“He smelled like an expensive forest.”
The goddess of romance writers, Lisa Kleypas, has not lost her clever touch.
What starts as potential ruination and scandal quickly changes into a fierce love match when Gabriel, Lord St. Vincent, and Lady Pandora Ravenel are caught in a compromising position when her dress is caught in the scroll work of a settee at exactly the wrong moment. Encouraged, but not badgered, by her family, Pandora agrees to spend time with her erstwhile seducer despite her very strong and laudable resistance to marriage and her complete loss of civil rights and public identity the moment she becomes someone’s wife. She has plans for a business and doesn’t want to be subsumed by her relationship with a man. Gabriel, on the other hand, is damn sure he wants her to be his wife almost immediately and is eager and willing to accommodate her need to be her own person, if that is what she needs. Huzzah! Things proceed quickly apace with one of those nonsensically condensed romance novel timelines and they are married mere weeks later. Why a young woman who was reluctant to marry would turn around and storm the altar is beyond me, but sure.
The best of the Ravenel series so far, Devil in Spring is still not up to the standard readers are accustomed to from Lisa Kleypas. As in the preceding two books, there were some uncomfortable elements which I did not remember from her earlier works. I went so far as to check a couple of Kleypas books (one Wallflower and one Hathaway) for the patronizing and infantilizing details that caught my eye here. They were absent in those books and especially jarring in this one where so much of Pandora’s character is built around her avowed need for self-direction and independent regard; for example,
- “Easy child…”
- “Poor mite.”
- “…and tuck you in like a good little girl” (after a sex scene)
- “…good girl…”
- “Be a good girl today…”
- “her fist closing in a fold of Gabriel’s shirt like a baby’s”
It’s not just that he sometimes talks to her like a child and always seems to know best, though I don’t appreciate that, it’s that he does it in juxtaposition with their very adult sexual relationship. Additionally, there is a love scene with dubious consent. I understand that the heroes of these books are meant to be seductive and alluring, but in one particular interaction, it was very clear to me that Pandora was reluctant and unwilling to participate in a sexual act. What I had hoped it would be a moment about a completely inexperienced young woman being given time to adjust to new activities turned into a standard, “I promise you’ll like it,” and Gabriel continuning after she has pushed him away. What the hell?
On a more charming note, yes, the reader does get time with Gabriel’s parents, the incomparable Evie and Sebastian, and their family gets a last name. I am hoping that Gabriel’s sister Phoebe, last seen as a screaming infant in Mine Till Midnight, gets her own story, although I will be reluctant to pay for it at this point. The Ravenel books are 0.5 for 3 and while I keep reading and hoping, Kleypas hasn’t yet provided a consistently enjoyable read in her return to historical romance.
A complete summary of Lisa Kleypas’s catalogue, with recommendations (two classics and one of my personal favourites), can be found here. Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful or my streamlined recommendations list.
Drat! I keep hoping for a true return to form and I keep being let down. Oh well, this will just be a borrow from Ellepkay.
I feel like she’s tied to a previous notion of masculinity.
Well.
That just makes my skin crawl.
Ew.
That said, I cackled several times while reading your review.
I read through it very quickly, and while I didn’t like the seduction scene in question, as it seemed to me to be Gabriel pushing Pandora too far too quickly, I did not pick up on all the infantilizing language. I did think he was generally a bit patronising in his ready acceptance of his “quirky and innocent” wife. Also, his “deep dark secret” was dull as dishwater. I still enjoyed this more than the other two Ravenel books and it was great to see Sebastian and Evie again, and I really liked the sibling relationship between Phoebe and Gabriel and their easy banter.
I’m also not entirely sure I needed the shady conspiracy and stabbing sub-plot, but I’m seriously wondering if that was just because it needed to mirror the plot of Devil in Winter more, with one of the couple being at death’s door for a while to spur on the romance. And I’m assuming the unfinished business with the government conspiracy will be resolved in the next book in the series.
The next book is about Ethan whatshisface (who is anvilliciously revealed to be related to the Ravenels somehow in this book, I’m assuming he’s a by-blow or some such) and the lady doctor, if I recall Ms. Kleypas’ announcements correctly.
I didn’t like the subplot either but I was distracted more by all the good girl b.s.
I’m sad to say that I have given up on Ms Kleypas with her recent attempts at historical romance. I don’t know what happened, after the great run she had before, I just know that I can’t abide her new books. I adored Evie and Sebastian’s story so I will just let that live in my memory, or re-read it instead of this one.
I just read this, hated it, and then ran over to see what you thought :)
1. YES on infantilizing. Pandora is written as and treated like a precocious 12 year old. It’s gross.
2. Gabriel is too perfect. He has no growth or character arc. He doesn’t need to grow to be perfect for her. He just IS perfect, aside for some minor and snoozeworthy guilt about his mistress.
3. The entire 3rd act. They get their HEA but the book was too short (?) so an unnecessary 3rd act is BOLTED ON. For no purpose other than to presumably extend page count? To further infantilize Pandora by having her be blithely ignorant of inherent dangers around her? To give her a sexy bodyguard that felt like a setup for his own future romance?
One star. Ew. No.
In retrospect, I do need to downgrade my star rating. I haven’t even gone back to it for the Sebastian and Evie bits.
This isn’t the first Kleypas with Perfect Guy vs. Perfect for Her Guy syndrome. I guess it was a challenge giving Gabriel issues given that he would have grown up in a happy home belonging to the writer’s two most beloved characters.