It's always obvious who the guilty person is, and never seems to serve any purpose beyond putting either the hero or heroine in jeopardy to show how much the other person loves them and padding out the plot. I honestly don't know why she does this, but almost all of her stories that I've read have a very lame murder mystery thrown into the last act. Lisa Kleypas's other trademark: superfluous murder mysteries. She fights him at every turn, even when they're married 2/3 of the way through the book. Smitten Gabriel falls over himself granting concession after concession, but it's never enough. Pandora discovers that she's great at sex and great and crying and does both these things in abundance while crying how she will obey no one, not even her husband. Will we be seeing her again later? Oh, ho ho. Everybody finds her manic pixie dream girl act utterly charming and Gabriel decides he loves her instantly and casts his mistress off into the dirt. Pandora does not want to be married because she wants to start her own business and doesn't want to obey anyone, but both her family and Gabriel manage to convince her to visit Gabriel's family estate with promises that she will not be coerced into marriage. She encounters the hero when she's stuck ass-out in a settee, and when Lord Gabriel decides to rescue her in a moment of ill-placed pity, they are caught and considered compromised, and must be married at once.

Pandora is an immature, childish heroine who makes up words and fairy tale stories, and at one point, demands to fire her footman because he does not look like Father Christmas. But both those books are published in the early 90s, when Kleypas was still finding her trademark style.ĭEVIL IN SPRING does not have that excuse. In the case of SOMEWHERE I'LL FIND YOU, it was because I thought the hero was emotionally abusive. In the case of ONLY WITH YOUR LOVE, it was because of dubious consent on the hero's part that I felt was addressed very badly. Not because of the writing (Kleypas always writes beautifully - something I adore her for) but because of some very bad characterization. I've done it before, twice, in the cases of ONLY WITH YOUR LOVE and SOMEWHERE I'LL FIND YOU, which I rated one and two stars respectively. It kills me, kills me, to give Lisa Kleypas books low ratings. At nineteen, they acted more like six with their making up words and playing games.īut DEVIL IN SPRING took place two years later. In fact, I specifically called Cassandra and Pandora out as something that detracted from the rating because they were so immature. Pandora, the odiously affected and annoying Ravenel cousin-in-law from COLD-HEARTED RAKE. That was, until I realized who his romantic pairing would be.

Ravenels devil in spring