The Wallflowers

Lisa Kleypas weaves a story about four misfits in Victorian England. Annabelle, Lillian, Evie and Daisy are all wallflowers, young women incapable of making a match. Alone, they are victims of society, but together they vow to help each other find husbands and maybe even love.

The quartet begins with Secrets of a Summer Night, where a house party offers Annabelle Peyton the chance to catch a husband, by fair means or foul. Although beautiful and well-bred, Annabelle is poor, so she needs a wealthy husband. She doesn't even consider Simon Hunt, the rich industrialist whose illicit kiss she's tried to forget. Simon can't quite forget her either, but he doesn't want to marry anyone, let alone a woman who considers him an upstart commoner. When he offers to make his mistress instead, sparks fly, and they both begin to reevaluate their assumptions.

The story continues in It Happened One Autumn. Lillian Bowman, the daughter of an American industrialist, thinks Marcus, the Earl of Westcliff, must be the stuffies Brit she's met since crossing the pond. Marcus thinsk Lillian is a hoyden with too much spirit and no sense. But despite their mutual irritation with each other (or perhaps because of it) attraction zings between them. When Lillian starts a risky flirtation with another man, Marcus must decide if he's willing to sacrifice love for propriety.

In the Devil in Winter, shy Evangeline Jenner lives under the oppression of her maternal relatives. Evie is the antithesis of Annabelle; rich but without great beauty or noble blood. Her father, the notorious owner of a London gaming club, is ill and her relatives refuse to let her visit him. Even worse, they decide that she must wed her despicable cousin to keep her father's fabulous (if scandalous) wealth in the family. Evie knows she must take matters into her own hands, even if it means bargaining with a devil. The devil in question is Sebastian, the decadent and dissipated Lord St. Vincent. Sebastian tried to elope with one of Evie's wealthy friends, so she knows that he needs a rich wife. If he will agree to a marriage of convenience and let her see her father, she's more than happy to oblige.

The last Wallflower to find love is Daisy, Lillian's eccentric sister. In Scandal in Spring, Daisy's social climbing parents give her an ultimatum: find a noble husband ASAP or marry Matthew Swift, her father's protege. Daisy can't imagine a worse fate. Matthew is just like her father, dull, ambitious and much too obsessed with business. But when he arrives from America, Matthew isn't quite how Daisy remembered. He's charming, sweet and... secretive. Daisy can't stand to let a secret go unexplored, but discovering this one may keep them apart.

The Wallflowers are fun, feisty heroines and their respective mates are dashing and irascible, just as romantic heroes should be. Evie and Sebastian are by far my favorites, perhaps because Evie is so pragmatic and Sebastian is so sardonic. The Victorian social strata are accurately defined, although bent a bit in usage. These are romances, not historical novels. Friendship is the theme here, not just between the girls, but between their husbands as well. Lisa Kleypas knows how to make you cheer for the underdog and root for the odd couple. Look for other Wallflower cameos in The Wallflower Christmas (about Lillian and Daisy's brother) and in Kleypas' novels, Mine Till Midnight and Seduce Me at Sunrise.