Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas is the third book in the Wallflowers series. This book is absolutely beloved by the romance reading population, making all kinds of lists and the romance novel subreddits are out of their minds over it. So, what I'm saying is that I had high expectations.
Evangeline (Evie) Jenner is a wealthy heiress. She is, however, also at the mercy of her abusive family. She knows that they'll marry her off to her obese and greed cousin to get her money if she doesn't get married soon. Her father is on his deathbed and Evie has got to make some decisions. She's shy, frequently stutters, but she makes a daring decision to approach Sebastian, Viscount St. Vincent, a titled gentleman who is nearly destitute, and ask for a marriage of convenience. The thing is, in the previous book in this series, It Happened One Autumn, St. Vincent had KIDNAPPED Lillian Bowman and tried to force her to marry him before Westcliff came to the rescue and kicked St. Vincent's ass. St. Vincent isn't just a rake, he's a terrible, terrible villain.
They manage to get married, St. Vincent saves Evangeline from her evil family, Evie manages to never be shy again, and they fall in love.
Interesting characters: I think I'm just too picky. St. Vincent is an interesting character and Kleypas does an interesting job of taking a character you think is completely irredeemable and making him interesting, but I'm a bit tired of all the daddy issues the men in this series have. But Evie is so inconsistent. She's supposed to be shy and stammering and the stammer all but goes away and she talks to servants, workers, and lot of other people without problem. I just didn't buy it. She's either shy or she's not. I might buy that her shyness recedes when she's close to someone, but it doesn't explain how she's able to easily communicate with strangers.
I speak from experience. My sister was PAINFULLY shy well into her adulthood. Countless times I had to talk to waiters for her, go up to get extra ketchup at a fast food restaurant, or talk to the pharmacist for her about her concerns with her medications. This didn't just go away magically one day when she met her husband and she'll still eat the wrong damn thing if a server doesn't give her the correct order. I just found the character of Evie to be frustrating. I wanted her to retain her characterization, but for her to still fall in love and be fallen in love with. *heavy sigh* *end rant*
Believable conflict: Yes. In this book, I find it easy to believe that Evie's family wants to take advantage of her. I find it easy to believe that a profligate rake would be unable to accept that he's developing feelings for someone, especially someone he has overlooked for so long. I believe there would be tension between Evie's understanding of their marriage that they have sex once to consummate the marriage and then they could lead separate lives and St. Vincent's understanding that now Evie was his to protect.
Emotional tension: There's no tension here. Each of them is in instalust with one another, despite St. Vincent having seen Evie many times at social events. They have this instant sexual chemistry and we know they're both developing feelings immediately. There was absolutely no edge of the seat, will they or won't they? suspense at all.
Happily ever after: I finished this book a few days ago and I've already forgotten the ending. I'm sure it's something about babies because that seems to be Kleypas' go to.
I just really wanted more from this. It's a fun, easy read, to be sure, but I think it's possible that Kleypas is just not for me. There's one more book in the series and I'll read it to finish it out, but I'm probably not going to move on to other Kleypas books from here.
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