Author Interview: To Sketch a Scandal by Jess Everlee
In her Lucky Lovers of London series, Jess Everlee invites readers into a lushly imagined queer community tucked inside the glitter and grit of Victorian London. Each book shines a light on a different corner of this world, from scandalous clubs to secret romances, weaving together history, intimacy, and unapologetic joy. With To Sketch a Scandal, Jess turns her gaze to the art world, exploring beauty, objectification, and the complicated layers of secrecy that defined queer life in the era of Oscar Wilde. We sat down with Jess to talk about why this was the perfect moment to bring Warren and Matty’s love story to the forefront.
To Sketch a Scandal (Lucky Lovers of London, #4)
by Jess EverleePublished by: Carina Adores
on July 22, 2025
Genres: Adult, Historical Fiction, LGBTQIA+, Mystery, Romance
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Forbidden love is an art all its own
London, 1886
Barkeep Warren Bakshi is happy with the secrets that he keeps—those of the patrons he serves at underground queer club The Curious Fox, and his own.
But when Warren’s long-lost brother returns, bringing unexpected wealth to the Bakshi family, his elevated status requires more dignified pursuits. An art class seems an ideal way to keep questions at bay, until it reunites him with the subject of his recent fantasies—a man Warren’s boss has expressly forbidden him to pursue.
Detective Inspector Matthew Shaw has brought some of London’s worst criminals to justice. With laws against homosexuality on the books, meeting Warren could detonate his undercover case—and his career. But when his artistic deficiencies prove a greater threat than his desire, Warren is the only person he can turn to for help.
Private drawing tutorials give way to an affair that may put more than their jobs in jeopardy. But real life is infinitely more complicated and surprising than any lessons could prepare them for…
Lucky Lovers of London
Book 1: The Gentleman's Book of Vices
Book 2: A Rulebook for Restless Rogues
Book 3: A Bluestocking's Guide to Decadence
Book 4: To Sketch a Scandal
Interview with Jess Everlee
Each book in Lucky Lovers of London explores a different facet of queer life in Victorian London. What drew you to center To Sketch a Scandal around art and secrecy, and how does it expand the world you’ve been building?
The reason I chose to set the series in Victorian London in general was because I was so interested in researching what underground queer communities might have looked like during the time of Oscar Wilde and his friends. During that research, it was clear that the lives of those men were very much enmeshed with the art, performance, fashion, and literary scenes of their time and place. Earlier books in the series touch on the other themes, but I’d left the world of art unexplored up until now.
In addition to the real-life queer people in the art world, much of the queer literature we have from the time featured artists and artwork, Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray being the most famous. A theme that comes up a lot during this time is the notion of “ideal” forms of male beauty. Earlier in the series, the characters of Matty and Warren are each seen by their communities as being examples of these ideals — Matty as the blonde-haired, blue eyed “Grecian Ideal” and Warren a subtly exoticized “Eastern” beauty, both of which are depicted regularly in the literature I found.
While their looks are played for laughs in the earlier books, I wanted to take the time to explore the objectification these two might have experienced; to let the isolation of having been idealized be what brings them together to finally investigate what’s under the surface. I liked how that theme would play out in a literal art class, where they may be getting together to draw one another’s physical forms, but it’s the inner world they end up falling in love with.
As for secrecy, all gay relationships at this time have an element of it, but I liked that Warren and Matty have a secondary layer. Because Warren works against the law, and Matty works within it, even the underground community doesn’t want to see them together. It just struck me as an interesting twist on the obvious forbidden aspect of the relationship.
Warren and Matthew’s story is full of tension between desire and danger. How do you strike the balance between the swoony romance readers crave and the very real risks queer folks face in this era?
To me, it’s this balance between the dark and the sweet or witty that makes the Victorian Era so special! I think the most important thing is to choose characters in situations that lend themselves to happy endings. I don’t write about people of status, or people in the public eye — all the Lucky Lovers of London books feature very ordinary, middle-class people who are surrounded by family and friends who generally wish them well, even if they don’t always understand.
Dangerous as the laws were at the time, socially it was actually accepted to see very intimate and even “romantic” relationships between people of the same sex. So long as there wasn’t suspicion or proof that it tipped toward the sexual, it was certainly possible for lovers to live their lives, particularly for women. I just always try to choose characters whose circumstances allow them to live this out in the end. They also all have the special queer community of the Curious Fox to land in, and building that community out gives the characters some cushion.
Matty is sort of the exception to this rule, being a detective at Scotland Yard, and almost entirely isolated when the book begins. What sort of saves him is that Scotland Yard, at the time, was not very popular with Londoners. They don’t wish Matty well, but they also don’t really want to find him out, because it would have been a very bad time for the police to encounter more scandal and fall even further in public esteem. So it’s just kind of finding details like that in the history, and leaning into them. Queer people had to be very creative when building their lives at this time, so I try to stay creative too!
Across the series, you’ve created a network of characters whose lives intertwine in delightful and sometimes scandalous ways. When you start a new book, do you already know which side characters will step into the spotlight next, or do they surprise you?
The Lucky Lovers of London began with a vision of a boldly textured, scandalous club, full of fun characters who represented different sides of queer life in the Victorian context — a dandy, a drag queen, a matchmaker, a butch, a beauty. By the time I had finished populating the Curious Fox in the first chapter of The Gentleman’s Book of Vices, it was clear I had a few good characters to work with in the next books: David and Noah in A Rulebook for Restless Rogues, Jo in A Bluestocking’s Guide to Decadence, and finally Warren in To Sketch a Scandal all appeared in this first chapter, and I knew they’d be back. I started with David and Noah, because David was just a lost cause for Noah from the beginning, so it was easy to jump into their story.
Jo and Warren, on the other hand, didn’t have any obvious love interests until I’d written the second book. Jo was easy after Noah’s sister Emily was introduced, but I actually didn’t think to put Warren and Matty together until I got a few questions from readers about whether Matty would get a book — he’s sort of a small and mysterious side character in Rogues, and I didn’t have any plans to bring him back. But when it was time for Warren to get his book, and I was considering the side characters I had to work with, that link of being held up as “too pretty to be allowed” struck me, and I knew they’d be really special together.
