Title: Devil in WinterAuthor: Lisa Kleypas
Published: 2006, Avon
Category: Historical Romance
Rating: 6/10
This is the third book in Kleypas's Wallflower series. I read the first Wallflower book, Secrets of a Summer Night, and thought it was pretty good. But I skipped It Happened One Autumn because I wasn't excited about a whole book about Lillian Bowman.
Evangeline Jenner is the shyest of the four "wallflowers." She has been living with her dead mother's family, who are all cruel to her and resentful of the fortune she will inherit. They will not allow her to go visit her dying father, because he is not a respectable--he owns the biggest gaming house in London. Evie wants nothing but to get away from them, so she goes to ill-reputed Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent and proposes marriage. Sebastian needs to marry an heiress, so off they go to Gretna Green. When they return from Scotland, Evie decides that she won't sleep with Sebastian anymore because she doesn't want to fall in love with him, and she doesn't think that he'd ever be faithful to her. And Sebastian takes over the management of the gaming house and turns out to be more than just a useless aristocrat.
Evie is a nice character--her shyness and insecurities are endearing. And it's good to see her gain confidence as she becomes more secure in her relationships and abilities. But Sebastian was not that convincing as the rake he is supposed to be. I know he did kidnap Lillian in the previous book, but he never really does anything bad in this book! It's a bit of a romance cliche--the rake who we are told is dangerous and bad, but is actually respectful and kind and loving to the heroine. (Though I think this Sebastian is suffering from comparison to the Sebastian in Lord of Scoundrels, which I just read, who is a true scondrel.)
So I did enjoy it, and I'll probably read Scandal in Spring, but so far I'm not a huge Kleypas fan. I have bought Dreaming of You to read next, because, well, maybe I've heard a thing or two about it. :)
And does anyone know how to properly pronounce her name? I've been saying CLAY-pus.
10 comments:
lol. I'm not sure how to pronounce her last name either. I've been saying Clee-pass.
And I've been saying Clay-pas.
This book finally came in at the library today! Yay!!!
So far, I've read three Kleypas books and they haven't made me a big fan either. I really enjoyed Devil in Winter though (I loved Sebastian!) along with Worth Any Price but Dreaming of You I could take or leave.
I don't think you'll like DoY if you didn't like this book much. I won't get into the why as you will see for yousrelf soon enough. LOL
I did like this book a lot but yes, it's hard to be the follow up read to LoS lol
I usually pronounce it Clay-pus, same as you have there.
I loved Sebastian's book .. but not as much as Dreaming of You. I'm finding you either love her work to death or its just meh.
I pronounce it as Clay-pas too, Jennie. And now you've made me curious about LOS.
Dance Chica, you're a woman after my own heart when it comes to Kleypas romance/heroes.
I say CLAY-pas also. I loved DIW ~ it's my favorite of the Wallflower series. I've never read any of the Lord of Scoundrels...I might have to check them out.
If I remember correctly, I think I read it's KLY-pas (like sly)...(I always thought it was CLEP-as before). I think DIW was my favorite of the series, too. And IHOA was my least favorite. Lillian annoyed me - not as much in her own book as she did in SIS, though.
Okay, I didn't read the review only because I didn't want to hit any spoilers. I've heard good things about Sebastian (I like 'em dark) even though I didn't enjoy the first book in the series all that much and haven't read the third. I did love her bowstreet runner books.
I read the last line of your post though about how to pronounce her name.
I have trouble with it and actually have it in 3 syllables. clay-pee-us. Now I have to see if I can change it to the was C2 says it should be done.
I learned recently how to pronounce Mary Balogh's last name. I pronounce it Bay-lowg but she say it sounds like Kellog. So I guess it would sound like Ba-log.
CindyS
Okay, we've got Clee-pas, Clay-pas, Cly-pas, and Clay-pee-us. LOL. Now I'm more confused. I went to her website but didn't see the answer there.
Ah well, we'll just all say it differently. :) Like Cindy says, it's hard to change once you have it in your head as one way.
I'm keeping an open mind about DoY.
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