Seduce me at Sunrise by Lisa Kleypas

Seduce Me at Sunrise is the second in the Hathaway series by Lisa Kleypas.  It's a regency romance series focused on the unconventional Hathaway family and all the deliciously inappropriate people they fall in love with.  This book tells the story of the second eldest sister Winnifred and the fated love she shares with the families factotum/foster brother Kev Merripen.

 

Winifred Hathaway is sick and tired of being sick and tired.  She’s also tired of simply making puppy dog eyes at Merripen who will never consent to be with her while her health is so fragile for fear of hurting her.  So she decides to go to an experimental treatment hospital in France to get stronger, believing that her fragility is all that is standing in the way of Merripen ravishing her like she wishes he would.

Unfortunately, Merripen is much more effed up than she is even aware.  Because he’s a big hulking brute and though he’s yearned for Win since he was 12 years old and first saw her, he is convinced she is much too good for him and that he would just ruin her life.  She’s the reason he’s stayed with the Hathaways after being rescued when left for dead by his gypsy tribe.  He was raised like a fighting dog, made to fight other boys and he is afraid he is still just a beast made for violence.  So even when Win returns from two years in France, strong and healthy, there are angsty obstacles of severe angst still standing in their way.  To complicate matters Win’s charming Doctor has followed her home to London with the purpose of courting her. 

Most of this book revolves around Win being exasperated and Merripen acting like an ass, and a bunch of people telling Merripen he’s acting like an ass and he not listening and generally being surly.  Until he’s not.  There is also a side story - a developing bro-mance if you will – between Merripen and Cam discovering the mystery of their Romany origins. 

Of the five books in the Hathaway series this is probably my fourth favorite but I did enjoy it.

What do you think of brooding surly heroes?  Have you read Seduce me at sunrise?  What do you think of the pairing of Win and Merripen?