Review: This Charming Man

This Charming Man by C.K. McDonnell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The second book in the series about a Manchester newspaper called The Stranger Times which reports every conspiracy theory, alien abduction, werewolf sighting, ghost haunting, and generally anything a bit woo-woo. Unfortunately, in the first book they discover that much of what they have been reporting is not, in fact, garbage, but actual events caused by supernatural beings who have been hidden in plain sight. However, the one thing that everyone agrees is that vampires do not exist. Unfortunately, someone has forgotten to tell the vampires, as one has just jumped in front of a bus and killed himself.

And if that isn't enough, the editor has sacked the plumbers so there are no lavatorial facilities, someone is trying to kidnap one of the staff, the editor and Grace have come up with a new swearing system, and assistant editor Hannah is trying to keep it all together.

I felt that this sort of lost its way in the middle, although in the end everything came together and I could understand why the story had meandered off into the various sub-plots because it all made sense in the end I did struggle a bit.

People are comparing this to the late, great Terry Pratchett which I think is over-egging things, I'd say more Pratchett-adjacent. But if you enjoy very British swearing (think of calling someone a one-ing five), extreme sarcasm, and the supernatural then I think you will like this series.

I received an ARC from the publisher vie NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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