I was born in 1973. Or, like, 1673 because that's basically the same thing now. If you need me I'll be the pile of dust in the corner of the room.

I literally do not understand how he can be so bad at this. Like, is he a paid saboteur? I mean yes Truss was this bad but she's a loonytunes PR flack gone feral, whereas Starmer did once seem like he could put on his socks without professional help.

Party that ran on a platform of being horrible to a large demographic mad that said demographic didn't vote for them.

No, Starmer, newspapers, Labour etc, we do *not* have to give up and accept that the worst <30% of the country get to dictate our politics

I read In Which Winnie Halifax Is Utterly Ruined by Alexandra Vasti

I'm reading an American book in which vinegar on chips (fries) is treated as a weird gross affectation. Is that...a normal US opinion?

God the ignorance on display here. It is of course a well-known chain of High Street haberdashers, where else would a gentleman buy his hat but G&D?

This is obvs not the first time Labour has lied, its leader & senior politicians are well-known liars. But this time it has been caught out, bang to rights, with such an obvious, constructed, deliberate lie. As @zackpolanski.bsky.social says if Reform wins, Labour will have handed it to them.

Since we are losing review space left, right and centre, and Goodreads is making that worse, I'm now going to be doing regular romance review roundups on my blog. Get recs here! Share your own! kjcharleswriter.com/2026/02/25/r...

This is absolutely unforgivable, as is the other lack of care or action by Bafta. Many people need to be fired.

I am doing a bunch of online events in the next month and was informed I should buy a ring light. The instructions are literally "Hang the ring lamp on the computer screen and start using it." like...thanks.

Since we are losing review space left, right and centre, and Goodreads is making that worse, I'm now going to be doing regular romance review roundups on my blog. Get recs here! Share your own! kjcharleswriter.com/2026/02/25/r...

I read A Reckoning in Whitehall (The Casefile of Jay Moriarty Book 10) by Kit Walker www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

If you are thinking 'well I'm not a Goth so this doesn't apply to me'... how about a writing workshop with romance writer par excellence KJ Charles? Or a talk on carnivorous plants? A tour of Dante's Inferno? A cooking class? We Goths welcome everyone!

In publishing with one of my favourite ex bosses getting all the gen. And not regretting my decision to lurk in a shed for the last decade.

I can generally suspend my disbelief over the full depths of the Marianas Trench, but nothing will *ever* make me believe in "I need a fake relationship in order to secure my promotion in this corporation". THIS IS CAPITALISM THEY DON'T CARE IF YOU DIE.

This morning, within the space of 90 mins, I have seen 'demurity' (archaic) and 'demutesy' (modern) and I would just like to state for the record that I hate them both.

I just had a week with the whole family away, and gosh, the house was so uncomfortably quiet. I really missed having the ambient sound and company of-- TEENAGE SON ARRIVES HOME, PUTS ON THE APPRENTICE AT FULL VOLUME, ORDERS NANDO'S --never mind.

“It was not big enough and it was in the wrong shade of brown so I’m not paying the invoice”

Up at 4am to pick up KJC Jr from the airport. 2 hours 15 on the M25. It's now 9.30 and I want to go back to bed.

'His achievement is to create this loving and vivid portrayal of one small corner of London, its making and remaking after The Great War'. V. grateful for this lovely review of Songs of Seven Dials by London Society - which really gets what I was trying to do. londonsociety.org.uk/songs-of-sev...

The book scam emails are getting better. I know this is AI but it feels so exactly like a *real* absolutely massive knob-end emailing me nonsense, so close to a *human* pretentious bullshit extruder wasting my time. Marvellous how we've created Artificial Intolerability.

@davidpintod.bsky.social This is extremely bad news and I hope your government will take a second look at this proposal.

Okay, UK writers and book folk, we need to be talking about this. It’s a big (bad) deal.

Here we go. It's Friday, and this dropped.

Just DNFd a tradpub book from a literary imprint for painfully clunky and apparently totally unedited writing, and in the acknowledgements the author takes a paragraph to thank... herself.

Tfw you didn't study much medieval history at school

actually I think the most shocking aspect is that Prince Andrew is only 66. Imagine having that much money and privilege and still looking like the geography teacher who'll never leave Grange Hill.

“Are we going to charge him, Sarge?” “Not right away, constable. Stick him in a cell and let him sweat for a while.” “Er…”

a) Sticky Toffee Pudding Man is on Bluesky!!! and b) if people don't start giving him enough sauce I'm going to take up arms

I read The Samurai and the Prisoner by Honobu Yonezawa

FREE ON KOBO! Unhallowed (Rath & Rune 1) Can a bookbinder with a secret and a librarian stop an evil book from being unleashed on the world? DOWNLOAD HERE: www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/...

Heads up, Waterstones is doing 25% off preorders of HOW TO FAKE IT IN SOCIETY. Enter the code FEB26 to get the deal. This lasts to the 20th so get in quick! #WPreorder

I read Wooing the Witch Queen by Stephanie Burgis

I read How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang

Happy Valentine’s Day, from us to you. Tag your exes. Xoxox

I am trying out Storygraph but tbh I'm not sure I can cope with the book page garbage. Learning if other readers thought the characters were 'loveable' is so far from being in the top five things I want to know about a book. Or top 100.

I read Devil's Chew Toy (Hayden & Friends Mystery #1) by Rob Osler

In the queue to book a driving test. Site opens at 6 officially. Logged on at 5.57 and was 10,000th in the For new drivers getting a test is harder than Oasis tickets, but my relative with diagnosed dementia got an instant slot and the DVLA fell over themselves to keep her on the road.

Started watching Ted Lasso (cutting edge over here) and siding strongly with the evil club owner

As it's Ms. Bev's birthday—which should be a #Romancelandia national holiday—here's a few of my favorite Ms. Bev heroines! Billie, Destiny's Surrender Teresa, Wild Sweet Love Maggie, Night Hawk Jessi Rose, The Taming of Jessi Rose Kate, Topaz Spring, Wild Rain Loreli, A Chance at Love Viveca, Vivid

This was the first KJ Charles book I read and then I read another 26 in the same calendar year 😊

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen is going on sale today! Snap it up for $1.99. Gentleman/smuggler romance with awkward families, sinister secrets on the marsh, bugs. It's on sale wide but I'm not going out to the shed in this weather so here's the kobo link

We had a whole day yesterday when it didn't rain and now we are paying a thousandfold for our hubris. It's like a Greek tragedy but with weather instead of incest

At the Saracens match. Behind us, a small child shouts, "Yay, Leicester got the ball back!", and added the most incredible MUWHAHAHA supervillain laugh I've ever heard.

You may laugh, but the Macbeths are a much better role model for a marriage than Romeo and Juliet. They discuss their problems (killing the king of Scotland), share their hobbies (killing the king of Scotland), and resolve their conflicts (by killing the king of Scotland).

Up at 5 to take Mr KJC and Jr to the airport. It's now just me and the cat for a week. I'm going to clean the house and then sit here watching it stay clean for a while.

My elderly cat's still got it! And when I say it, I mean a mouse in the sitting room.

A new blog post! In which I talk about the challenges of describing viewpoint characters without doing the Mirror Thing.