It's tough to review this without some major spoilers so most of this will be under a spoiler cut.  But suffice it to say that this is another great showing in the Ravenels series: cozy, delightful, and honestly everything you would want from its description. 

 

Lady Merritt Sterling is the eldest child of Lillian Bowman and Marcus, Lord Westcliff, from “It Happened One Autumn.”  She’s a young widow running her late husband’s shipping company after he died at sea.  Merritt’s happy with her widowhood: she loved her husband, but also likes the freedom of heading a company.  It’s being the head of a company that introduces her to Kier MacRae, a strapping Scot who ships whiskey with her.  An instant attraction leads to a passionate night together, but any dream of it going further is interrupted by someone repeatedly trying to kill Kier.  Someone’s hiding something — and they can’t be together until they find out who and what it is. 

Major spoilers ahead:

There was a lot of buzz over who Kier is, since all the other titles Kleypas has written with “Devil” in them are related to Sebastian, Duke of Kingston (formerly Lord St. Vincent).  I was worried he’d end up being Sebastian’s son born out of wedlock, and that was correct.  It happened pre-Evie (obviously!!!) but I wasn’t convinced I could ever see it not as a betrayal of her, which is ridiculous.  Of course Lisa Kleypas delivers.  There’s a wonderful, almost slice-of-life quality to this installment, as it necessarily involves Sebastian and Evie coming to terms with meeting Kier, Marcus and Lillian worrying about their daughter, and the two couples deepening their friendship as their children fall in love.  I was totally charmed by the way Kier and Sebastian developed their relationship as father and son.  Even the amnesia subplot worked for me, which I usually find totally hit or miss.  There were some things I just waved away, plot-wise.  Is it true that the demonstrable illegitimate son of a lady would still be her husband’s legal heir?  No idea.  And the ending here was really too neat and too quickly wrapped up.  I wouldn’t have minded one more slightly more harrowing brush with death, “Secrets of a Summer Night” factory explosion style. 

  But this was an absolutely delightful chunk of time spent back in the Kleypas universe and I can’t wait for my next visit. 

 

Thank you to Avon and NetGalley for the ARC!