West admits to be being a bully (and other characters explain to her that he was somewhere in middle of a Lord of the Flies-like food chain that apparently happens in boys’ boarding schools, as opposed to being some kind of apex predator). I was surprised to find that conflict was resolved pretty quickly. I originally thought this book would be about Phoebe being desperately attracted to West (she is), but unable to forgive him for bullying her late husband when they were young. He’s doing hard work that he finds fulfilling and he’s re-engaged with his family so he can have meaningful relationships with them.

West has no external motivator to get better his push comes purely from his realization that he wants to be a better person.īy Devil’s Daughter West is pretty much there. He realizes his behavior is crappy and hurtful and selfish, and when he decides he needs to be a better person, he does the work to get there. The thing I love so much about West is that he makes this transition on his own. We’ve had these lovely glimpses of him throughout the other books in the series as he slowly morphs from a dissolute younger brother to man who is responsible, self-aware, and kind. When we first met West in that book, he had recently decided that his life of drinking, gambling, debauching, and generally being a irresponsible man-child wasn’t actually that great. West has been acting as estate manager for his brother, Devon, the hero in Cold Hearted Rake. When Phoebe arrives for the wedding, she’s distressed to find that West Ravenel is also in attendance since she knows he used to bully Henry in boarding school. The two had a marriage that a foundation of deep love, but not much passion. She married her late husband and childhood sweetheart, Henry, knowing that he was chronically ill and would likely predecease her. Phoebe is a widow with two young children. Is it vital to read both of those books before this one? No, but they’re excellent, so you might want to do so anyway. When the book opens Phoebe is attending the wedding of her brother, Gabriel and Pandora Ravenel (the couple from Devil in Spring).

She’s inherited her mother’s red hair and her sweetness, and actually reminded me of Evie quite a lot. Phoebe, Lady Clare, is the daughter of Sebastian and Evie from The Devil in Winter. It’s not a perfect book the conflict is weak and inconsistent, but I felt so happy and warm reading it that I didn’t care. It’s got witty dialogue, a self-aware and charming hero, a heroine is who slightly too pure for this world (but not so much as to be irritating), and cameos from Kleypas’s original Wallflowers. Devil’s Daughter by Lisa Kleypas is the romance novel equivalent of visiting an old friend and immediately feeling cozy and welcomed and nostalgic.

Evie sebastian lisa kleypas