Book Review - Lisa Kleypas's Scandal in Spring
Scandal in Spring by Lisa Kleypas
Published by: Avon
Publication Date: July 25th, 2006
Format: Paperback, 374 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy
Daisy Bowman has been told a harsh truth. Her father has said that she is no better than a parasite. She sponges off her family and after three seasons she has yet to secure the desired match her mother so wants. Therefore if she doesn't find a match by the end of the season she is to marry Matthew Swift. Matthew is her father's right hand man and his "true" son. Matthew is everything her father ever wanted her brothers to be. Matthew will inherit the company if he marries Daisy. Therefore Daisy is sure Matthew is behind this scheme. That scrawny little scarecrow who was always at the table when they were having family dinners has found a way to worm his way permanently into the Bowman family. He is the worst attributes of Daisy's father and the last person she would ever marry. Therefore when the family decamps to Stony Cross Park for Lillian's confinement, both Daisy and her sister are outraged that their father has invited Matthew Swift along. He's come over from America to help set up the new Bowman soap factory in Bristol. At least Lillian's husband Marcus knows his wife's feelings on Daisy's enforced marriage and has therefore stocked the house with lots of eligible young men so that Daisy can make a match to anyone she wishes. Though Daisy isn't leaving everything up to fate and goes out to the wishing well which has served her fellow wallflowers so well and makes a wish. At that moment a man appears. He's gorgeous, tall, and broad like Annabelle's husband. Daisy is shocked to find out that this is scrawny Matthew Swift. He sure has changed over the years. But the fact that he is physically attractive doesn't change the fact that he is the last person she'd marry, despite what her body is saying. Rather loudly. But as the wallflowers and Marcus get to know Matthew it becomes apparent that he is not who the Bowman sisters think he is and he had no knowledge of Mr. Bowman's plans for him and Daisy. Luckily for Matthew, who has been pining for Daisy since the first time he saw her, she is starting to realize she might have been wrong. But Matthew has a secret in his past that could ruin all their chances of happiness. He will not marry Daisy. He will not be the one to destroy her life. But what if not marrying her destroys her life?
Any true reader knows of the phenomena of "last great book I read." You read a book that's so amazing that any other book you pick up next will just be subpar because you've just had a magical experience and there's no way any other book could possibly be that good ever again. This is what happened to me with Scandal in Spring. It was coupled with another problem, which was that Devil in Winter, the previous volume in this series, was the "last great book I read" a few weeks earlier. It's almost like I set myself up to dislike Scandal in Spring without meaning to. But I do think this book has issues in regard to the series as a whole. The reason Devil in Winter was so good was because it had broken the mold established in the previous two volumes of getting all the characters to Stony Cross Park and then watching the reluctant matchmaking begin. Here we return to the previous pattern and not for the better. It just felt like the same story happening to a different character. And characters that were so bland as to be forgettable. Daisy and Lillian Bowman were always said to be a little wild, but here Daisy is one dimensional and Lillian was a bitch. Before Lillian was just stubborn and sweary, which I could relate to, here she's actually hostile. You'd think in a book seen from her sister's POV that she would be nice, as Daisy loves her more than anyone else in the world baring Marcus, but no. I could blame it on the pregnancy, but that would be cruel to any pregnant women. Therefore she was just a bitch. As for Matthew Swift? He felt like a stock character. He's been pining over Daisy for years but she sees him anew because he's now hot. And that is basically his personality, hot with a penknife in his pocket. Oh, and occasionally he does something that Colin Firth did in Pride and Prejudice, but that just makes you want Colin Firth more and Matthew Swift less. This led to a lackluster romance and even the sex scenes were uninspired, feeling almost elliptical in their telling. Plus, could Daisy do anything other than pant and squirm under him? Ugh. This "final" volume in the Wallflowers series felt like Lisa Kleypas had run out of ideas and was just phoning it in. If it wasn't for my enjoyment of the previous volumes I'd never read another book by her ever again.
Post a Comment