Devil’s Daughter (The Ravenels, Book Five): Lisa Kleypas

“Although beautiful young widow Phoebe, Lady Clare, has never met West Ravenel, she knows one thing for certain:  he’s the rotten bully who terrorized her late husband while at boarding school.  But when Phoebe attends a family wedding, she encounters a dashing and impossibly charming stranger who sends a fire-and-ice jolt of attraction through her.  And then he introduces himself…as none other than West Ravenel.

“West is a man with a tarnished past.  No apologies, no excuses.  However, from the moment he meets Phoebe, West is consumed by irresistible desire…not to mention the bitter awareness that a woman like her is out of his reach.

“But before long, Phoebe sets out to seduce the man who has awakened her fiery nature and shown her unimaginable pleasure.  Will their overwhelming passion be enough to overcome the obstacles of the past?

“Only the Devil’s Daughter knows…”

Here's yet another May read I'm finally getting around to posting!

This book was another collision between the Wallflowers and Ravenels series by Kleypas.  The way in which she’s able to weave threads of past and present for her characters is masterful and, not to say the least, fun!  I personally really enjoy seeing generations of characters interact; it reminds us that these characters we come to love so dearly in these three-hundred-or-so pages continue to live on even after we close the book.  Their pasts come to haunt them and the lessons they learn can impact their own children.

This story follows West Ravenel, younger brother of Devon (his book is the first in the series) as he continues on his newfound path of determination and hard work on the Ravenel lands.  He’s come a very long way from the lush we first meet in book one.  He’s cleaned up his act, whipped himself into shape, and even managed to create profit from his elder brother’s once-miserable lands.  He’s an innovator who isn’t the least bit afraid of getting his hands dirty.  This, however, doesn’t mean that the rake in him has been completely done away with.

Meanwhile, we met Phoebe in Pandora and Gabriel’s book (the first instance of the collision between the Wallflowers and Ravenels).  She’s Gabriel’s sister; a woman honor bound to follow her dear, late husband’s wishes and determined to raise her two young sons in a happy, healthy environment.  She struggles a great deal with moving on after the loss of her partner and best friend, but her struggles are only made more confusing and difficult after she meets West amongst the bustle of Gabriel and Pandora’s wedding…because West was once the boy who tormented her husband so terribly that he had to be removed from school.

Phoebe is determined to hate West, but it isn’t long before she comes to realize that the children we once were are not necessarily the people we come to be.  Despite her best efforts to put him off, West slowly begins to charm her, unknowingly finding the chink in her armor when it comes to her two little boys.  All the while West struggles to come to terms with the reprobate he once was and the new life he leads.  He feels tremendously guilty for his sins and seems to try to atone for them with a life of backbreaking labor and long hours.  He finds himself drawn to his beautiful, red-haired houseguest…and things between them inevitably heat up.  West finds his senses of right and wrong at war with one another.  What if his past comes back to haunt him?  People may praise him for his current accomplishments, but what if his former depravity bites them all?  What sort of example does that set?

Both Phoebe and West must come to terms with their own pasts and have to realize they can only have a future if they learn to live in the present.

I found West charming, as usual.  He’s been a common thread throughout the series and I’ve always enjoyed his playful sense of humor and razor-sharp sarcasm.  It isn’t often that we get to see a character grow and develop so much in a series within this genre, and I think it truly did take every book for him to finally become the man he was in this installment.  The progression was both believable and entertaining.  I can’t, of course, forget about Phoebe.  I thought she was going to be a depressed little mouse, but I had a pleasant surprise when she turned into a witty firecracker.  Certainly, I knew she had to be one if she was going to be any sort of match for West’s huge personality.  I admired her devotion to her late husband and her sons, but I think it appreciated her ultimate realization that she had to be happy if she was going to make anyone else happy.  This felt like a realistic development (and something that so many people seem to forget).

I found the romance to be moving and passionate.  The development of their love story was captivating and fun – I found myself laughing aloud several times.

Overall, I’m very pleased with this installment in the series and it just might be one of my favorites.