I haven’t read any of the other books in this series, but I loved this one. I recently discovered Charlie Lane through the anthology, The Brazen Belles. As a result, I joined their mailing list and received this as a free gift. Apparently, there are two previous books in this series, with at least one more to come. This one centers on Devon and Lillian. I always enjoy an intelligent and quick-witted heroine and Lillian exceeds my expectations. Naturally, Devon is also clever, if only because he is not intimidated by Lillian’s brilliance.
There are some wonderfully evocative descriptions, like this one about Lillian’s hair: “it streamed down her back like a river of sunlight. If he touched it, his hand would evaporate in a wave of heat.” And this one is wonderful: “her eyes so brown he could drown in them but, in doing so, find life, not death, air, not suffocation.” I adored this description because it was so easy to visualize: “He slumped lower onto the table and turned his head until his cheek pressed against the cool wood, and when he spoke, his lips pouted out under the pressure of his smooshed cheek.” And this one made me truly feel Devon’s heartbreak: “He understood he felt like crying. His lip even maybe slightly—barely at all, really—trembled when he spoke.” Although he appeared to be a flirt and a libertine early on, these were the masks he wore to disguise his tender heart and his free spirit.
The theme of the book is significance and peoples’ definitions and quests to find it.
Lillian wants to be significant enough to be noticed, to be a respected member of the ton, so she can help other wallflowers (she was once one) to shine. Devon wants to be significant in his own right, not to be defined as “the spare,” since his older brother is a duke. To that end, he refuses to use his inheritance, preferring instead, to earn his own money. Naturally, the ton looks down on that, so when Lillian and Deven realize their attraction to one another, it puts their individual dreams in opposition to one another. As they fall more in love, the question becomes whether they can have their dreams of significance AND have love.
The arc of the story is unexpected and engaging. Conversations are clever as when Devon discusses an issue of importance with his brother Arthur and a friend, George (both characters in the other stories mentioned earlier). The brother is not as helpful as Devon would like so he tells George, “‘You are a gentleman among swine, my dear friend.’ Devon cut his eyes to his brother at the porcine part of the sentence to make it clear what he thought of his brother.”
There’s also this gem of an observation from Lillian that made me laugh: “Handsome men always refuse to acknowledge the presence of other handsome men out of fear of being the least handsome man in the room.”
