DEVIL IN DISGUISE by Lisa Kleypas

“Undemandingly pleasurable and guaranteed to go on the reread shelf.”

devil in disguise

science fiction and fantasy

MOTHER OF ALL

Glass, Jenna Del Rey (656 pp.) $18.00 paper | Jul. 20, 2021 978-0-525-61842-3

The third and final volume set in a high-fantasy world where women reign. In The Women’s War (2019), a discarded queen casts a spell that lets women decide when and if they have children. By the end of Queen of the Unwanted (2020), a plot to reverse the Blessing—or, as the men call it, the Curse—that set the first book in motion leaves that spell unchanged while seriously damaging the source of all magic in the kingdom of Aaltah. Fans of the first two novels will likely be satisfied with this concluding volume. Good is rewarded. Evil is punished. And the trilogy ends on a hopeful note that delivers on the feminist-lite promise with which the series began. As was the case in the first two installments, the emphasis here is on interpersonal relationships, palace intrigue, and political maneuvering among royals. Readers heavily invested in, for example, Ellin’s marriage to Zarsha will get to spend plenty of time listening to them flirt and strategize over dinners in her private quarters. Readers more interested in action will likely conclude that Glass lingers over phenomena such as late-night pastries a bit more than is necessary. This would perhaps be less notable if there wasn’t a striking sameness to all these scenes. There are, evidently, a lot of royal banquets in Ellin’s world, and each time she is forced to endure one we are reminded that they are long and tedious and that a private meal with her husband is a luxury. While she enjoys this luxury, she and Zarsha have conversations into which the author weaves in backstory she’s already shared at least a few times. And this is the model that Glass uses for the many, many, many characters in this novel: Reintroduce the characters in the scene, show them doing something they’ve done several times before, and maybe inject one new detail that nudges the plot forward. There are exceptions to this rule, but not many, and the end result is a story that runs more than 1,800 pages across the whole series and still feels very small.

The lackluster conclusion to a trilogy that might have succeeded better as a single, heavily edited volume.

romance

DEVIL IN DISGUISE

Kleypas, Lisa Avon/HarperCollins (384 pp.) $8.99 paper | Jul. 27, 2021 978-0-06-237196-6

A Scottish distiller, a businesswoman in Victorian London, an explosive attraction. Kleypas’ beloved Wallflower/Ravenels series crossover continues with the next generation of feisty descendants, this time Lord Marcus and Lady Lillian Westcliff’s widowed daughter. Drawn irresistibly to a client of her shipping company, Lady Merritt Sterling coaxes an equally smitten Keir MacRae to spend a night with her. While convinced that their unequal birth and upbringing make them ill-matched for a real relationship, Keir tells himself it’s a memory he can cherish forever. But disaster strikes soon after, allowing Kleypas to deploy the classic “nursing a hurt lover to recovery” trope, with a twist that turns Merritt and Keir’s bond into a variation of the secondchance romance. As the search for the cause of the attack on Keir leads to questions about his birth, a favorite Wallflower character looms large, with plenty of clues (including the title) to tell the reader why our hero is mistaken about his lineage. The third act is slightly anticlimactic, with all the nonromance action having occurred in Act 1 and served as a plot device to bring the romance and other relationships into being in Act 2. While Kleypas takes no risks to push her oeuvre in new directions, the novel abounds in the vintage pleasures of her writing: finely drawn characters; a tactile, sensuous style in both the sex scenes and the landscape descriptions; banter that illustrates the emotional compatibility of romantic partners; dual points of view that show both the hero’s and the heroine’s interior lives; moving moments of familial ties; and glimpses of couples from other novels to assure us that love lasts forever.

Undemandingly pleasurable and guaranteed to go on the reread shelf.

THE DATING DARE

Lee, Jayci St. Martin’s Griffin (320 pp.) $16.99 paper | Aug. 3, 2021 978-1-2506-2112-2

A photographer on the verge of an international move and an ambitious craft-brewery owner agree to a casual fling that quickly grows into something more. Tara Park doesn’t exactly hit it off with Seth Kim when she’s the maid of honor and he’s the best