Review: Devil in Disguise by Lisa Kleypas (#7 The Ravenels)

I love Lisa Kleypas's historical romances. They are perfect escapism. This is number 7 in The Ravenels series but it can easily be read as a standalone. When characters from earlier books pop up, it is fully explained who they are.

Devil in Disguise is about Lady Merritt Sterling, a strong-willed widow who is running her late husband's shipping company. London Society has been dying to catch her in a scandal but so far she has been too clever to provide them with one. Then she meets Keir MacRae, a whisky distiller from a remote Scottish island, and all her plans disappear like smoke. 

Devil in Disguise is definitely going on my favourites pile, right up there with Love in the Afternoon (#5 The Hathaways) and Devil in Winter (#3 The Wallflowers). I loved that Merritt is such a strong, independent character, running her own business (would we have accepted anything less from Lillian's daughter?) I absolutely adored Keir, who is not an aristocrat but a working class Scot trying to get his head around the strange customs (and language) of the upper class English. It makes for some very funny moments. As well as a scorching (literally) romance there is also a mystery - someone wants Keir dead, the sooner the better.

It took me a chunk of the book to realise that Merritt's mother is Lillian from It Happened One Autumn (#2 in The Wallflowers series). Despite being a Ravenel book, other characters from The Wallflower series also appear, including Marcus and Sebastian. While it was lovely to see how these characters were getting on, I felt that too much time was given to Sebastian. There were even scenes and chapters written from his viewpoint. Now, I do love Sebastian. He's one of my favourite Lisa Kleypas characters, but he is also a very strong character and this was supposed to be Kier's story.  

Despite that, Devil in Disguise is utterly fabulous and I am sure the author's fans will love it, along with anyone who loves escapist historical romance and authors such as Julia Quinn and Tessa Dare.

Thank you to Lisa Kleypas and Piatkus for my copy of this book, which I requested from NetGalley and reviewed voluntarily.

Related posts:

Review: Hello Stranger (The Ravenels #4) by Lisa Kleypas

Review: The Devil in Spring (The Ravenels #3) by Lisa Kleypas

Review: Hello Stranger (The Ravenels #4) by Lisa Kleypas

I'm a huge fan of Lisa Kleypas, especially her Hathaways series, but when I started this story I had mixed feelings about it. 

The heroine of Hello Stranger is Dr Garrett Gibson, the only female physician in Britain. I had been so looking forward to reading about her struggle in the entirely male-dominated world of Victorian medicine - but found it ironic that the main part of the plot should revolve around Ethan, a government spy, and his problems. It didn't help that I usually love both historical romance and romantic suspense, but I'm not so keen when they're mixed together.

I did like the banter between the characters, the sweet way they kept bumping into each other around London, and the part when Ethan offers to teach Garrett how to defend herself in a rather less ladylike way than she has been doing up until now.

However, the story really picked up when one of the main characters becomes seriously ill. Garrett goes against all advice, including that of her mentor, to try and save this person. The heartrending scene where Garrett has to switch off her emotions to perform surgery was very authentic and put me through the emotional wringer too.

So despite my initial negative feelings, I ended up really enjoying the book and it is probably my favourite of the series so far.

Related post:

Review: The Devil in Spring (The Ravenels #3) by Lisa Kleypas

Review: The Devil in Spring by Lisa Kleypas

The heroine of The Devil in Spring is Pandora, one of the three daughters of the (thankfully) now deceased Earl and Countess Trenear - so neglectful they might as well have allowed their offspring to have been raised by wolves. Pandora is particularly eccentric. She dislikes society, hates dancing (we find out why later), does not wish to marry (she would lose everything she owns to her husband), and would much rather create board games. If this sounds a little far-fetched for a Victorian heroine, Lisa Kleypas does mention in her notes that the character was partly inspired by Elizabeth Magie, who created a precursor to Monopoly called The Landlord's Game.

Our hero is Gabriel Challon, the son of Sebastian and Evie from The Devil in Winter (#3 Wallflowers series). Unlike his father, Gabriel is not a devil at all but a thoroughly nice man with a great sense of humour, who finds himself absolutely fascinated by Pandora, but rather taken aback that he has to convince her to marry him.

I found the character of Pandora highly original, although I can see some readers might find her annoying as she is so unconventional. Or as her equally original lady's maid puts it, 'only a donkey-headed halfwit' would turn Gabriel away. And I did love the way the two characters meet - Pandora gets tangled up in a piece of furniture and has to be rescued by Gabriel - brilliant! 

So, I loved the characters. I loved meeting the new generation of the Challon family (I do hope they get their own books!) and catching up with Sebastian and Evie from The Devil in Winter. I loved the bit about the board games. The only thing that stopped this from being 5 stars is the rather random thriller plot at the end. I can't explain further because of spoilers. It just didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the story, which is very character driven.

Recommended if you love historical romances, particularly the kind of books written by Eloisa James and Julia Quinn. You might want to read The Devil in Winter (#3 in the Wallflower series) first though. And if you love unconventional heroines, you might also enjoy Love in the Afternoon (#5 Hathaways series) by the same author.

Related Post:

Review: Hello Stranger (The Ravenels #4) by Lisa Kleypas