This series was my gateway drug to historical romance!! So many of my book friends love historical romance and Lisa Kleypas and it took me forever to get around to reading her. Then I picked up her Wallflowers series and binged all five books in a week. I JUST LOVED.
The series is set in the 1800s in England and features a group of four girls who are “wallflowers”. For one reason or another, they are having issues capturing a respectable future husband. After a few seasons of being left on the sidelines, the girls decide to be friends and ban together to help each other find a husband.
The friendship between these girls is the absolute highlight of the series and I adored how supportive and loyal and loving they are of each other! They also crack me up and I would just love to be one of them and be best friends with them!
Annabelle, featured in Secrets of a Summer Night, is so strong and she is her own person and wouldn’t be timid like what everyone expects her to be. Simon is fascinating and while he is blunt, outspoken and not “proper” he is everything else that is good! He is protective and honest (to a fault, perhaps) and caring! I just loved how husband hunting found Annabelle true love!
I loved Lillian so much in It Happened One Autumn! She is so stubborn and strong willed and she says exactly what she thinks. When she and Westcliff come together it’s such a clash because they’re so similar. But it WORKS. Hate to love tropes are just one of my favorites.
The pairing for Devil in Winter surprised me! It’s Evie’s book, I’ll say that and this is my favorite in the series! Evie is so shy that you just wonder how will she come out of her shell? Well. THIS BOOK. It’s so amazing and I loved these two, they’re just so PERFECT. The ending was so emotional and amazing and I have a lot of love for these two!
Daisy’s book, Scandal in Spring, seemed like a quieter book but it was still so sweet to see her relationship develop. I love her and Lillian’s close sister relationship and really liked seeing the familial aspects at play in this one!
A Wallflower Christmas was so good because I loved seeing everyone together and seeing a glimpse into each couple’s lives. It also features Lillian and Daisy’s brother as the main couple. It was amazing, of course. I could never get enough of these Wallflowers!
In Short…
The Wallflowers series features some of the strongest female friendships I’ve ever read and it is just so perfect. I fell in love with each man and each couple and loved their love stories. You have no idea how much love I have for this series! It had me wishing I lived in the 1840s! I highly highly recommend reading this series if you haven’t already (I know, I’m late to reading this!) I’m now in love with historical romance and cannot wait to check out more!
Ahh! I’m so glad you read this series and fell in love with it and HR. I’m even more glad that you got ME to read this series because I’m with you. SO MUCH LOVE!! I assumed from the beginning Evie’s would be my favorite but I just fell way too hard for Lily and Westcliff. BUT the distance between first and second place is basically like a millimeter. It’s so tiny it may as well not even exist.
Sigh. reading your review makes me want to go read them again! I still need to read the Christmas one though. I got caught up in ARCs so I haven’t cracked it open yet. At least I have that to look forward too! Great series review lady!
I’m SO HAPPY you read this series and loved it too!! I kind of think Evie’s is my fave but gosh westcliff! and then again, I loved annabelle and simon! so basically… just lots of love here. And the Christmas one is so amazing too, I can’t wait for you to get to it!!
Oh man. I need to read these! I’ve been craving some different reads, so I think a big genre jump would be a good thing for me! I need to see if these are on Overdrive so I can read them! (Except Fire totally just came available, so I think I’d better read that first. LOL)
Oh Jess you need to! I am so in love with HR now!
My heart is SO happy knowing that you loved the Wallflowers! It’s a great historical romance series, which is no surprise because Lisa Kleypas is the Queen. But seriously, there’s lots to love about this series and I’m glad you were able to binge read them all 😉
I loved chatting with you girls as I read too!! Can’t wait to dive into more HR! 🙂
Ah, so this is the series you were talking about! It’s hard to find a good HR series to follow, IMO. I love them though! Thanks for the reviews lovely
I’m mostly just going to go off of HR recs! I feel like it’ll be safer that way, haha.
I’m so glad you loved this series! What other historical romance books have you read?
Devil in Winter is really special isn’t it? I can’t believe how much it made me love St. Vincent. Because I didn’t like him at ALL in It Happened in Autumn. I loved that book too. Hate to love is a trope I love as well. Have you read Kleypas’s Hathaway series? That is amazing too, and in the first book, Mine Till Midnight, some of these characters show up. And St. Vincent has the funniest and cleverest lines in the whole book.
I haven’t read any others yet! This was my first series! 🙂 I can’t wait to read more though! Oh my gosh, right?? I couldn’t believe how much I loved St. Vincent!! SO AMAZING. I haven’t read the Hathaways series yet but I plan to! I own the first two in that series 🙂 Oh yay I didn’t know some of these characters would show up!! That makes me so excited!
Yayyy! So happy you loved this series, Wendy. I adore this one and it’s one that I’ll never tire of re-reading. I agree that Devil in Winter was one of the best ever. Loved Evie and Sebastian so much! They were way too cute for words.
I can’t wait for you to read The Hathaways!
After that, you WILL have to read Tessa Dare’s Castle Ever After series and Sarah MacLean’s books!
Wonderful review, Wendy!
I have Tessa Dare on my list, for sure! And Sarah MacLean! I basically have a massive HR list of recs now 🙂 Can’t wait!
I can’t read historicals, but I will try one because Nick keeps talking about them. I think it’s the language that throws me off. I want to try a contemp by this author, ease my way in 🙂
I don’t think the language in these ones were TOO different.. but try sometime!! I just loved. I’ve also read Lisa Kleypas’ contemp ones too and really enjoyed too! So you can’t go wrong there!
My favorite of the series is It Happened One Autumn, Lillian & Marcus 🙂 🙂 🙂 I can’t believe I stretched this series into an entire year but I started in February 2014 and finished with Wallflower Christmas in December.
Oh wow I can’t believe you stretched it out! I just couldn’t wait! It’s really a toss up between Lillian and Evie’s book for me!! <3
Welcome to the fanclub, girl! You are not longer an HR virgin. 😀 😀
I love this series so, so much. Evie and Sebastian are my favorite, too, but I have a soft spot for Simon and Annabelle. <3