B+
Genre: Historical: European, Romance
Devil in Spring was so delightful that I read it slowly because I had to take frequent squee breaks. I truly cannot sufficiently express how overjoyed this book made me. That said, I don’t think it will be everyone’s catnip, because the main character sometimes seems overly young and naïve, even given her character quirks (more on those later).
Additionally, there is a huge gaping issue that I simply must address AT ONCE.
Here’s the issue: The heroine, Pandora, is about to manufacture and sell a board game – the first in what she intends to be a long line of board games. The entire conflict between Pandora and the hero, Gabriel, is based on her not wanting to marry because she would lose control of her business. And yet, tragically, the game is only slightly explained, and not explained at all until page 271.
Surely there are romance readers who are also gamers, and, well, gamers are not going to stand for this kind of thing. I guarantee that if I tried to explain this book to my husband, I would never be successful, because he would keep asking me game questions and I would keep saying, “I don’t know.” Pandora herself would never stand for this. What is the game about? How do you play? Are there similar board games? What makes hers different? Are there dice, or playing cards, or what? THE PUBLIC HAS A RIGHT TO KNOW.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I can return to the squee. Devil in Spring is the third book in the Ravenel series. It follows Marrying Winterborne ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), in which we met Pandora, the younger sister of Helen, the heroine of Marrying Winterborne. Pandora is found in a compromising position with Gabriel at a ball (it’s a very funny, and very complicated story involving a lost earring and a settee with acanthus scrolls).
Pandora is adamant that she does not want to marry. She is a board game inventor and an astute businesswoman. If she marries, Pandora will lose all legal rights to her business and her income. Pandora also considers herself to be ill-suited for marriage. She is socially awkward, easily distracted, and has trouble with her sense of balance due to an inner ear problem. She misreads social cues and is forgetful. For Pandora, managing a large household would be a nightmare.
Meanwhile, Gabriel is resigned to the idea of marrying Pandora, and as the book progresses he becomes more and more enamored of the idea (and of her). However, the more Gabriel falls for Pandora, the more protective of her he becomes, even though he has promised to respect her independent nature.
I loved the humor in this book. There’s quite a bit of witty banter not to mention such divine moments of physical comedy as the “Pandora vs. the Settee” scene. I also loved the dynamics between the many supporting characters. Pandora’s family is very clear that they will not force her to marry. Gabriel’s family is warm and welcoming to the awkward Pandora. There are even servants with actual names and personalities, including the maid who bosses Pandora around in hopes that Pandora will just once act like a lady, and a bodyguard/footman who terrifies every child he meets.
Pandora can come across as a bit of a mad scientist but she can also come off as stunningly childlike due to her naïveté and her playful nature. For the most part, I adored Pandora because I loved her sense of drama, her sense of humor and self-awareness, and her delightful combination of persistence (nothing will make her jeopardize her board game business) and distractibility (while walking on the beach, she wanders about gathering so many shells in so many different directions that someone has to lead her back to the Winterborne home – as she puts it, she “walks in circles.” At times, alas, I felt that she veered from quirky to twee, which I found much less charming. I suspect readers will either love Pandora or find her unbearable, depending on where they place her on the ‘eccentric’ to ‘cutesy’ spectrum.
Gabriel is a more conventional character, but I liked his dynamic with Pandora. He accepts her for who she is and he treats her with respect, although he is prone to manipulation at times. When Pandora announces that she does not like the new footman Gabriel hired (he actually hired the man to be her bodyguard) he lays on a sob story that is completely fabricated and devastatingly effective:
“Of course, we’ll replace him if you wish. But it would be a pity. Drago grew up in an orphanage and has no family. He’s always lived in a small room at the club. He was looking forward to living in a real household for the first time in his life and seeing what family life is like.”
Poor Pandora doesn’t stand a chance.
Towards the end of the book there’s some drama that I thought was unnecessary, although it does let Dr. Gibson play a role in the story. Dr. Gibson showed up in Marrying Winterborne. She’s a female surgeon, and she gets to show off her capabilities to a skeptical Gabriel in this book.
As a bonus, the Afterword includes some information about women’s property rights, the invention of Monopoly, and a recipe for blancmange!
Truly, for me, this book is a delight. As I said, it will be a love it or hate it book for some readers. I’m sticking with a B+ grade because I can’t let the missing details about the game slide and I think Pandora’s characterization was somewhat uneven. However, the humor, the acceptance of an odd character by both a romantic partner and the two families, and the general sense of warmth made me adore this as a comfort read.
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I loved this book too. I have enjoyed all of the books in this series, & I hope we see more of Dr. Gibson in future books.
I loved it so much I read it twice back to back. I had some of the same problems with Pandora but I adored Gabriel. The few scenes between Gabriel and Sebastian were worth the price of the book IMO. I think what kept it from being a solid keeper for me was that it felt as if she was going somewhere interesting with Gabriel’s character. He alluded to some dark kinky tastes in the bedroom that he was ashamed of? I’m not sure because aside from the tantalizing hints and the one scene with the corset nothing ever came of it. I also hated that Cassandra just sort of disappears in this book. They were so close in the two previous books and here she sort of just poofed away.
I guess the next book will be Doctor Gibson’s but no idea who she will be paired with. The mysterious Ransom? I read somewhere that it’s supposed to be the last in the series which leads me to wonder about West and Cassandra’s stories and if maybe there’s will be another connected series about the rest of Evie and Sebastian’ s children. Lady Phoebe needs a HEA!
I agree with your points in this review, except you buried the lede when it comes to Gabriel. He’s not Gabriel Winterborne, he’s Lord St. Vincent and the son of the hero and heroine in Devil in Winter. Dude!
I couldn’t stand Pandora’s character in the earlier Ravenel books, so I thought she was well handled here (if, yes, a bit twee).
I tend to like characters like Pandora partly because I AM someone like Pandora. (As a romance-reading gamer *raises hand* who hasn’t read this, I’m picturing Merrill from Dragon Age 2, whom I adore forever and ever. Like her, I once went grocery shopping and got lost for several hours.)
While not a romance reader, I gave this one a try — and thought it was mediocre. (Spoiler-free review up at http://thearmchaircritic.blogspot.com/2017/02/devil-in-spring-by-lisa-kleypas.html ) It felt like 85% of the book was the main characters’ continual “I can’t possibly marry him/her — but I get all tingly every time I’m near them!” It’s also worth noting that Gabriel is a “reformed rogue” who, before getting involved with Pandora, has fooled around a lot and even has a married mistress. And as an avid/rabid gamer, I was disappointed that about the only details we got about the board game were its title and the glue used to hold it together. In addition to Carrie S.’s questions, I wondered: Was it for adults, kids, or both? Was it a satire or a good-natured game?
As for spoilers, the big menaces not only happened very near the end of the book, but also happened in the same chapter; their proximity made me wonder if they were related, while it was just a coincidence. Also, there’s another Kleypas book (can’t remember which one) where the heroine had been injured, the hero won’t sleep with her due to fearing for her safety (despite being assured it would be fine), and the heroine essentially has to seduce the husband.
I was fine donating this book to a local book collection once I finished with it.
I liked the book, it’s a keeper, but not as good as “Devil in Winter.” I want to see future books with Garrett and Phoebe as central characters, especially Phoebe. I really liked Pandora; Gabriel was perfect and I wish he were less so. Please, please may I have more Sebastian and Evie scenes in future books, to me those glimpses were a definite highlight.
I had mixed feelings about this book. While I was immersed in it I loved it, A++, a million out of ten, all that. But when I finished I wanted to squee about the book but little details niggled and I just couldn’t. It felt like Pandora was supposed to have ADHD, with her being easily distracted and having kind of racing thoughts and all that, and if that was the case I think it was a poor portrayal of ADHD because real ADHD isn’t charming and quirky and adorable, it’s frustrating both for the person who has it and for other people even if they love the person who has it.
And I agree with @Gigi about being disappointed in how Gabriel’s “dark, dirty, too awful to be explained” tastes in the bedroom were never really examined. It hit a little to close to the 50 Shades of Grey thing where falling in love erased those desires from him and is both unrealistic and inadvertently kink-shamey. I’d love to read a romance that involves kinky sex and isn’t all about kinky sex, and I hoped that was going to happen here but was ultimately disappointed.
Beyond that I agree with Carrie that the suspenseful drama did feel unnecessary and the lack of description of the board game really stood out. If Pandora was prone to blurting out whatever she was thinking I feel like it should have been mentioned much more frequently. And I wished for more scenes with Pandora and her family. I feel like we saw a lot of Gabriel interacting with his family, and Pandora interacting with his family, but not nearly as much as her interacting with Cassandra (especially after she decided to get married).
I don’t know, I did really like reading the book, but those little things really detracted from the overall experience for me.
Here’s my quandry – I LOVE Devil in Winter. It’s a Desert Island Book for me. But I also realize that this isn’t a book about Evie and Sebastian, so I’m not going in expecting it to be an actual sequel.
So here’s my question – if I really couldn’t stand Pandora in the last two books, does she grow up enough for me to be able to stand her in this one?
This downloaded to my Kindle on release day but I haven’t read it yet. I leave for vacation on Sunday and I’m starting this book as soon as I get on the plane. I’ve been waiting for the review, though, so I could have a little taste. I reread the other Ravenel books in the meantime so I won’t have to stop and wonder who’s who.
I was at Powells last night for Lisa Kleypas’ reading/book signing, and instead of reading from Devil in Spring, she read from her WIP–and it is indeed Dr. Garrett WhatsHerLastName and the handsome, somehow-related-to-the-Ravenels-bcz-those-eyes Ransom detective guy. Should be a fun read when it’s published.
I am a MASSIVE Lisa Kleypas fan – seriously, I rarely buy/own books (I’m a librarian who can request books to be sent to me easier than I can find room for books in my house) but I own several of hers to reread – and I’ve been disappointed with the Ravenel series so far. I mean, I’ve still read and moderately enjoyed them, but Kleypas has set the bar so high that even a decent read doesn’t necessarily measure up. I found the heroes far too overbearing and manipulative in the last two.
I’m looking forward to the WIP that Meg mentioned, though – I definitely want to read more about Doctor Garrett!
Plaintive query: Is this story set in a particular time and place, or is it a generic “once upon a time in the bad old days in an unnamed English-speaking country”? See, I was fine with the losing-control-of-her-business thing: OK, we’re before the Married Women’s Property Act. (Technically, before the first of two related acts that came about ten years apart: The one that allowed married women to keep their earnings.) But then we get to “female surgeon” and, uh, there weren’t any.
@louise it’s set in 1876. Dr. Garrett is definitely presented as an anomaly and IIRC she earned her qualifications by studying with Dr. Lister so it’s not like, “Oh yeah, I was one of dozens of women in my Oxford med school” or something. Dr. G. is also able to knock out would-be attackers with a walking stick, so…yeah, I don’t know. I can’t remember if Kleypas went into how unlikely it would be to encounter a female doctor in her author’s note.
@genie I found Pandora to be less annoying in this book than the other two, but she’s still flighty and makes up words.
I. LOVED. THIS. BOOK.
Honestly, I didn’t care one whit that we didn’t get specifics about the board game because that wasn’t the point. (Not to mention we also get some board game info back in Marry Winterborne. And, as an aside, I don’t think this is a series you can read as stand alones. So far each book has included a great deal of info important to the next book, and the next book jumps right into the action- think Helen and Winterborne’s relationship in Cold Hearted Rake). The point was Pandora valued her independence above everything else and would not sacrifice that independence for anyone, period.
It was made perfectly clear to both Gabriel and Pandora that they did not have to marry. For me, the whole plot was “How will these two people get to their HEA *together*?” Anything else was secondary.
Which brings me around to my only complaint- the whole bomb plot was extranious and unnecessary. I get it was a set up for Dr. Gibson, but whatever. Had it been the main plot it would have been fine, but it wasn’t needed.
I am usually not a fan of “quirky” heroines, but I honestly loved Pandora. I didn’t feel for one moment that Kleypas wrote her that way just for kicks and giggles. There was some major trauma there, and Pandora developed coping techniques in the best way that she could given her situation. I loved the scene where Gabriel realizes that there are legitimate reasons beyond her control for why Pandora is the way she is.
Gabriel quickly moved into my top 5 of romantic heroes. He’s got his father’s looks BUT HE IS FUNNY. Gabriel takes his responsibilities seriously, but he doesn’t take *himself* seriously, and I loved that.
One of the funniest scenes in the whole book is when he is trying to tell his father why he carries on with a married woman (There’s NO WAY Kleypas wasn’t taking a dig at Fifty Shades and its “My tastes are very….singular” moment”) and Sebestian is all “LOL no dude. You didn’t invent any new sex thing. Get over yourself.” Gabriel really *wasn’t* a rake like his father- he only *thought* he was.
I was a late Devil in Winter fan. I read it a few years back and promptly forgot about it. I re-read it after reading Marrying Winterborne and finding out there was going to be a sequel of sorts, THEN I fell in love. I think this one is better.
@Louise – Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from Geneva Medical College (now Hobart William Smith) in 1849. The New England Female Medical College was established in Boston in 1848, and the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania was founded in 1850. A handful of women besides Blackwell earned degrees from medical schools normally open to men throughout the 1850s and 1860s, many of them making trans-Atlantic travel to do residencies. By 1868, the Blackwell sisters had founded the New York Medical College for Women, which trained the next generation of female physicians and surgeons. Mary Edwards Walker, who graduated from Syracuse Medical College in New York in 1855 is recorded as a US Army surgeon in 1863. She married a classmate and fellow doctor, and kept her own name for professional purposes.
Mary Putnam Jacobi, who graduated from the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1864 went on to study at the Ecole de Medecins at the University of Paris. She was the first woman student there, and graduated in 1871.
So by 1876 female surgeons would have been extremely rare, but not impossible if they were willing to bounce back and forth across the Atlantic to get training. (The weird thing is that there were surgeons who weren’t legally allowed to vote or own property, but that’s another story.) Adding one more fictional one might have significantly upped the percentages, but it’s not out of all probability.
As perhaps a side note and question: my understanding is that in the UK (at least until relatively recently) PHYSICIANS were addressed as “Doctor” while SURGEONS were called “Mr.” (or in this case “Miss”). Anyone on the other side of the pond care to elucidate?
Thanks very much, @JennyME – I’d forgotten about the making up words thing so the advance warning is much appreciated. I’ll give it a go, but it’s a “wait for the library to get it in” book. (I need to start a support group for romance readers who seem to hate all the books everyone else loves)
Lisa spoke last night about research she’d done into female doctors in Britain in the 19th century–seems there was ONE and she basically got accredited by sneaking in through some technical loophole (my brain did not retain the details). At which point the medical establishment promptly closed up that loophole, and there weren’t any more female physicians for another 20 years. Thanks, guys! Way to promote readily available health care!
I imagine she’ll have the info in her author’s note for the book when it’s published.
BTW, Powell’s Tweeted announcing her appearance to promote her new book “Devil in the Spring” and I was like, “Uh, no, that sounds like a horror book where Beelzebub comes out of an innocent-looking water source. Whole different genre.”
Mild Spoilers, quibbles ahead:
I loved the banter, quirkiness, charm, Sebastian and Evie but felt an imbalance with Gabriel and Pandora. Gabriel tried to address Pandora’s concerns, but I felt she didn’t make any effort to address his (being a duchess). I would have liked her to tackle it as she did with her board game (hire a Social Secretary, put Ida in charge of her wardrobe, talk to Evie about how she could fit, etc).
The game, yes, the game. First, the title “Shopping Spree”, is it meant only for females? I don’t know many males now that would be interested in a department store game. (Maybe if it was centered a town instead?…) Second, hand tinting 500 boards would be incredibly expensive (even if she paid sweat shop wages). Since she runs the factory, she could employ women to do pasting, assembling, etc. if she wanted to give women jobs.
Agree about the bomb plot out of left field. She could have re-introduced Dr. Gibson in other ways. Speaking of Dr. Gibson, why did it take a year and half for Dr. Gibson treat Pandora for the ear/balance issue?
Thanks for the tip. COuld def use a cheer-up about now and this book is right at the top of TBR pile. Wait–I can still have a “TBR pile” in my ereader, amirite? xxoo:-(cf
I really really really wanted to love this book. And for the most part, I liked it. I loved the glimpses of Sebastian & Evie (admittedly why I wanted to love this story so much), I enjoyed the banter between Pandora & Gabriel, and I loved their family interactions. Side note that I liked the Ravenels much better in this book than the previous two.
BUT…
This book felt SO uneven to me. There were parts that were just stellar (see above), but there were parts that I just couldn’t ignore. The big thing for me was Pandora’s ear problem. I’m an audiologist, I deal with ear problems multiple times a day, and I spent 90% of the story trying to figure out exactly what the root of her problem was. Most people would probably not notice or care about that, but I certainly did.
The bomb plot? WTF? I was incredibly annoyed about how random it was. Hello unnecessary plot device!!
I also didn’t *love* Pandora. I thought she was ok, but she never seemed fully fleshed out.
Finally, and probably my biggest issue, I never really felt like Gabriel & Pandora were “in love.” Sure they liked each other, and they turned each other on, but I was never 100% sure that they were supposed to be together. It seemed like she would have been ok with going on alone, making her board games, and he would find someone who could keep up with his kinky bedroom interests. Their relationship never really clicked for me.
Someone above said that Kleypas has spoiled them, and I would agree. She has some spectacular romances in her backlist (Wallflowers/Hathaways), and while this would be pretty good for a lot of other authors, I was just *so* underwhelmed. I wanted to love it, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t (mostly because I’ve been underwhelmed by the whole series thus far). I’d give it a B-.
@Meg – I actually once DID read a book in which a devil comes out of a spring. It was disappointing, though.
I really loved this book on the first read, but a re-read was less enjoyable. I couldn’t get a grip on Gabriel’s character except that he was nice and decent. I feel like the book needed those extra 50 pages to give him more room to go from “how can she be a duchess?” To “I must marry this girl”. I mean, I thought his concerns about how she would handle the demands of the title were really valid and needed to know what brought him around. I also thought the maturity gap between Gabriel and Pandora bordered on squicky. And, as others have pointed out, the drama at the end felt utterly tacked on. Still, it was worth the read,but I liked Marrying Winterborne a lot more.
Eh, I’ve been disappointed with Kleypas’ return to historical romance and I have no desire to read this one. I’ll stick with Sebastian and Evie’s book, thank you very much.
I agree with pretty much all of the above comments.
I especially felt like Gabriel just immediately loved Pandora. He went from reluctant suitor to love-struck-I-must-marry-this-girl without any real development. I kept wondering . . . why?? There were allusions to other parts of his character that we never saw- feeling judged based on his parents past behavior, the bedroom stuff that was quickly dropped, his business involvement in the gambling club. It seemed to be mentioned once and then not brought up again.
I didn’t dislike Pandora but I agree with previous comments about how her twin was completely taken out of the story and had almost no involvement at all. Plus, Pandora came across as so immature in the first book I couldn’t get over her being a serious businesswoman in this book. THen again, I haven’t really loved the Ravenal serious so far and the books have been mostly forgettable to me. I wondered if I forgot some character development from the second book.
And finally, the whole Irish bomb plot thing came out of left field and was completely pointless. It didn’t even add its, I’m assuming, intended suspense because there was no connection with any other part of the story. It was just totally random. I would rather the suspense have been with his mistress and her comments and continued from there.
I mentioned on another thread how I was disappointed by this book. I wanted to love it and I certainly didn’t hate it. There were a handful of things that were off enough to really impact how I felt about the book overall. The biggest was that I didn’t see enough evidence of an emotional connection between Pandora and Gabriel, there was plenty of sexual attraction but I hate when sex stands in for romantic relationship development. The second was the unnecessary suspense plot near the end which was out of the blue and sort of a incomplete and was only worthwhile because of Garrett. Devil in Spring was almost there but somehow just missed hitting the mark for me.
@Rebecca:
my understanding is that in the UK (at least until relatively recently) PHYSICIANS were addressed as “Doctor” while SURGEONS were called “Mr.” (or in this case “Miss”).
It’s because the UK was practically the last place on the planet to integrate surgery into medicine (predictably, it happened in Germany at least a century earlier). So doctors had degrees from medical school, while surgeons had more of a hands-on, apprenticeship-type training. Apparently it never occurred to anyone post-1859 that it is decidedly silly to stop calling someone Doctor if they get more education.
Is the book set in 1876? That’s exactly midway between the two Married Women’s Property Acts. (But only the first one, involving a married woman’s earned income, would seem to be relevant here.) And two years after the founding of the London School of Medicine for Women. Women took licensing exams together with the men, but heaven forbid they should sit side by side in class, or stand side by side at the dissecting table.
@Meg
she basically got accredited by sneaking in through some technical loophole
That was Elizabeth Garrett (m. Anderson). She took the apothecaries’ exam, because they’d forgotten to make a rule expressly barring women. An oversight they hurried to rectify.
It’s often useful to look for the second woman to do a thing. For example, in medicine, Germany’s second woman doctor was a good 150 years after the first. (I know all this because I’ve been researching for other reasons. A year from now I will have forgotten it all again. But it’s useful while it lasts.)
@Louise-Thanks! I assumed it was something like that (I knew surgeons were considered dodgy until the eighteenth century at least) but wasn’t sure of details. Re: Garrett, as I recall Elizabeth Blackwell managed to do a residency in Paris by getting technically admitted as a student midwife rather than a doctor, although she had already graduated. It was Mary Putnam 20 years later who was admitted to the medical school as a woman. Off topic, but if you’re interested in women in medicine, may I plug Emily Dunning Barringer’s memoirs about being New York City’s first ambulance surgeon? The book is called Bowery to Bellevue, and contains sketches of Mary Putnam and Abraham Jacobi (as older mentors), as well as portraits of what being a surgeon in a public hospital meant around 1900.
Every time the “dark sexual secret” came up I would think “I hope to god he wants her to peg him”. But honestly anything but any sort of 50 shades thing would do. Nothing against it, go for what sails your boat, but I’m tired of it by now.
@Lizzy: Exactly! Devil in Spring is probably the most anticipated historical of 2017 and I was very disappointed too.
I wish KLeypas had waited until Pandora had matured as a woman and after her board game had been manufactured to tell her story. As a successful business woman, well then I could believe she had something to lose by marrying Gabriel.
I liked it. I thought the drama at the end was unnecessary. I wish they had stayed at Gabriel’s country house cause I loved the dynamic there. I really hope Lisa Kleypas does a book for Gabriel’s sister, whose husband died young. I loved the first two in this series, and was a tad disappointed in this one.
Not my fave. I just didn’t feel the love between Gabriel and Pandora. I wasn’t really looking forward to its release since it was Pandora’s story and I didn’t like her from the last book. Surprisingly I liked her in this book. But the story was meh. “Marrying Winterbourne” set the bar really high for me and this one didn’t come close.
I loved it so much! I keep going back to reread my favorite parts. But now I can’t help but want MORE books about the Wallflowers, lol. What have you started Ms. Kleypas?
Kleypas is getting back in form with this latest book! The first two of this series were meh! Maybe because it is related to the Wallflower series I am going a bit easier on it but, I liked it! I loved the father son dynamic beyween Gabriel and his father! So loving and sweet…Gabriel was a mini-me of Sebastian! I wish part of the novel contained scenes of Gabriel growing up alongside his dad! Gabriels’s whole family were the stars of the story! Now for Pandora …. She had her moments, she could be funny, smart and passionate but she was not so well written! There was too much kvetching about why she did not want to get married and not enough about what she was really like, no useful understanding to make her reluctance of the delectable And accommodating Gabe! I am grateful though that Kleypas didn’t take the marriage resistance to the extreme and absurd and let the inevitable attraction happen without hysterics. There were a few elements that were borrowed from Devil in Winter but that was fine since Gabriel’s so much his father’s son and they punched up the story! Now in the Kleypas heyday the game board story would have been interwoven from the beginning of the book to come to the eventually drama of the ending! As a truly independent woman Pandora would have found a way to get the ball rolling on the production of her game since It has been a prominent feature in the two prior books! Anyway, I liked it even though it is still missing the lushness of her prior writing style it is still a good read!
I really wanted to love this book. Devil in Winter is one of my all-time favorites! But I feel into the Pandora-is-unbearable school while reading it, and I could not for the life of me see what Gabriel saw in her beyond simple attraction. I love a good unconventional, ahead-of-her-time heroine in a historical, but Pandora seemed to be stubbornly attached to her game/company idea without actually DOING any of the things that an entrepreneur would need to do. Give me the competency porn!
I didn’t hate it, but I think my bar is set really high for Kleypas novels, and I couldn’t help but be disappointed.
I had given up on Kleypas (sorry to all the LK lovers who reviewed on this page! Does it help that I used to be a HUGE fan, and that this book may bring me back into the fold?) Kleypas used to be an auto buy for me, but she lost me when she came back from her 5 year writing hiatus. Too much was too familiar (downright self-derivative), and therefore I was able to pay too much attention to the flaws. For example…..are there really only 2 character types for heroines (ingenue and prude)? But I really enjoyed the heroine of this book, in spite of the (sigh) ingenue nature of her character. She was lively, intelligent, funny and creative. The hero was endearing, working hard to help the heroine solve the dilemma of this ugly fact: a woman’s loss of every human right you can think of upon marriage. I loved that about him. I also enjoyed the other characters, the rude maid, the monstrous footman (and how the heroine handled them). So I’m in for the next book. I have to admit to some fear that LK will take what is now a strong female character (an acerbic doctor who knows how to handle herself on the mean streets), and make her weaker and vulnerable so the man can be big and strong and rescue her. A common LK failing.
I loved this book as I do all of Lisa Kleypas’. This story was inventive and Pandora’s quirks made it even better. Loved the warmness the family showed her.i didn’t think it was necessary to do unto any more details of the game.
I absolutely loved The Devil In Spring. Lisa K is one of my favorite authors….5 stars 10 stars to this book. My friends and I have shared this book and its going to disappear with me
But Lisa….please do not spoil future books by introducing bondage sex scenes….I dint like it at all. Authors think that’s the way to go buy everyone has their style. You do you Lisa
Love you
Count me as another who would like to see what happens to Phoebe and her siblings. I remember her as an infant in one of the Hathaway books and she was a widow in this one. She needs a book of her own.
And I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing Sebastian. Even in cameo roles, he dominates his scenes.
I just realized this book was out and thank goodness for ebooks because I got it and read it right away, despite being 2 in the morning.
I’d echo a lot of the comments and critiques before me. But I overall enjoyed it so I can forgive a lot of stuff.
That said, I’m going to repeat a disappointment that I had when the book excerpt and announcement about this book came out: I was under the clear impression that Pandora was gay, after Marrying Winterborne’s discussion with Helen. Disappointed that we didn’t go there.
But overall, fun story, I liked it, will recommend.