Hello Stranger

I cannot believe that I am already writing my last post for February.  I made a New Year's Resolution to write a post three times a week--and I'm sure you can imagine the amount of dedication that takes.  I do read fast, but I also try and pick books that are across genres and interests, and sometimes that means the actual reading can be a struggle.  For the most part, I have been working with books that I own, but most of those fall into the same sort of genre.  I'm trying to do some branching out.  Today, I am incredibly happy to share the fourth book in Lisa Kleypas's Ravenel series:  Hello Stranger.  Let's do a little bit of "The Story So Far."

In the first book, Cold Hearted Rake, Devon Ravenel has just become Earl Trenar.  It's not a position that he wanted, and he certainly doesn't want the responsibility of his cousin's widow and three younger sisters.  Unfortunately for him, he falls for said widow, Kathleen, and grows to enjoy the sisters, Helen, Pandora and Cassandra.  He even enjoys the challenge of trying to put together the  Trenar estate and pull it out of debt.  One of his plans of getting some much needed money into the estate is to marry the eldest of the Ravenel sisters, Helen, to a friend of his, Rhys Winterbourne.  Which leads to book two, Marrying Winterbourne.  Helen and Rhys are about as different as two people can be, but they manage to find a lot in common.  Helen's heart is huge however, and when she discovers she has an illegitimate half sister fathered by the man her fiance loathes with a passion, she is willing to give up everything to save her sister.  This book introduces us to Dr. Garrett Gibson and, in a round about way, Ethan Ransom, the hero and heroine of Hello Stranger.  My current favorite in the series is the third book, Devil in Spring.  Lady Pandora is caught in an accidentally improper situation with Gabriel, Lord St. Vincent--a settee clearly wants to destroy her plans to never marry.  This book deals with the ideas of a woman in business--Kleypas has started to venture into the time when women were starting to break out socially.  Gabriel finds a way to allow Pandora to marry and keep her business her own, but in the process of creating her board game, Pandora uncovers a conspiracy.  The reason I love this particular book is because Sebastian and Evie, Gabriel's parents, are my favorite characters from Lisa Kleypas's Wallflower series (their book is Devil in Winter.)  So now you're all caught up!

Dr. Garrett Gibson is an incredible character and I am very glad that she is getting her own book.  She is a female doctor--she went to college, got a degree, and works in progressive medical treatments.  Well, progressive for the time, like sterilization.  It was new in the late 1870s.  She's very much a take no prisoners kind of woman, and possibly the most progressive and least traditional of all of Kleypas' heroines that I've read to date.  I have not read every book that she's written.  I've worried about Garrett in previous books because she seems far to eager to just accept that she will push boundaries and worries little about her own future. 

Ethan Ransom, on the other hand, is a mysterious character that we never really learn much about until halfway through Hello Stranger.  Pretty much all we know about him is he's some kind of detective, good in a fight, and has an unknown connection to the Ravenel family.  We learn that Ethan is the illegitimate son of the late Earl--and that if he'd been legitimate, he would be the Earl of Trenar rather than Devon.  Ethan's latest line of work, however, places him squarely in the line of fire and he ends up taking a bullet to the chest.  Can Garrett, with all her doctor wonderfulness, save Ethan?

I feel like I've spent more time describing what happened in previous books than I do talking about Hello Stranger.  A bit of that is because I was a little disappointed with this book.  It builds on the conspiracy that was uncovered in Devil in Spring, but a lot of the book felt like Garrett saying "Take me, Ethan!' and Ethan saying "No, I'm not good for you."  It made for a bit of a frustrating read.  It also ended really abruptly!  We got our proposal, but it was over almost as quickly.  We didn't really get an epilogue at all, so there's no idea of where our characters are in six months, a year, ten years. 

What we did get, however, was a sneak peak at the next Ravenel book, and I might be more excited for that one than I was for Devil in Spring.  The next book is the story of West Ravenel, the younger brother of Devon.  He has gone from a wishy washy London rake to a successful farmer and estate manager over the course of the books.  He's a great character for fun (And has a great set of scenes with a recovering Ethan in Hello Stranger!), and he's getting to the point where it's time for him to marry.  Phoebe, Lady Clare, is the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of Kingston--otherwise known as Sebastian and Evie, also the parents of Gabriel, Lord St. Vincent!  We get to see more of the Challon family.  Phoebe is a widow with two young children.  She's just starting to reenter society after a year of mourning, but first she has to attend her brother's wedding.  A wedding where she's about to meet West Ravenel--a man she's despised since her husband first wrote of him when they were children.  We don't have a release date for Devil's Daughter yet, but my guess would be some time next February/March, unless we get VERY lucky, but I doubt that!