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So during the Rake Appreciation Society's recent live for Texas Destiny, Crystal and Jen announced the next few books through August 2021! What's fun about it is, the August book will be book 7 of Lisa Kleypas' Ravenels series Duke in Disguise (out July 27th, 2021). In preparation, I wanted to reread the Hathaways and Ravenels! Now, before I go too much farther, I have a confessions to make. I have not read all of the Ravenels. I started reading them as they came out, but didn't keep track on GoodReads at that time. I honestly can't remember the last one that I read, but I think it was around book 4.
If you are unaware, a lot Lisa's series kind of "spin-off" of each other and are set in the same world. It's starts with the Wallflowers (which I decided not to reread), moves to the Hathaways, then moves to the Ravenels. The Hathaways are my favorite Lisa Kleypas series, the top 3 of my favorite of her books (so far) are in this series, and it's one of my favorite historical romance series ever. I own all 5 books, with their stepbacks and just absolutely adore it. I wanted to wait until later in the year since I'll know I'll blow through them quickly, but I had a killer sinus infection/head cold last week that moved into my ears. I've never had ear issues before and let me tell you, it sucks. I don't get sick very often, but that was so bad. I just can't. So once things started to decrease swelling, I was finally able to read and wanted something comforting. I decided to start my reread and immediately grabbed the first book the series, Mine Till Midnight.
Our hero is Cam Rohan, a half-Romany half-Irish manager of a big gambling den. If you've read the Wallflowers series, he's the young man that was psuedo-raised alongside Evie and is now good friends with her husband Sebastian St. James. If you haven't read their book, it's a favorite among historical readers. They also pop up in the Ravenels series with a couple of their kids being featured. But back to Cam and Amelia. Amelia is the eldest sister of the Hathaways and has become the mother figure after their parents passed away. The were raised as more middle-class, but after several Lord Ramsay's die in a row, Leo (the brother) ends up the new Viscount and they "enter" society. The Hathaways don't fit into society and just kind of do their own thing. Another big plot point for the series is after their parents passed, Leo and Winnifred (the 2nd eldest daughter) were infected with scarlet fever. Leo's fiancé actually ended up passing away from the disease. Since then, he's been on a grief-ridden rampage and set on destroying himself.
The book starts out with Amelia tracking him down to move the family out to the seat in Hampshire. She comes to Rohan's club and actually watches him deal with some fighting men in the alley. It's also important to note that they have a family friend Merripen that's also Romany. Cam ends up helping them track Leo down, and thinking he'll never see her again, kisses her before she leaves. A bit of time later, the Hathaways have moved into the run-down estate and are starting to turn it into a home. On a walk to town, her neighbor Westcliff (another hero from the Wallflowers & is my favorite book of that series) is shooting off rockets. Surprise, Cam is there and ends up "saving" Amelia. So begins their push and pull. I absolutely adore how into Amelia Cam is and that he's very alpha about it. He's constantly thinking of her as his fate and his and it's just so lovely.
He ends up compromising her fairly early in the book and the way that they fall in love just gives me all of the feelings. Cam is the perfect patriarch of the family and as you see throughout the series really knows to handle the Hathaways the best to help them thrive without completely ruining the family. I also love that when he's feeling restless in the beginning and thinking maybe he should go back to being nomadic, it's really him searching for his place and his person. Now, there is a lot of the word gypsy used and there is hatred towards Cam (and Merripen) from those outside of their family and friend group. I just want to warn in case that's something you are sensitive about. This book was written in late 2000s though before it was really discussed as a slur. I do want to say as well, that even though there are secondary characters that treat Cam and Merripen disrespectfully, I don't believe that Lisa wrote about it disrespectfully outside of just using the words that are now not politically correct. I also should mention that I've heard that the Audiobooks were redone, but not well. Not only did they remove a lot of the issues with Cam and Merripen's race, but I guess they also made Cam less alpha and changed a lot of other things as well. I can't say personally since I don't read audiobooks, but I trust those I've heard about it from. If you want to listen to this series, maybe see if you could try to find the original versions?
Anyways, overall this is my 2nd favorite book of the series and it's such a great set-up for the rest. All of the siblings are made clear in their characters and you can see (as I'm rereading) a lot of fun threads that will show up throughout. If you haven't read Lisa Kleypas and/or the Hathaway series, I couldn't recommend them more. I'm really excited to start my reread of the series and can't wait to get through them once again! These are more along the lighter side of historical romance and there is a reason Lisa Kleypas is referred to as "The Queen" by many.
Have you read Mine Till Midnight?
Bookishly Yours,
Stasi🍎
STATISTICS: Mine Till Midnight, Lisa Kleypas, 5-stars, 2 days, paperback, 376 pages, published in 2007
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