Here’s part two of my Ravenel series wrap-up. Reminder that here be spoilers aplenty, and that if you just need somebody to tell you the books are worth your time, you have it. Feel free to come back to discuss after you’ve read them.
Now I know I said in my previous post that the internet favorite was Marrying Winterborne, and that all the praise that’s been heaped upon it was well-deserved. I stand by that. But my personal favorite of the Ravenel series is Book 4 – Hello Stranger. Here we revisit Dr. Garrett Gibson, England’s only female doctor – she managed the achievement through a loophole so swiftly closed after her, that she will continue to be England’s only female doctor for the foreseeable future – and Ethan Ransom, a detective & man of mystery, who has already come to the rescue of the good doctor more than once. Even if she insists, she did not require rescuing.
Dr. Garrett (I’m probably going to call her doctor the whole review, because she’s earned it) has previously come to the rescue of none other than fan favorite himself Rhys Winterborne, as well as both Lady Helen & Lady Pandora Ravenel. She’s known in the books at this point, but definitely isn’t in their aristocratic social circle: She’s working class, but I guess I’d describe it as more white collar than blue collar (although those terms seem very anachronistic, it’s the best social leveling I can think of right now)? Ethan Ransom is also known to the Ravenels, and – last chance for no-spoiling – we find out he’s technically a bastard of the Ravenel sister’s father, which leaves him with rather a large distaste for all things Ravenel.
Of course, this must be corrected: They are the family the series is about, after all. And what better way than for the Ravenels – and Dr. Garrett, of course – to come to his rescue. When Ethan is nearly fatally injured due to a dangerous case he’s working on, he somehow washes up in Ravenel hands, all the while, calling for Garrett in his delirium, knowing he must speak to her before he dies. The scene where Dr. Garrett Gibson has to decide what kind of healthcare she can do to keep Ethan alive – or if there is nothing at all that she can do – is so intense and heartbreaking that I actually held my breath. And I’m listening to the audiobooks, so Mary Jane Wells is knocking it out of the park with her timing and delivery and just the aching, unknowing, terror that Dr. Garrett is feeling in those moments. Between Wells & Kleypas, I find myself thinking – yet again, in this series – here is another example of a perfect romance novel scene. The kind that you could have any suspense or crime loving reader read & experience with awe. It’s not ‘romance novel perfect’ in the way some snotty non-romance reader/reviewer might snidely suggest as somehow lesser. No: It’s perfect & it’s romance.
And even with all of that, what I truly like best about this book is that Ethan and Dr. Garrett know almost immediately that they matter to each other: I’ve got my first bookmarked passage at 29% of the book. And it’s sweet. They’re sweet to each other; they say things like “Your shadow on the ground is sunlight to me” to each other, while working in London’s worst conditions. They treat each other with such exquisite CARE, even while Ethan thinks that what he does means they can never be together forever and says so right up front. That it’s too dangerous – and he’s not exactly wrong about that, as the book later shows – but in the times that they are with each other, that they can be with each other, they are just so gentle with each other that it melts my cold, cold heart. Again, A++ book.
Quote: “Do the windows have sash locks at least?” “I think some of them do,” she said vaguely. At his quiet curse, she said in a soothing tone, “You really mustn’t worry. It’s not as if we’re keeping the crown jewels in here.” “You’re the jewel,” he said gruffly.” (AT 29%% NOW IMAGINE how much more there is, what with all the pining and recuperating, and :deep satisfying sigh:)
Devil’s Daughter, book 5, brings us back to Evie & Sebastian, the Duke & Duchess of Kingston & hero/heroine of Devil in Winter, as parents. Only this time the focus is their already widowed daughter, & mother to 2 young sons, Phoebe, Lady Clare. Phoebe married her childhood sweetheart, who had been mysteriously ill their entire lives, and had a few brief years of happily married times together before he died. When the book starts, she’s been widowed long enough to be coming out of mourning just in time for her brother’s marriage to Lady Penelope, which is happening at the Ravenel’s estate, which is where we find our hero, West Ravenel.
First introduced to readers as a basically useless but funny drunk in Cold-Hearted Rake, West quickly became one of my favorite characters in the whole series, for his ability to say the things nobody else wanted to say, not to mention his rapid entire-life makeover. He shows up as basically a wastrel in the beginning of book one, but by halfway through, thanks to Kathleen, an inherent & hidden love for country life, and a lot of hard work, winds up sober, saving the day more than once, and still more than capable of the wittiest repartee in any of the books. West’s story was the one I was most looking forward to as I read Cold-Hearted Rake, because I definitely didn’t want him to wind up with one of his cousins, but I was kind of afraid that was what was going to happen, all the way until the last book, where Ethan & Dr. Garrett are hiding out with West, and a bit of that time period crosses over with the time period from this book.
There are – of course – obstacles to overcome: West was an ass & a bully to Phoebe’s dearly departed husband, as a youth, for example – but the couple’s chemistry from day 1 was undeniable. Again, Kleypas can WRITE, and she shows off so much of that skill in this book. Sebastain’s meddlesomeness; Penelope’s outright gall in going for what she wants what she decides that it’s West; and- my personal kryptonite – an adult who is so good with children that you just want to watch them live an ordinary day with those kids, figuring out mealtime messes and naptime fussiness, watch them be excited to roll cars across the carpet and clap when the baby knocks down the block tower over and over again, then snuggles and kisses and bedtime for all. I just. It’s almost too much.
Quote: “If the hero hasn’t turned up, you may have to settle for the villain.” “If the villain is the one who turned up, he is the hero.”
Chasing Cassandra is book six, and she’s the last of the known -to date- Ravenel sisters, so you may be wondering how there is a book seven, because I definitely was. We’ll get there. But here’s the thing: the hero in Cassandra’s story is Tom Severin, whom readers have met in multiple books of the series, and who comes across as… more than a bit of an ass. He tries to swindle Devon out of mining rights that wind up saving the whole family in book one, and although he and Rhys and West consider him their ‘friend’, they do so both begrudgingly and with multiple caveats. Again, Tom is a character that – through my neurodivergent, current day lens – I think can be read as Autistic, due to his lack of understanding/caring about people skills, which I often read as just his singular focus on very specific things, that often comes across as uncaring. Perhaps best exemplified in this exchange: “My goodness, do you take everything so literally?” “I’m an engineer.” As if that explains everything. Because he DOES care, and it becomes very clear that Cassandra is one of the things he cares about very much.
I’m all for redemption stories, and I followed this one pretty well. I did think there was a little less groveling than I’d like, but that’s a personal choice we all must make for ourselves. I loved all the men in Cassandra’s life trying to talk her out of marrying Severin, as he frantically tried to impress her: There can be no better bodyguards than former rakes, after all. And I like Cassandra’s insistence that she needed specific things in marriage, and – at first – how she didn’t see how Tom could provide them. There’s a scene that requires a bit of a TW, where Cassandra is ‘exposed to unwanted advances’ as the parlance of the books might put it, but Things. Happen. to that person. And when things happen to Cassandra as a result of that person, well. Have you ever had anybody buy a newspaper just to defend your honor? Wouldn’t you like to have?
Quote: Your body isn’t an ornament designed for other people’s pleasure: it belongs to you alone. You’re magnificent just as you are. Whether you lose weight or gain more, you’ll still be magnificent. Have a cake if you want one.” Cassandra looked patently disbelieving. “You’re saying I gained another stone or even two stones on top of this, you’d still find me desirable?” “God, yes,” he said without hesitation. “Whatever size you are, you have a place for every curve.” She gave him arrested stare, as if he’d spoken in a foreign language and she was trying to translate. “Now,” Tom continued briskly, “about the contract.”
And lastly, we have book 7, Devil in Disguise. Where I continue to be confused about why this considered a Ravenel book, since there really aren’t any Ravenels in it at all, but don’t actually mind, because we get to learn more about Lady Merritt Sterling & Keir MacRae. And it turns out both Lady Merritt & Keir are offspring of two of the original Wallflower characters, even though only one of them knows it at the start of the story. Merritt is the widow of a husband lost at sea, who runs – with her brother – the shipping company he left behind. She’s also one of the daughters of Lord & Lady Westcliff – of It Happened One Autumn fame – and I was in no way upset when her parents show up later on in the book. And Keir turns out to be the bastard son of Sebastian and an unmarried lady whose name I forget & doesn’t seem to matter all that much. Of course – pre-Evie Sebastian, in his prime St. Vincent womanizer era. Although Keir knew he was adopted, finding out he is the son of a peer – two actually, as the unnamed Lady has now passed away and bequeathed part of her estate to him – is quite the shock.
As are all the attempts on his life. One of which – a fire he has to leap from the building to avoid – winds up leading straight into While You Were Sleeping Fake-fiancé nonsense that somehow works? There’s inconvenient/convenient amnesia; newfound siblings making things bearable; Sebastian & Lillian finally meeting somewhere in the realms of friendship; the Wallflower philosophy on raising girls; and the Merritt being the best shot in her family and making her brothers angry even though they are never on the page. Keir is as stubborn a Scott as you’d ever want to have (convenient lineage included), and while the insta-love might not be the most believable of storylines, I did like Merritt’s sensible discussions with herself about not missing out on life, and damning propriety if she had to, which came in quite handy throughout the book, as propriety would almost certainly have ended it before it began. To say that I could read Merritt as the Westcliff’s child before the Westcliffs ever show up illustrates both how deeply I love the original Wallflowers & how great Kleypas is at knowing both her characters and her readers.
Should this book have been in this series? Likely not: Dr. Garrett & Ransom, as well as Phoebe now Ravenel do all make their appearances, but none is a main character in this book. It felt more like book one of the Wallflowers part 2, if I’m quite honest, and that’s probably why I don’t mind that it’s here, even if it shouldn’t be.
Quote: “How could it be late, when you’re the sunrise? There’s no morning sky or lark-song before you appear. No butterfly would dare unfold its wings. The day waits on you, my heart, just as the harvest waits the reaper.”
And thus concludes my Ravenel wrap-up, at least for now. I did get the feeling that certain siblings might be expected to make their own showings in later books, but it’s been a year since book 7, and I don’t see any additional titles mentioned anywhere, so I guess we’ll wait and see. In the meantime, I urge you to read -at least – the internet’s favorite & my favorite, books 2 & 4, if you need a refresher in how historicals can be written so. damn. well.
I’m going to count this review in the Verse square of Cbrbingo14, because nobody can tell me that there isn’t a Wallflowers-verse, at least for Kleypas fans. There is, and there likely always will be.
