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A review by chloe_liese
Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas
5.0
Well, I started off just browsing the first few pages...and ended up rereading the whole damn book, so that probably tells you all you need to know. There is something so delightfully clever in this story that sets it apart from the other Wallflower books (all of which I don't particularly love and which bear a degree of problematic, dated portrayals of [generally glaring lack of] consent, as well as downright bleak manipulation under the guise of love and desire). How deliciously, ironically satisfying that the book in this series that is arguably the most overtly *not* about love and that embraces a cold-blooded strategic marriage of convenience, turns out to be the most powerful, transformative, and starkly loving romantic relationship.
Evie is a wallflower with a hidden temper and fiery spirit. Sebastian Lord St. Vincent is the most notoriously womanizing of rakes. Together they recognize their mutually dire circumstances and embark on a harrowing straight shot to Gretna Green. What unfolds is a marriage of convenience that inconveniently becomes very much full of love, first of course, unbeknownst to both of them. Tack on Evie's empowering journey to demanding a celibacy test of the man who lives and breathes sexuality and Sebastien's humanizing, healing growth into someone who stops running from his vulnerability and finds its home in his wife, and this is truly a master text in romantic character growth, dramatic irony, swooniest use of tropes (it's only a marriage of convenience and we'll never fall in love *ahuh, sure*, we'll only sleep together and won't want to bang again *wink*, sickbed scene with the proud and aloof wounded man nursed to health *sigh*, the wallflower finds her inner vixen *hell yeah*, and the coldhearted rake's heart thaws to a puddle of unwavering fidelity to his wife *angels sing*).
Evie is quietly delightful and a truly enjoyable heroine, but the true star of this book for me is St. Vincent. From his sardonic quips to his self-deprecating humor, the Mercutioesque self-despair and bleak cynicism, his transformation is divine. There's a reason he's one of HistRom's most well-loved morally ambiguous heroes, and I know even though this is already a reread, I'll be coming back for more of the Devil (in Winter) once again.
Evie is a wallflower with a hidden temper and fiery spirit. Sebastian Lord St. Vincent is the most notoriously womanizing of rakes. Together they recognize their mutually dire circumstances and embark on a harrowing straight shot to Gretna Green. What unfolds is a marriage of convenience that inconveniently becomes very much full of love, first of course, unbeknownst to both of them. Tack on Evie's empowering journey to demanding a celibacy test of the man who lives and breathes sexuality and Sebastien's humanizing, healing growth into someone who stops running from his vulnerability and finds its home in his wife, and this is truly a master text in romantic character growth, dramatic irony, swooniest use of tropes (it's only a marriage of convenience and we'll never fall in love *ahuh, sure*, we'll only sleep together and won't want to bang again *wink*, sickbed scene with the proud and aloof wounded man nursed to health *sigh*, the wallflower finds her inner vixen *hell yeah*, and the coldhearted rake's heart thaws to a puddle of unwavering fidelity to his wife *angels sing*).
Evie is quietly delightful and a truly enjoyable heroine, but the true star of this book for me is St. Vincent. From his sardonic quips to his self-deprecating humor, the Mercutioesque self-despair and bleak cynicism, his transformation is divine. There's a reason he's one of HistRom's most well-loved morally ambiguous heroes, and I know even though this is already a reread, I'll be coming back for more of the Devil (in Winter) once again.