The Devil in Winter (The Wallflowers #3)by Lisa Kleypas
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Sometimes the fractures in two separate souls became the very hinges that held them together.
Like I just said in another ‘mini-review’, I am in no mind to write a decent review for a book I, quite surprisingly, really enjoyed. My dear friend, Anna, who also loathes historicals, insisted that this book had a hero I just had to meet and that all other follies with the story would fall away when I met and fell in love with him. She was right.
Silence fell over the scene, with MacPhee and his two daughters appearing shocked by the brusque remarks. Then the blacksmith’s heavy brows lowered over his eyes in a scowl. “I don’t like ye,” he announced.
St. Vincent regarded him with exasperation. “Neither does my bride-to-be. But since that’s not going to stop her from marrying me, it shouldn’t stop you either. Go on.”
St. Vincent was an ass. He was unredeemable. He was mean and cruel and no one could possibly thaw his icy heart….before her.
“Think about what you want.,” he advised. “There’s very little you can’t have…so long as you dare to reach for it.”
I loved their dynamic. I loved everything about them from the moment they met. People may ask-How do you know you don’t like historical, if you loved this one?? Well, I’ll tell you how I know-I don’t like the coined terms ‘sweet’ and ‘love’ and ‘girl’ and ‘my lord/milady’. It’s bleh. Just bleh bleh bleh. And while I am one to love dominant males, I don’t like the implied power bestowed upon the male in the relationship over the woman. I love it in modern day novels, because it is usually just protectiveness or possessiveness or something that suits my fancy, but in these ‘historicals’, I find that it is just assumed and for some reason…it rubs me the wrong way.
“I m-might enjoy going to bed with you,” Evie told him, staring at him steadily, refusing to look away even though the prolonged shared gaze made her flush with discomfort. “I rather hope I will. But that won’t change my decision. Because I know you for what you are-and I know what you’re capable of.”
“My dear…” he said almost tenderly, “you haven’t begun to learn the worst of me.”
But in this book, it just works. There’s enough drama and smexiness and sweetness and protectiveness to outshine those petty idiosyncrasies. I don’t know. I think that it helps that a friend, who I like to think has about 95% compatibility with me on favorite and not-so-favorite books, suggested this to me, even knowing I don’t like this genre.
His mouth tasted her lightly, and then he whispered against the moist spot he had made, causing her to shiver. “You’re not a wallflower. But you have my permission to hide in the corners, my sweet-so long as you take me with you.”
So. No, this isn’t the review I had wished to write, but it’s better than nothing. If I didn’t write this one, I was going to start letting it happen more often and I don’t want that. I love writing my thoughts out, so I like to do these, whether they are read or not. I loved this book, and I’m sure I’ll be reading it again.
