Format read: ebook provided by the authorFormats available: ebook
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Devilish Vignettes #1
Length: 60 pages
Publisher: Victoria Vane
Date Released: December 7, 2012
Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon
Every devil has a beginning…A rebellious young nobleman’s prank with the king’s lion goes comically awry, leading to a startling chain of events. A riotous Georgian romp in the tradition of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones.
It’s a vignette, that’s a sign that it’s short. However, since this is a vignette about how Ludovic DeVere very definitely earned his sobriquet of “Devil DeVere”, it is anything but sweet.
Nor should it be sweet. DeVere would probably spit on the word sweet. Or run it through. Or, if it was female…well, never mind.
Instead, in this vignette readers get a fascinating glimpse of exactly what made Ludo into the man we meet in A Wild Night’s Bride (reviewed here). Or maybe the one we meet in The Devil You Know (review at Book Lovers Inc.), since that comes first chronologically.
We also meet his best friend Ned, who seems to have always needed Ludo to keep him from being a dull dog. We meet them, and two other boys, and they nearly are boys, as very young men, close to graduating from public school.
Until the incident with the lion. And DeVere’s lion-sized pride. The incident that sends him to Europe instead of finishing sixth-form.
It also gives us a painful insight into the reasons behind DeVere’s complete unwillingness to commit himself to any relationship. Watching him suffer for him parents’ sins and it definitely is both in equal measure. It’s also absolutely heart-rending.
If you liked Victoria Vane’s Devil DeVere series, you must read about the making of the Devil. It’s enlightening, especially in the dark places.
Escape Rating B+: As an illustration (also literally, I read the illustrated version) to how the character grew to be the man he is in the later books, this vignette is fascinating. Also both funny and tragic. I’m not sure it would stand alone for a reader not familiar with the series.
The illustrations were great. The artist’s DeVere did match the picture in my head. And the picture of his father, absolutely gave me a shudder. His mother, I’m not quite sure of. But the illustrator’s DeVere was the epitome of a dissolute young rake with a core of steel. Yum.
