Marrying Winterborne by Lisa Kleypas

I read the first 30 or so pages of this book and then the last 30 or so pages and wasn't really sure that I wanted to read the middle. But I'm glad I did. I didn't enjoy it as much as the first but I did like seeing the process of Helen and Rhys falling in love. We saw them get engaged in Cold-Hearted Rake when Helen's family was penniless and she thought she'd get engaged to the uncouth but very wealthy Rhys Winterborne. But when Helen's family comes into money, her well-meaning sister-in-law tells Rhys the engagement is off. But Helen doesn't want that. So this book starts with her seducing Rhys so that they'll have to get married. So why is this book so long? Well, it turns out Helen has a secret. One that she doesn't realize until after the seduction might make Rhys call off the wedding.

I'm not sure why this book was so rocky for me. It's frustrating when you can't pinpoint exactly why a book isn't clicking, it just didn't. For regular Kleypas readers, that may not be the case.

Three and a half stars

This book came out May 31, 2016

Follows Cold-Hearted Rake

Followed by Devil in Spring

Borrowed as audiobook from Libby

Opinions are my own

Devil in Spring by Lisa Kleypas

A second generation of Wallflowers is on the loose. Pandora Ravenel grew up in a household where girls were not valued. She and her sisters were pretty much allowed to grow up feral (really? Even if boys were the prime offspring, girls needed to be married off so they would have had at least a nanny or something) so she never learned she was supposed to be stupid and interested in marriage. Instead, she wants to market her board games and run an industry. Of course, if she gets married, all of her property will automatically become her husband's.

Gabriel, Lord St. Vincent, though super-eligible, isn't really ready to get married. He's too busy being ashamed of himself for banging a married woman because she's tied him to her with super-kinky sex (or so we're told.) But all of that falls away when he accidentally compromises Pandora and immediately falls in love. No, really, he pretty much decides that, after five minutes of conversation, she will be his wife. And then he gets upset because her family doesn't immediately force her to marry him. So they all get invited to Evie and Sebastian's country house (my faves from the Wallflower series) where they get to know each other better. 

And then the story starts to get really crowded with Gabriel's ex (and, even though he was all angsty about his "dark side," Pandora's innocence makes him learn to love vanilla sex again (?)) and a plot to blow up the aristocracy.

Overall a nice book with just a few to many things included as well as a few thing not really explained.

Three and a half stars

This book came out February 21, 2017

Follows Devil in Disguise

Followed by Hello Stranger

Hard copy I didn't keep

Opinions are my own

Devil in Disguise by Lisa Kleypas

This was a fast and furious romance. "No sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved..." and all that rot. I didn't like that aspect of it and the end wrapped up with rather a whimper but the more I thought about that, the more I appreciated the twist from what romance readers might normally expect. 

Lady Merritt Sterling is the daughter of Lillian and Marcus of the Wallflower series. If you haven't read other books in this series, I suspect there may be a rather lot of names in this book. I've read all of the Wallflower books and all of the Ravenels (I've even reread the latter series recently) and I had trouble keeping up. But most of the romance occurs between Merritt and Keir McRae, a whiskey distributor. The book opens with the two meeting after McRae's shipment through her company is sent to the wrong port, potentially subject to extra taxes if it's not where it's supposed to be in the next day, and some of the men that she's hired to offload said shipment spilled a cask on McRae himself.

Now, Merritt has flaunted tradition by running a shipping company so she's already on shaky ice by society's standards. Now, she's thinking of taking up with a man with no history (he's literally an orphan with no hint of his past except a golden key) because he's hot. With icy blue eyes. And she wants to go to bed with him. And apparently the night is transcendent because not even being stabbed nor social conventions can make McRae stay away. But being stabbed isn't the only way someone tries to kill him and it may take a lot of cunning and some inventive stories to keep McRae alive and for the two to find their HEA.

Three and a half stars

This book comes out July 27th, 2021

Follows Chasing Cassandra

Followed by Devil in Spring

ARC kindly provided by Avon and Harper Voyager, and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Chasing Cassandra by Lisa Kleypas

Tom Severin, will you please by my book boyfriend?  You start the book only having five emotions (having long ago decided that the rest were superfluous) and end up with all the feels. The last possible Big Misunderstanding is circumvented because you are so in love with your bride and so aware of needing to be a decent human being in order to keep her.
Was this book perfect? I can't remember much about Cassandra other than that she's gorgeous but has a heart of gold so... maybe not. But it was damn near.
Cassandra Ravenel is stoked for her twin. Of course she is. Pandora is marrying the love of her life and he's a good man. Cassandra just wishes she could find her own oyster. Nothing shocks her more than, after confessing that feeling to West, Tom stands up from the chair he was sitting in (not hiding, just not able to get out without it being awkward) and offers to be that man for her. Her family is against the match (at least the men are; the women are willing to wait and see.) But Kelypas takes us through their relationship over the course of several months as Tom learns to have all the feels because Cassandra convinces his to read fiction. I'm not crying; you're crying.

Four and a half stars
This book comes out February 18th, 2020

Follows Devil's Daughter

Followed by Devil in Disguise
ARC kindly provided by HarperCollins Publishers
Opinions are my own

Reread as audiobook from Libby February 2023