Rowena’s review of Love in the Afternoon by Lisa Kleypas.
Hero: Capt. Christopher Phelan
Heroine: Beatrix Hathaway
She harbors a secret yearning.As a lover of animals and nature, Beatrix Hathaway has always been more comfortable outdoors than in the ballroom. Even though she participated in the London season in the past, the classic beauty and free-spirited Beatrix has never been swept away or seriously courted…and she has resigned herself to the fate of never finding love. Has the time come for the most unconventional of the Hathaway sisters to settle for an ordinary man—just to avoid spinsterhood?He is a world-weary cynic.Captain Christopher Phelan is a handsome, daring soldier who plans to marry Beatrix’s friend, the vivacious flirt Prudence Mercer, when he returns from fighting abroad. But, as he explains in his letters to Pru, life on the battlefield has darkened his soul—and it’s becoming clear that Christopher won’t come back as the same man. When Beatrix learns of Pru’s disappointment, she decides to help by concocting Pru’s letters to Christopher for her. Soon the correspondence between Beatrix and Christopher develops into something fulfilling and deep…and when Christopher comes home, he’s determined to claim the woman he loves. What began as Beatrix’s innocent deception has resulted in the agony of unfulfilled love—and a passion that can’t be denied…
I’m so sad that this series has come to an end. I hope that we get a Hathaway Christmas story or something similar to the Wallflower Christmas story. I’d love to see more from this family. Oh how I love them so!
This book follows Beatrix Hathaway, the animal lover of the family find her happy ending. Beatrix is the last man standing on the single train and it’s time for her to find her Prince Charming. She hasn’t any kind of hope since she wants the kind of marriage that her brother and sisters have found and it doesn’t seem likely that she’ll get it. She’s much more comfortable around animals and that doesn’t help her case too much, especially with the only person in all of town that she can’t seem to bring herself to like because of something she heard him say about her.
He said that she belonged in a stable.
So yeah, Christopher Phelan isn’t too high on Beatrix’s list but Christopher heads off to the war and starts up a flirtation with Beatrix’s friend Prudence. Prudence receives a letter from Christopher and when Prudence brings up the fact that all he talks about in his letter is about a stupid dog, Beatrix’s interest perks right up and she asks to read the letter. After reading the letter, she begs Prudence to let her respond the letter and from there things get away from Beatrix.
What started out as one letter turns into more letters and before Beatrix knows what’s what, she has gone and done the unthinkable.
She’s fallen in love with Captain Christopher Phelan…and he has fallen in love with her. It’s amazing how much power words have when you’re lonely. The letters exchanged between “Prudence” and Christopher were so cute and I loved every single one of them. Hell, I fell in love with Christopher and Albert.
When Christopher comes home, things get interesting for everyone. It broke my heart to see Beatrix hurting the way that she was because Christopher was such a shit to her when he returned. I loved her take no bull shit attitude where he was concerned. She was hurting on the inside but from the way that she continued to do what she thought was right and what Christopher needed, the more my heart ached for her. I admired the strength in her. She was so strong and so deserving of a happy ending that I couldn’t read this book fast enough to see her happy ending come to life.
While I was reading this book, I was emailing and texting with my favorite animal lover, Ames. I couldn’t stop gushing over how much I was enjoying the book and I couldn’t stop kicking myself for waiting so long to read the book either.
I enjoyed this book so much that after I finished the book, I went back and read all of my favorite parts over and over again. When Christopher finally finds out that it was Beatrix that wrote all of those letters? Yeah, I read that scene at least thirty times. I enjoyed it that much. This book has it all, it’s got a great cast of characters (those Hathaways are just the best kind of family, don’t you think?) and the hero and heroine were both fantastic and they carried this book so well. Their romance was the perfect kind of romance. This book has everything that one would want in a romance novel and big kudos to Lisa Kleypas for writing another winner. This is definitely going on my keeper shelf and I’m pretty sure that I will be re-reading this one often.
I loved it.
Grade: 4.75 out of 5
Reading Order:
This book is available from St. Martin’s Press. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
Oh! Bea! I loved her story as well.
There is something so endearing about her and I actually ended up liking Christopher (mostly because of how he was with Albert).
I’m going to miss them a lot.
And I don’t think Lisa is having another book out until 2012 (save for Christmas Eve, which just came out). That makes me sad, sad panda.
This is one of my favorite books by Lisa Kleypas! And that is saying a lot since I like most of her novels. Those love letters were just too romantic! 🙂