Devil In Spring by Lisa Kleypas | Book Review

An eccentric wallflower.

Most debutantes dream of finding a husband. Lady Pandora Ravenel has different plans. The ambitious young beauty would much rather stay at home and plot out her new board game business than take part in the London Season. But one night at a glittering society ball, she’s ensnared in a scandal with a wickedly handsome stranger.

A cynical rake.

After years of evading marital traps with ease, Gabriel, Lord St. Vincent, has finally been caught-by a rebellious girl who couldn’t be less suitable. In fact, she wants nothing to do with him. But Gabriel finds the high-spirited Pandora irresistible. He’ll do whatever it takes to possess her, even if their marriage of convenience turns out to be the devil’s own bargain.

A perilous plot.

After succumbing to Gabriel’s skilled and sensuous persuasion, Pandora agrees to become his bride. But soon she discovers that her entrepreneurial endeavors have accidentally involved her in a dangerous conspiracy—and only her husband can keep her safe. As Gabriel protects her from their unknown adversaries, they realize their devil’s bargain may just turn out to be a match made in heaven . . .

Here I am with my 4th Kleypas book! Somehow I’ve turned this year into my Kleypas Reading Adventure, and I’ve been flying through both the Ravenels and the Wallflowers series! I’ve been chronicling it all on my blog, but am spacing the reviews out for some variety. lol. Don’t want you to get tired of me and all this historical romance! Last time I reviewed Devil In Winter, which is the third book in the Wallflowers series. I purposely traveled about 30 years back in time, before the Ravenels, so I could read about Sebastian St. Vincent’s and Evie’s love story. They are the parents of the hero in Devil In Spring, so I knew I had to read about them first. So now it’s back to the Ravenels for the romance between Gabriel St. Vincent and Pandora Ravenel! As always, my main points are bolded.

1. The meet-cute in this book is pretty hilarious, and sets us off on a very romantic and suspenseful journey. Pandora finds herself in a sticky situation while helping her friend avoid getting caught in an even stickier situation. She sneaks away from a fancy ball to find an earring that her friend lost during her secret rendezvous with a man. In the process of finding it, she gets stuck in a piece of furniture and Gabriel stumbles upon her and helps get her loose. But they are spotted, and just like that Evie’s reputation is ruined. Because any time a man and a woman are found alone together during this time period, surely that means that they’ve been getting hot and heavy and her womanly purity has been stolen from her. Gabriel offers to marry her on the spot, but that’s her worst nightmare. In an effort to try and convince her to become his bride, he invites her and her entire family to his family home on the beach so they can all get to know one another. 

2. Pandora bugged me a little bit in the previous Ravenels books. She seemed silly and immature, but I liked her so much more once I got to know her better in Devil In Spring. She’s ambitious and is not the least bit interested in doing the conventional marriage agreement. She’s been working hard on developing her board game company, and wants to be independent and run a successful business. Married women were not allowed to own businesses and make their own money during this time, so as soon as Gabriel and Pandora got married everything she had worked so hard for would become his. She would legally not be allowed to make any business decisions or spend her money as she saw fit. She had no interest in hiding behind her husband, having to ask him to act on her behalf. I completely understood how she felt, and was pulling for her all along. At the same time, though, her reputation has been ruined and not marrying Gabriel would tarnish her family’s reputation as well and her twin sister, Cassandra, might not be able to find a suitable husband because of it. So Pandora is very torn between following her own dreams and protecting her family. Oh, and she’s also kind of falling for Gabriel. Oops! 

So, she’s ambitious, honorable, caring towards her family, and wants to be happy. She’s also challenging societal norms. It’s so refreshing to see a character like this in historical romances. She’s got this sweet innocence about her, as all the Ravenel girls do, because she was so sheltered growing up. I have so enjoyed watching these girls learn and experience the world. Pandora really touched my heart.

3. Gabriel, much like his father, is a notorious rake. He has avoided marriage for years, and has a mistress who takes care of his needs. Now he’s been caught in a trap and wants to do the honorable thing. He does this begrudgingly at first, before being completely captivated by Pandora. Again, he’s just like his dad. All it takes is the right lady to have him changing his ways and falling all over himself for her. And oh my, what a caring and perfect man he is. He doesn’t push Pandora, but instead he wiggles his way under her skin. He endears her to him, rather than outright seducing her and I thought it was so sweet. 

4. Lisa Kleypas sure does know how to write romances that stick with you. The tender affection Gabriel and Pandora have for each other is heartwarming. Pandora is disabled after some trauma at the hands of the family she lived with before, and he takes such care to make sure she feels safe. She can’t dance, so he comes up with a way to dance with her. She can’t see in the dark, so he carries her. He fully supports her business endeavors, and pays the right people off so he can marry her without forcing her to say she will obey him in her marriage vows. He stands by her side no matter what, and falls so deeply and unconditionally in love with her. And he’s willing to wait for her to catch up to him. Wow, these romances just make me so happy!

5. I loved the springtime setting at Gabriel’s beach home! They go to the beach and collect shells, and spend time sitting outside in the sea breeze chatting and looking out at the water. It felt like a little vacation for me.

6. It was so fun to see a salt-and-peppered Gabriel St. Vincent again. And Evie is still so caring and sweet. It’s been around 30-35 years in their lifetime, but only a few minutes for me since I last saw them. They’ve had children and have gotten older, but they love to show us that they’re still the sprightly, and very much in love couple we saw in Devil In Winter. I also loved catching up with Devon and Kathleen and Winterborne and Helen. The Ravenels are such a wonderful family. Devon and Kathleen are Pandora’s guardians, and their views on marriage are so refreshing for the time period. They tell her time and time again that she doesn’t have to marry Gabriel if she doesn’t want to. Devon is the perfect father figure to her, and tells her he just wants her to be happy and to not worry about what anyone else things. Cassandra echoes the same sentiment, not caring at all about what Pandora’s reputation will do to hers. She just wants Pandora to be happy and end up with the life she wants. Oh, and we see Dr. Garret Gibson again, who is the doctor for Winterborne’s employees and advised Helen so much in Marrying Winterborne. I love Garrett, and think she’s the coolest.  I just really love all these characters, and they’re all so unique and have made such an impression on me that I’m remembering their individual stories and personalities from book to book, which I sometimes struggle with.

7. As I’m coming to expect, Lisa Kleypas gives us some danger and suspense in this book again and I loved it! While working on some business things, Pandora stumbles across something she shouldn’t have learned about and things get very dangerous for her. I was so intrigued that I couldn’t put the book down!

All in all, another glowing review from me for Lisa Kleypas! And Devil in Winter ends in a bit of a cliffhanger, with some ends that have not been quite tied up yet so of course I’ve already jumped into the next book: Hello Stranger. Garret gets her own romance, and I looooove where this book is going already. Stay tuned for my review in a couple of weeks!

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