SO let’s just start this by saying I’m an asshole who used to judge Romance. Not romance, like flowers and candy (except don’t ever buy me either, please) but Romance with a capital R. The Romance with the swooning damsels and charming rakes and heaving bosoms and covers like this:
I judged the shit out of it. Starting when I was a kid and I first noticed my mom’s drugstore paperback Harlequin novels lying around. UGH I would exclaim WHY DON’T YOU JUST READ A REAL BOOK.
(I told you I was an asshole.)
LITTLE DID I KNOW that Romance novels were really just lots of different versions of Jane Austen novels, only Mr. Darcy and Lizzie get to bang.
(I know there are Romance novels that take place in other time periods but those aren’t my favorites.)
A few years ago, I kept seeing many of you fine people posting reviews of Romance novels, the covers of which were covered in ladies in frilly dresses and dudes in VERY LITTLE. WHAT IS HAPPENING? I thought. All of these clever people are reading these romance novels…should I?
Yes, I should. So I did. I started with some Courtney Milan, which was a VERY GOOD CHOICE (thank you all), and blew through all of those. I then just read whatever romance novels Malin had given three or more stars (which is a good rule of thumb for all books, really). I don’t know when or how I stumbled upon the Lisa Kleypas Wallflowers series but MY DUDES thank you to whoever posted about The Devil in Winter. I found the other Wallflowers novels to be pretty tepid in terms of the Romance with a capital R (though I did enjoy reading about the Wallflowers’ friendship), but I’ve read The Devil in Winter three times now. Why do I keep coming back to it? I WILL TELL YOU.
- Evie! Our heroine. She’s quiet and unassuming and has a stutter when she’s nervous but super comes into her own, yeah?
- Friends! Everyone is so lovely! And helpful! And I love them!
- A marriage of convenience turning into (spoiler alert) a love match! I love those!
- Cam! Just trying to make his way through a crazy, uptight, racist world.
- Motherfucking Sebastian! I was super skeptical about how Kleypas would undue the shitty things he did in the previous novel but goddamn if this wasn’t an all out tale of redemption.
(It turns out that Sebastians are almost always the heroes of the best novels of a series? Because if you don’t think The Countess Conspiracy from Milan’s Brothers Sinister series is the best one, we’re fighting now? Sorry but not really.)
So, right, the book. Evie’s father is dying, and she’s been left to grow up with her despicable family, who treats her like shit and just wants her money. She comes up with a scheme, to run away and marry the terrible rake, Lord St. Vincent, who needs money (which she has) and can protect her from her family (which he does). Sebastian agrees because, again, he needs the money and finds Evie strangely intriguing. They run away to Gretna Green, get married, and go back to take care of Evie’s dad on his deathbed.
Evie’s father owns a gentleman’s club, and Sebastian takes an interest in running the business, which surprises everyone, himself included. There are lots of obstacles and intrigues thrown in their way, but SPOILER ALERT AGAIN it turns out they end up super loving each other and everyone is so happy and lovely THE END.
Moral of the story? Don’t be an asshole. Unless your name is Sebastian.
First of all, thank you for the lovely compliment about my taste in books, until I know the person really well, I’m usually really nervous about recommending books to people. What if they don’t like it and judge me, even if they’re just someone I know from the internet? That would be the worst.
Second, at least back in my teens, when I first started reading romance (much more uncritically than I do now), I would probably have jumped at the chance to read “Love’s Secret Sniper”. Just look at that lurid cover.
Third, Sebastians frequently make excellent heroes (probably because so many romance authors are inspired directly by Devil in Winter. It’s a classic of the genre.)
No way, your recommendations are always the best DON’T EVER WORRY!
I enjoyed the emotional journey this review took me on. Five stars.
(In all seriousness, one of my favorite things about this community is how non-judgmental it is about whatever you want to read. I used to be ashamed of my romance novel reading habit, and now it is wide out in the open, 100% due to everyone at CBR who is smart and awesome and reviewed romance novels all the time.)
I love that, too! I think for a long time, I felt like I had to read only “smart” books even though I was secretly reading WHATEVER I FELT LIKE. I’m so glad it’s all out there now because I would have missed out on so many good books.
Added to the list!
Yay! I hope you love it!
Yay! He is the Sebastian of all Sebastians. I love this book. It isn’t perfect and yet everything is so right.
So true. I will continue reading it over and over and over THE END.
Now I want to reread this one. :) There are of course worse things.
(I don’t know how you pick a favorite Brothers Sinister book, so I guess we’re fighting? When in doubt, The Governess Affair or bust. But Sebastian and Violet are fantastic and I love the spectacle of it all, Minnie and her glasses kill me and I was so in love with The Duchess War that I reviewed it without actually finishing it first, Kiss for Midwinterprobably has my single favorite scene, Jane speaks to me on a soul level, and Free and Edward and the puppy cannons are legendary.)
#BlameMalin
The Countess Conspiracy is my favorite, too. (Runs away.)
(But I love them all.)
#BlameMalin
The Suffragette Scandal is without a doubt my favourite Brothers Sinister book, with A Kiss for Midwinter
in second pace and The Countess Conspiracy in third (Violet breaks my heart, but I love her so much). Not sure how I’d rate the rest, except The Heiress Effect in last place. Oliver was such a disappointment as a hero.
I, too, love them all! I mostly think Sebastian is the dreamiest and Violet speaks to my whole “feeling feelings is dumb but I GUESS I’ll try” shtick. I also love Minnie and and Freddie and OOPS I guess I need to reread them all.
(The Heiress Effect is my least favorite, too…Oliver is sort of bleh but Jane, I love.)
I think I could definitely give you a run for the money in the category of most snobby looker down of noses on romance novels. I used to be so ridiculously judgy, arrogant and assholish about them until a few years ago when there was a discussion in one of the Pajiba comment sections where I came to the same conclusion – if all these amazing people enjoy these books, surely they can’t be as bad as I think. I picked up Tessa Dare’s Say Yes to the Marquess to test the waters and didn’t like it much but didn’t hate it either, and then last year I decided to try again with Alyssa Cole’s An Extraordinary Union and that one I liked very much.
It’s also important to remember that ROMANCE isn’t just one genre, there’s tons of sub-genres, so just because you read one and didn’t like it doesn’t mean that there isn’t lots of other romance out there you might enjoy. Some people read only contemporaries, some read only historical romance, which again can be separated into sub-genres. Some want lots of smexy times, some want them to be chaste and wholesome (not entirely sure why, but to each their own).
Oh, absolutely – but I am still trying to figure out what I do and don’t like. The field is pretty overwhelming in terms of content and I am kind of finding that it isn’t always sub-genre that matters to me as much as the quality of writing and the characters, regardless of their setting.
That’s part of what makes it hard to pick books to read! There’s so much variety and so many different sub-genres within romance. That’s why I so often just go to Malin’s suggestions. ;)