"Devon Ravenel, London's most wickedly charming rake, has just inherited an earldom. But his powerful new rank in society comes with unwanted responsibilities...and more than a few surprises. His estate is saddled with debt, and the late earl's three innocent sisters are still occupying the house...along with Kathleen, Lady Trenear, a beautiful young widow whose sharp wit and determination are a match for Devon's own.
"A clash of wills...
"Kathleen knows better than to trust a ruthless scoundrel like Devon. But the fiery attraction between them is impossible to deny -- and from the first moment Devon holds her in his arms, he vows to do whatever it takes to possess her. As Kathleen finds herself yielding to his skillfully erotic seduction, only one question remains: Can she keep from surrendering her heart to the most dangerous man she's ever known?"
This book took me only a little over 24 hours to complete, so, despite its length, it was a surprisingly quick read. I used to be very into Lisa Kleypas and her books and thought I'd return to one of my favorite authors. This is the first book in another of her series, so it seemed like a great place to start. Let me start off by saying I think West, Devon's younger brother, was perhaps one of my favorite characters. Though he's a secondary character, I almost felt that he overshadowed Devon at times and that we saw more of him than we did the true male lead in this book. Given that fact, I felt as if the story were spread a bit thinly between too many characters. I can see where Kleypas was going with it -- setting up the other books in the series, and such -- but I think it was at the detriment of the connection I could have felt to the main characters. I vacillated between liking Kathleen's fire and being supremely annoyed with her contrived sense of propriety and flair for dramatic overreactions. She went on and on about being proper and what was "right," and, yet, she seemed to actually do very little of it: "do as I say, not as I do," perhaps? While I initially liked Devon very much, I felt like I didn't see nearly enough of him to really "love" him. So much of this genre relies upon its readers' ability to fall in love with the male leads and truly believe in the love and romance. I think this story felt a little bit shy of that. The biggest issue I will take is that Devon -- a rake who had sworn not to marry or fall in love -- really fell for Kathleen FAR too quickly. He made his resolution to have her after very little time together. Even for a rake, this felt a bit too forced for my tastes, especially given the fact that he spent relatively little time with her. There's lust at first sight and then there's forced romance with little-to-no development. His realization that she spoke to a secret part of him came, I felt, far too quickly. I don't want to make any harsh "accusation" (in quotes simply because I don't feel like it's the right word to use here...), but the love scenes between Kathleen and Devon felt almost..."rape-y." She clearly didn't want the attentions, but this is usually overcome by the female lead's hidden desire for the male lead. I think what was missing here was that hidden desire. Sure, she cared for Devon, but it was nowhere near as developed as it could have, should have been. It made Devon's insistence on a physical relationship almost uncomfortable to read at times. Of course (predictably - because what would this genre be without love), they do, indeeed, love one another, so it almost makes it better in the end. There was the start of an excellent, dark backstory for Devon, but it faded away. It was barely mentioned in his conversations with Kathleen and I feel like that is something that usually creates such a powerful bond between the two leading characters. I feel like their love story was swallowed up in Kathleen's contradictory attitudes/actions, the unreal speed in which Devon decided he wanted Kathleen, the loud voices and big personalities of all the other characters, and the lengths to which Kleypas went to set up the rest of the series. There were also some rather jarring, repetitive word choices. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the few examples I'd pulled (I wish I'd marked the pages), but one that sticks out is "silkier than silk" toward the end of the book. Most of these awkward wordings came in the forms of metaphors and similes I felt were beneath an author of this caliber. The rest of her writing is eloquent and uses an expansive vocabulary, so it simply rubbed me the wrong way (and, quite literally, grated my reading to a halt) when I did stumble across these sections.
Now that all of that is out of the way, I will say that I still did enjoy the book, regardless of all of the above criticisms. I certainly would not have read it as quickly as I did if it had been an unpleasant read. The plot was unique and I liked the premise. All of the characters had very different personalities from one another and I can appreciate the time that Kleypas took to develop them all individually and to help establish the rest of her series (even if I did feel as if that was to the detriment of this particular installment). I recommend it even though I liked it less than I recall liking the rest of the books I've read by Kleypas. I'm intrigued to pick up the next book in the series and see where she goes with it.
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