Kit Sawyer is a character who has carved his niche out of the weight of his family’s legacy. Harmon crafts each aspect of Kat deliberately, from his medical issues to his personality, to set him apart from both cliché genre archetypes and the expectations that accompany his last name within his own world. That care pays off, because I immediately became so invested in Kit as a fully developed person that I’d have been fine if his adventure never took him out of his familiar environment.
But Indiana Jones never gets to stay in his comfortable office, so neither does Kit. We follow Kit’s call to adventure into the bosom of his complicated family and then into the depths of the Mexican jungle. The mystery of the external plot involves a decent balance between legitimate historical and archeological research and problem-solving with clues provided by genuinely magical relics that wouldn’t be out of place in an Indiana Jones story. This mystery also forces Kit into unfortunate close proximity with his future love interest, with whom he already shares a complicated and epic history.
Both story arcs are oddly slow burn for the intensity of the situations that Kit and Ethan continuously find themselves in. Harmon’s pacing for both works well, as the low-key supernatural elements teased at the beginning of the book quickly become not so low-key. At moments, I did wonder why Kit wasn’t way more concerned about some of the very personally relevant magical issues affecting him, but I also understood how much the physical toll of their trek can take on mental capacity. Kit’s obliviousness toward Ethan’s true affection for him is more of a long-running habit, and Harmon’s decision to tell this story from a single point-of-view allows the reader to bask in Ethan’s swooniness even when Kit requires a bit longer on the uptake.
I had a blast with these characters and thoroughly enjoyed this queer, modern-day riff on one of my favorite adventure genres. This book leaves space for a sequel but also provides enough closure for each arc not to require one. Readers looking for a significantly different take on paranormal romance or contemporary fantasy should definitely consider adventuring with Kit Sawyer.