Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravanels #1) by Lisa Kleypas

I read the Wallflowers series from this author and was incredibly disappointed. Even the much loved Devil in Winter just had too many problems for me. But I like Kleypas's style and her writing is fluffy and when I saw Cold-Hearted Rake met one of the prompts for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge, I thought I'd give it a try. Well, it turns out that I was misled and it did NOT actually meet the prompt requirements, but let's see how the book turned out, shall we?

Ne'er-do-well Devon Ravanel has inherited an earldom and a falling down, debt-riddled estate after his cousin Theo dies falling off a horse in a drunken temper tantrum. Theo had only been married for three days and his widow, Kathleen, has been living at the estate with Theo's three sisters. Devon and his fellow slacker brother West head to the estate and Devon and Kathleen immediately butt heads.

Interesting characters: The side characters are where it's at in this book. West is interesting in how he takes a few responsibilities and really turns them into his life's work. Theo's sisters include wallflower Helen and incredibly whimsical and delightful twins Casandra and Pandora. Even Helen's erstwhile suitor Winterborne is interesting in his grumpiness. 

But Devon? He's very flat and not actually in the book much. And Kathleen is just acerbic and charmless. I didn't enjoy the main characters very much at all. However, as a set up for a longer series with all these other charming side characters, I was happy.

Believable conflict: Hm. The thing is that this is a lust at first sight thing for Devon and it's not clear to me at all why he would want to be with Kathleen, who is constantly snapping and arguing with him. And Kathleen just sees him as a wastrel. I don't know. I guess this is a couples who bicker situation and I didn't like it. Maybe it's believable, but I'm not sure why anyone would want to be in that situation. 

Emotional tension: Since I really didn't care about these two fools, I didn't notice tension beyond sexual tension, but after a while I was skimming scenes with the main characters because I was only invested in Helen, the twins, and West.

Happily ever after: It's on the page. Spoiler: It's always a baby with Kleypas, isn't it?

Look, this wasn't a hit for me, but I did put the next book in the series on my Libby list because those side characters are delicious.  But this couple? They're not exciting. 

2.5/5 stars