I picked up Lisa Kleypas' SUGAR DADDY on a lark at the UBS on Saturday. I
finished it last night at 11:45 p.m. I would hazard to say that this is
not her best offering, but that it was a good contemporary debut for her.
It actually took me by surprise.
Told in the first person POV by Liberty Jones, our intrepid heroine, SUGAR
DADDY read like the glam novels of the 1980s/early 90s. You know the type
- down on her luck heroine starts off poor and supporting her younger
sister, and by the end of the novel, she has everything she's ever wanted.
The first half of the book is told by a teenage Liberty as she comes of
age in a trailer park outside Houston, TX, nursing her love for Hardy
Cates. The second half of the book is a grown up Liberty struggling to
provide for her sister after their mother's death, and becoming part of a
family headed by Churchill Travis, a billionaire financier who takes
Liberty and her sister, Carriington, under his wing.
There was a lot of telling, rather than showing in this book. Something I
find very frequently with first person POV books. All the same, I
sympathized with the heroine and found her POV riveting, from her
observations of the inhabitants of the trailer park, to her description of
her sister's infanthood and her mother's post-partum depression (or what I
assume was PPD). Kleypas' heroine actually captured a lot of the realities
of raising an infant that few books really get.
I found myself more captivated by the heroine's life rather than by the
romance, which felt like an afterthought. The heroes in general were a bit
too goody-goody near-perfect, up until the end, in which Hardy's actions
felt somewhat unbelieveable and out of character for me. And the family
secrets denouement was very brief and very easily resolved.
All the same, I'll be looking for the sequel, BLUE-EYED DEVIL, when it's
in paperback.
Grade: B+
Kleypas is high-end crack. You know it's not going to be as good as the really good stuff, but you can't help it - you keep reading.
Mine Til Midnight is Cam Rohan's book, the half Rom from Devil in Winter. He's a fantastic hero, and the chemistry between the h/h worked very well for me. Amelia is a responsible and practical heroine, caring for her family as best she can. But unlike other responsible and practical heroines, she was not nearly as annoying as the others. She was firm and assertive without being obnoxious and stupid. Many practical heroines are TSTL. Their practicality turns into stupidity and stubbornness even when it's obvious they're wrong. Amelia didn't fall into that category.
Kleypas can't help but throw in some paranormal elements, which were borderline cheesy if she'd played them up too much, but the paranormal elements were very, very subtle for most of the book. I also found the education on the culture and life of the Romany slightly heavy-handed at times. OTOH, it will be interesting to see how more of the Rom culture plays into the future books in this series.
Devil in Winter
Lisa Kleypas
Grade: A
Finding the perfect balance between character and back story can be a difficult skill to acquire. Kleypas, unfortunately, doesn’t quite do that as well in Devil in Winter. This doesn’t detract too much from the book, however. As a matter of fact, it comes across as the strongest of the Wallflower series so far (it’s the third in a quartet). Fans of Kleypas will enjoy DIW and may potentially agree that it’s one of her better books compared to the last couple years of her books.
Evie Jenner is the daughter of a notorious boxer and gambler. Her father is dying and Evie’s family refuses to allow her to visit him. They’ve abused her and are now trying to force her into marriage with a cousin so that they can control her father’s money once he’s dead. Evie sneaks out to visit Sebastian St. Vincent, the impoverished viscount who attempted to kidnap and rape Evie’s friend, Lillian Bowman (It Happened One Autumn). She strikes a deal with him: He can marry her and have her money, so long as she’s allowed to have her own portion and have freedom to care for her dying father. Oh, and no sex after the wedding night. St. Vincent agrees to the bargain and the story runs full tilt after that.
Kleypas does an excellent job of making Sebastian into a rather cruel husband, but the reader can see through his mechanisms and vicious words to the man desperate to push away any hint of caring or love. However, despite the fact that we’re told Sebastian was unloved as he was growing up, we still don’t see a lot of the reasons as to why he pushes Evie away repeatedly, though his fascination and affection for her are shown pretty early on. Perhaps it is as one of the secondary characters says: Evie is his ultimate fantasy – the good girl he could never hope to obtain.
On that note, Evie is as sweet and innocent as they come, with a thread of steel in her backbone that makes her able to handle everything Sebastian dishes. At times, Kleypas pushes Evie’s innocence and naiveté a little too far, but by the end of the book, Evie develops a strong enough backbone and becomes a strong enough character that you admire her and the decisions she makes. However, readers who don’t care for the super-innocent heroine may want to pick up a copy at the library before deciding to buy this book.
One of the finer touches that Kleypas puts into Devil in Winter is Sebastian’s growing sense of responsibility (while first fueled by a hint of greed for money, eventually turns to ownership and pride in what he’s doing) with Evie’s father’s gambling club. From the moment he steps into the club, Kleypas slowly reveals Sebastian’s growth as a business owner, and his aptitude for business. You have to admire him as he finds purpose in his life. Kleypas also doesn’t allow herself to drag out the whole “no sex after the wedding night” deal too far or too long. Many books with this plotline mistakenly draw it out so far that you become bored with the varied sexual misses. Instead, she uses it to slowly fuel the sexual atmosphere, but doesn’t push it too far before the h/h give in to the mutual desire.
I enjoyed this Kleypas much more than the last 6 or 8 books she’s put out. It’s reminiscent of her earlier books, though definitely sexed up a lot more, but with a h/h I enjoyed reading and learning about. It could have used more backstory on their families to help round out the characters more. But in all, I’d recommend this to any historical romance reader.
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