FEAST OF STEPHEN, charming Christmas coda to the third A Charm of Magpies series

FEAST OF STEPHEN
K.J. CHARLES (A Charm of Magpies #3.5)
KJC Books
FREE DOWNLOAD, also included with Flight of Magpies ebooks

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A Charm of Magpies Christmas coda.

Stephen and Crane have finally got away on their long-awaited Christmas break, along with Crane’s henchman Merrick and Jenny Saint. A promised gift is made, and a request unexpectedly and magically fulfilled…

EARLY BIRTHDAY GIFTS FROM MY KIND YOUNG GENTLEMAN CALLER. THANKS HEAPS, SWEETNESS.

My Review: A trip away from London to celebrate the new family's first Yule together. Stephen Day and Jenny Saint, guttersnipes elevated by Lord Crane's love for one and acceptance of the other, revel in fine new clothes, fine old brandy, and good company with many tales to tell.

But here's what you should really know: The entire series is about making what many of us, and sadly many QUILTBAG folk around the world, do not come with automatically: a logical family instead of a biological family. Crane and Merrick are closer than most people ever become, bonded by their adventures and their utter aloneness in the world. Day, always different, always apart and other, comes to bask in the inclusion he feels when he's with the two men. Now young Miss Saint, whose magical talent is never going to win her friends in the staid community of witches, comes at last to feel what the men are offering her.

She is home.

It makes the fact that we're not getting another tale with these four as its focus for...well...who knows. And that's okay.

(Actually no it's not okay at all and I'd like to take this moment to let Author Charles know that I have a voodoo dolly and a working knowledge of the operations of plantar fasciitis and I'm not afraid to deploy both in service of the need for more stories.)