The Devil in Winter

The Devil in Winter is the third book in Lisa Kleypas’s Wallflowers series, the Regency romance quartet that became one of the defining sets of historical romance novels of the 2000s. Published in 2006, this is the entry that many longtime Kleypas readers point to as the strongest of the four, in part because of the central pairing. Evangeline Jenner, the stuttering, shy heiress whose father’s gambling club fortune has made her a target, and Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent, the most charming and morally compromised rake in London.

Evie comes to Sebastian with a desperate proposal in the opening chapters. She needs to escape her cruel relatives who are trying to force her into a marriage to control her inheritance. He needs money and a wife to give him access to the Jenner gambling club he has been wanting. They make a deal, marry quickly in Scotland, and the rest of the novel works out what kind of life two people who started with a transactional arrangement can actually build together. Sebastian had been the cheerful villain of the first two Wallflowers books, the rake who tried to abduct one of Evie’s friends, and Kleypas’s task in this novel is to redeem him without erasing what he was.

She pulls it off. Sebastian’s slow change under the weight of actually loving someone is rendered with care, and Evie’s quiet strength turns out to be more than enough to meet him. The marriage of convenience trope is one of the oldest in romance, and Kleypas works it here at the highest level the form allows. Her dialogue is sharp, her sensual scenes are warm without becoming the only thing the book is doing, and her supporting cast of Wallflowers and friends gives the book real texture.

For longtime Kleypas fans, The Devil in Winter is the entry to revisit. For new readers, it can stand alone but is best read after the first two Wallflowers novels.