getting punched in the face – says he loves Ben, which is the last thing in the world that Ben needs to hear at that point. What follows is a sex scene that rides the edge of consent. Jonah submits, but I don’t know if he felt he had much choice under the circumstances, and Ben is clearly venting all his pain on the person he feels was responsible for it. As I said, this isn’t easy to read, but that also meant I couldn’t wait to see how these two were going to bridge the chasm between them. 

And as if matters weren’t bad enough already, the molly house is raided by the police. All Ben can think is that he’ll go back to jail for another long stint of hard labor, but Jonah is too used to running to freeze up under those circumstances. He picks the lock of the shackle, flings himself out of the window – and promptly runs on air to the nearest roof, from where he urges Ben to flee, too. And when Ben finally overcomes both his fear of falling and his distrust of Jonah (at least temporarily), the two of them escape over the rooftops before settling down for a brief rest during which they look out over London as very few people see it. I could hardly believe that a brutally hurtful sex scene would lead to such a sweet moment.

I won’t spoil the rest of the plot, because part of the fun for me was just not having any idea what was going to happen next. What I will rave about are the characters. I love opposites-attract and enemies-to-lovers romances, and this has both of those in spades. Ben may be reserved, lacking in any sort of magical power and depressed to the point of being suicidal on one occasion, but he has the moral compass Jonah needs, and there’s one other thing he used to do for Jonah that was just heartwarming to read about (again, no spoilers).

As for Jonah, he’s relaxed, charming and confident, but also unscrupulous and with a serious tendency to run from problems, usually those of his own making. This book also managed to hit one of my favorite fantasy tropes, that of magical talent having a significantly negative effect on its user. And the secondary characters shine as well. I love how pithily Jonah sums up the people trying to hunt him down, who are the protagonists of earlier books in the series, and I’m sure readers who are familiar with these people will enjoy this even more than I did.

The only things that prevent this book from getting a higher grade are that I felt the ending was a bit too happily wrapped up, and I was disappointed that we never get to see Jonah’s perspective. Of course, that keeps his true motives hidden for some time and allows him to be a glittering enigma who drives Ben crazy in so many different ways. But his backstory was so intriguing that I wanted a much longer look into what makes him tick. Still, that’s a very minor problem compared to the fantastic read that Jackdaw turned out to be. This book is strongly recommended.