Devil in Spring (Ravenels #3) by Lisa Kleypas

Cold-Hearted Rake
Marrying Winterborne

Lisa Kleypas continues the story of the Ravenel family by introducing one of the twins from the first two novels to a son from one of the couples in the Wallflowers series, specifically Evie and  Sebastian from Devil in Winter. So, I would advise reading Wallflowers first, although those books weren't my favorites, so do what you will. You could read this book without reading all the rest of them, but you would definitely lose your mind with all the secondary characters.

Pandora is a naive girl when it comes to men. She grew up in an isolated manor home with abusive parents. However, she's ambitious and wants to start her own company making board games. Her sister and brother-in-law want her to go to dances and balls, though, so it's at one of these balls when she has an interaction with Gabriel, Lord St. Vincent and her reputation is in tatters. Pandora does not want to marry anyone since she ceases to be a legal entity once she's married, but Gabriel is handsome and sweet and soon she's questioning her longstanding views.

Interesting characters: Pandora has so much potential.  So much!  But, as I've discussed in the past, characters are not Kleypas's strong suit. Pandora is supposed to be interested in making board games, but she really doesn't think about it at all!  Outside of an adorable scene in which she's thinking about what type of glue a boy child should use to make his kite stronger, she doesn't really think about work. Even when she's visiting a printer, it's all vaguely alluded to what she was interested in.  And we never hear about the actual board game itself  - the design, the rules, whatever. It's just...lazy writing and a seeming lack of historical research.

And Pandora is so naïve as to be stupid at times. She is written to have been sequestered for most of her life, but she's inconsistent from sleeping when she's going somewhere new (it's so boring!) to being a slack-jawed yokel about it. Pick a lane.  

Please don't get me started on Gabriel. I could probably write 3000 words on his lame characterization. He's supposed to be into kinky sex (and I could have DIED OF MORTIFICATION when he was talking to his FATHER about his sexual exploits), but he's just going to settle for this absolutely innocent virgin? AND. AND. He seems to find her absolute idiocy about things adorable and charming?  I don't get it.  I don't get him.

Believable conflict: I mean, this seems believable to me. Pandora doesn't want to get married because her husband takes over identity at that point. He wants to/needs to get married because of societal expectations and the family name. I actually think this book does this theme better than A Rogue of One's Own. 

Emotional tension: Nope. I mean, no. There's no tension. There's nothing else to say about this. I mean, you can kind of discuss their different beliefs about the role of women in marriage, but Gabriel yields to Pandora that she has fair points.  They are hot for each other from the start. You knew they were going to get together and there was no familial disagreement and it was actually pretty conflict free in many ways.

Speaking of, and I do want to speak of it, the meet cute was absolutely hilarious and adorable. That's the thing about this book. It was FUNNY. The dialogue was cute and charming. I also really liked the Evie/Sebastian appearances. I liked them more in this book than in their own book.  

Happily ever after: Hm. It ended.  They were together. And married. Pandora's game is doing well. I guess it's happy.

This is some of Kleypas's best work, but it's just not GREAT work.  The repartee among the characters was topnotch, the meet cute was amazing, it made me laugh, and I liked Pandora's suffragette spirit. But the characters in these books just aren't as well done as I'd like. It's a good book, but I really have hopes that Kleypas can get it exactly right. 

4/5 stars 

Lines of note:
The word "mistress" sounds like a cross between mistake and mattress. (page 72)

Now that this has been pointed out to me, I'll never be able to unsee this.

When she'd seen him before, he'd been constrained in formal black-and-white evening clothes, every inch of him polished and perfect. Now he was in a rather shocking state of undress, coatless and hatless, his shirt open at the throat. (page 81)

EGADS! His shirt was open AT THE THROAT!

Pandora wanted to argue the superiority of carrots over some truly atrocious vegetable, such as Brussels sprouts, but...(page 86)

I like that this book points out how not good Brussels sprouts are.

"I'll never be good at it, but the important thing is to keep trying." (page 92)

This feels like a terrible mantra in life. Like, shouldn't you focus on improvement rather than just simply doing something over and over again?

"Any decent man treats his wife as a partner, as is the case with my own parents."
"I don't doubt that," Pandora said. "But that's the spirit of their marriage, not the legal reality. If your father decided to treat your mother unfairly, no one could stop him." (page 121)

This is some of the whiplash of Pandora. She has never left her home estate, but she's able to clearly explain relatively complex political concepts?  I like this line and I feel this line in my bones, but I'm also absolutely confused by whether or not Pandora is a simpleton.

I'm like a goldfinch, thinking 'Oh, that little cage looks so awfully nice with its gold bars and cozy velvet perch and that dish of millet-seed - it might be worth having my wings clipped for that.' and the when the door latches shut, it will be too late. (page 197)

Kleypas could be so good.

"There's very little in life that doesn't require a compromise of one kind or another. No matter what you choose, it won't be perfect." (page 199)

Ain't that the truth.

Person I looked up:
Bougereau, William-Adolphe - French Classical painter who had an emphasis on the female human body. 

Charity, 1878 by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

P.S. In my review of Marrying Winterborne, I left you with the suggestion that perhaps Helen would die in childbirth because I have read a lot of books about poor maternal health in the Victorian period. Happily, this did not happen. Helen has a bouncing baby in this book.