It Happened One Autumn [Anglais] [Poche]

"It Happened One Autumn" is the second installment in Lisa Kleypas's "Wallflower" series which features as heroines four friends from Victorian England who band together in their search for eligible husbands. The heroine of "It Happened One Autumn" is the brash American heiress Lillian Bowman. Along with her younger sister Daisy and under the watchful eye of her social-climbing mother, Lillian has come to England in the hope of marrying into the British aristocracy. In the first book in the series ("Secrets of a Summer Night") Lillian clashed memorably with Lord Westcliff, a stuffy, autocratic member of the British peerage. In this book, Lillian and Westcliff are front and center in the story and their head-on collision and oil-and-water chemistry is a delight to behold.

Lillian is an excellent heroine--high-spirited, willful, bold, outspoken, uncomfortably direct and a bit cynical; she is a wealthy heiress by virtue of her father's business interests, but readily admits the fact that her grandmother was a dock washerwoman. Lillian is the antithesis of the demure, well-bred bride that Westcliff has always intended to choose as his countess. Westcliff, the survivor of a harsh childhood with a brutal, unloving father who groomed him to always do his duty to the earldom, is an unfailing honorable man but a bit of a prig. Westcliff has spent his life invariably doing the correct and proper thing and is appalled to find himself attracted to the American hoyden. The clashes between these two strong-willed people are tremendously entertaining, particularly watching the arrogant Westcliff completely lose his famously cool head when Lillian dares to defy him.

The plot of the story moves along very well with Lillian and Westcliff initially attempting to deny then to come to terms with their unexpected (well, to them anyways) attraction to each other and then gradually discovering the deeper facets of each other's personality. Realizing that despite their mutual attraction, Westcliff considers her the precisely wrong woman to take as his wife, Lillian begins a flirtation with the fabulously handsome and rakish Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent. Although Sebastian is obviously being set up as the hero for the next book in the series, he is far more than wallpaper in this story. His character is well-developed and he actually plays a pivotal (although rather illogical and far-fetched if one wants to quibble) role in the denouement.

In summary, this is a very entertaining and well-written installment in the "Wallflower" series featuring an unusually vibrant and interesting heroine and a complex, attractive hero. The secondary characters, the Wallflowers and Westcliff's friends and family, are well-developed and the story has a lot of sparkle. The sex scenes are smoking hot but in no way overwhelm the story.
Highly recommended.

Kleypas does it again! She dependably turns out books that deliver just the right amount of passion and drama drawn together by an excellent writing style that keeps me riveted.

Lillian Bowman, featured in the Secrets of a Summer Night, is a fiesty American heiress and having been gilted by the New York upper class is dragged to England by her social climbing Momma in order to marry into aristocracy. However as much as she tries to be refined and proper she is still retains the low brow mouth of her grandmother and can swear with the best sailors.

Marcus Marsden, the Earl of Westcliff, is a supporting character in at least two other Kleypas books. He has lived his life to a strict English code of propriety. Not living as a monk mind you but always descreet. He has single-handledly pulled his family from financial ruin by breaking with traditonal aristocracy and aligning himself with some powerful self made men (other Kleypas heroes), not of the arisotocracy, who are as business savvy as he is.

If you read Secrets of a Summer Night you remember that the animosity between Lillian and Marcus is as immediate as it is fierce. But if resistance is the measure of desire...they desire each other fiercely. Despite Marcus best intentions he can't resist the pull of someone so free, so wild, so unlike himself. Lillian on the other hand is complete flummoxed by someone she believed she had figured out. She is completely suprised by how undone and passionate the paragon of English virtue is becoming.

I liked Lillian because she is completely rich character. She is vibrantly full of life. And Marcus...sigh...Kleypas definitely has this fella right.

The only thing I want to know is where I can get some of that perfume?

i admit it. i'm a big fan of lisa kleypas' writing style. that said, i don't like all of her books. SECRETS OF A SUMMER NIGHT (first book in the series) was a disappointment. however, the character of lillian bowman shined in that book and i was eager to find out what would happen to the evident intense emotion that existed between her and marcus marsden, earl of westcliff. luckily, i was not disappointed!

lillian is an american heiress whose family is looking to get her hitched to a member of british nobility with the hopes of giving them respectibility within the rich set. needless to say, she is not the retiring, coy, well-mannered and quiet british miss prevalent in london society. she is opinionated, athletic, brash, willful, and strong. and she's proud of it. marcus is just as willful, but add to that a level of arrogance afforded him because of his social position, and a belief he is never wrong. he is proud of the fact that he has never allowed his feelings to dictate his actions and sees those who do as weak and perplexing. he thinks lillian is too loud, too opinionated, too head-strong and too uncouth. ultimately, he also finds her to be too irresistable.

kleypas is gifted in a number of ways, but what i really like about her writing style is her keen ability to create heroes who are both vulnerable and strong. marcus, the guy who tells his friends that sex with his wife should only be once a week or its glutonous, is suddenly incapable of keeping his hands off of lillian. it was wonderful watching him fight his feelings before totally losing control over them. he knows lillian is wrong for him in all of the ways that count in their society, but he can't seem to help himself.

the intensity found in the intimate moments between lillian and marcus is heightened as the reader watches marcus lose the internal war over his feelings for lillian. we see him transform from a cold, aloof, controlled, and pompous aristrocrat to a warm-blooded, passionate, sensual, impulsive and caring man over the course of this book and let me tell you, the change is amazing.

lillian also changes over the course of the book. she softens a little as she realizes she's vulnerable to love, but she retains all of her wonderfully outlandish qualities from beginning to end. she doesn't transform into the typical british miss. this is great because marcus grows to appreciate lillian's qualities.

the plot itself was little more than marcus and lillian battling against each other as they begin to fall in love. it occurs over the course of a month during a house party on marcus' estate. there is a surprising plot twist towards the end, which proves to be very effective in setting up the hero for the next book in the series.

the chemistry between the hero and heroine was wonderful, as they throw barbs towards each other that had me laughing out loud. they were both strong characters with wit, which is always appealing. their love scenes were also very sensual, although not as daring as kleypas' other books, most notably "where dreams begin" and "then came you". they were still well done and satisfying.

so if you like a hero who is strong yet unable to control his emotions in the face of true love, sexual tension that is electric, witty banter, and a hero and heroine who are strong in all areas, yet vulnerable to love, this is the book for you.

I HIGHLY recommend it!