A Lyons in Winter: A Box Set

"What light through yonder window breaks?"
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.

An opportunity to become reacquainted with Sherwood's larger than life 'Lyon's Pride' family was to good too miss. These 'holiday themed' novellas featuring Harold Lyons, the Duke of Whitborough, Helene de Sevigny-Lyons, his Duchess and and their various offsprings, are filled with the towering personalities. A chance to reread some of their stories and explore new (to me) novellas--a pleasure!
Madeline Lyon's tale is charming, as is Lord Gervase and Margaret Bellemy's (née Carlisle) untimely romance.
All that frisson, jealousies and untamed energy displayed within the family is both riveting and exhausting. What light can indeed break upon the causes for such a dysfunctional family?
And yet light does cast its penetrating beam on many inhabiting the pages of this Box Set.
I was awed by Sherwood's use of Shakespearian themes, reworked into the various Lyon episodes. The avid quoting of the various lines from the Bard shows Sherwood's deep love and grasp of his works and her related understanding of the process of acting.
My favorite contribution this time around, which I hadn't read, is "Ephiphany". A secondary tale to that of the family. Featuring Lady Bellamy's maid Tilda James, and Lord Gervase's valet Simon Farnsworth, it's a gem.
Using Christmas and winter as an organizing focus for this set of stories, the collection brings together various members of this distinctive, oft times tragic, and always contentious titled (and so very entitled) Victorian family.

A NetGalley ARC

A Lyons in Winter: A Box Set by Pamela Sherwood. Blue Castle Publishing, 2019.

With characters inspired by Hepburn and O’Toole’s Lion in Winter, this “box set” of Victorian-era holiday-themed romances has one novel, three novellas and two short stories. Each well written and engaging story plays out in a richly described setting. Shakespeare lovers will particularly enjoy the play-related quotations and references.

I always love to get my hands on eBook box sets and especially enjoyed this one, my first experience with the Lyons Pride series.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of A Lyons in Winter via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was initially tempted to this on NetGalley by the fact that it was a mini collection of works in a series. I like romance series that focus on siblings, and have them pop up in each others’ stories, so the Lyons family sounded great. I got much more than I bargained for, though, because this family is far more intense than the average…

This box set contains two short stories, two novellas, and the first full length novel in the Lyons Pride series. Also mixed in are some really interesting author’s notes, where Pamela Sherwood explains how she drew inspiration for the Lyons family from the film A Lion in Winter and the historical figures it was based on. I really appreciated these nods to history, though they are not obtrusive and the storyline doesn’t follow history – these are new characters, there’s just inspiration behind them. There’s also a large amount of Shakespeare woven throughout the writing, with plays being put on and also a seemingly endless bank of quotations for the characters to pepper their speeches with. It shouldn’t work, but it really does, and it makes for a fun game to spot them all. The last thing to mention is that these are all Christmas stories – a time of cheer and being in close quarters with your family, which makes for a nice way to tie these all together.

First up in the collection is The Advent of Lady Madeline, which is a novella detailing the courtship between eldest Lyons sister Madeline, and her lovely husband-to-be, Hugo, across a Christmas house party. They play the Capulets in a family production of Romeo and Juliet, and while she falls in love with his genuine kindness and sweetness, he loves how her bossiness and cleverness challenges him – aka, my favourite thing, a Hufflepuff/Slytherin romance. This was, I think, my favourite story in the collection, because it’s a great introduction to the Lyons family. Being set a little earlier than the first novel, the characters are a little younger, a little less bitter, and there’s less tension as Madeline spends a lot of time with the actually nice Hugo, instead of involved with the in-fighting of her family (it’s definitely simmering in the background, though!).

Next is Devices and Desires, the novel, which focuses on Gervase, the third son, who has been caught in between his parents’ bitterness for years. Both the Duke and the Duchess have their favourites among their sons – exacerbated by the death of Hal, the Duke’s original favourite and the eldest – and Gervase is nobody’s favourite. He forces himself to accept the fact that he’s always been in love with the woman who was engaged to his eldest brother when he died, and this is the Christmas he decides he’s going to have to make a move, for his own sanity. The romance is wonderful. Madeline, Hal’s ex-fiancée, went on to marry another man, and has now been widowed for (almost) the second time. Her character was so strong, but so in need of the kind of rock-solid strength Gervase could provide, and she was the perfect foil to him – their dialogue sings.

Their love story is actually fairly straightforward compared to the devious rivalries of the Lyons family, and I think that’s where this book was lifted from a four star to a five star for me. This family is messed up. There’s so much going on – so many real and perceived insults across the years – that there’s a huge tangle of seething resentment sitting underneath the perfect Christmassy exteriors. Madeline has the ability to untangle this grim family’s impact on Gervase, allowing him to make a change to the constant uncertainties, and bringing some peace, I hope, to the family as a whole, but it’s an utterly fascinating spectacle to watch. So often in historical romance people have perfect relationships with their siblings, but this is a very realistic and interesting portrayal of a complicated family made up of complicated people. There’s genuine affection between some of the siblings but barely concealed hatred between some of the others, and I was hooked. This would definitely be a great read for those who love those complicated, messy royal histories (if you enjoyed The Tudors, this is for you!)

The shorter stories and the two final novellas are sweet and more light-hearted. There are snippets of Christmas fun, a sweet little look at Gervase’s hunt for the perfect engagement ring, and a romance between two servants of the house. These feel like the author wanted to write her own fanfic, and I love it! It’s nice to see quiet moments of happiness that don’t necessarily fit into the main plot – yes, they may be fluffy and not serve the main story, but they’re still lovely, and help to give an overall picture of the characters’ lives. This really made the collection shine for me.

Overall, then, this is fantastic, smart historical romance with an intellectual heart. It was thoroughly enjoyable (as Marie Kondo says, I love mess!), and I’ll be eagerly looking out for further installments in the series. Five out of five cats!

I so enjoyed this collection of novellas plus a novel! This was the first time I had read this author. I absolutely adore historical romance, particularly medieval, Regency, and Victorian. Because I read so much of these subgenres, I find that I am often disappointed at the willful disregard for the basic rules and mores of the times or a story that is filled too much with the familiar tropes. So I was delighted and enchanted to find well-written stories well-drawn and sometimes quirky characters. The stories themselves revealed an author who is well versed in Victorian manners and morality, yet still knows how to weave a story that focuses on the uniqueness of the characters and the particulars of their individual stories.

I particularly loved the first novella. I enjoyed how the author made the heroine, Madeline, erudite with her love of Shakespeare and the theater, yet she had a good sense of humor, compassion, and backbone surprising for a Victorian daughter of a duke. The author did an excellent job of showing how the hero gradually came to know his own mind and needs better; he was surprised and charmed by Madeline, and I love his chivalrous nature. I also enjoyed the humor in this book, in particular where the author brought the modern “never have I ever” game into Victorian times, as the hero often imagined himself composing a letter to his sister proclaiming that never had he done something as he was doing now at the house party at the duke’s. I like how the epilogue of this first story became the prologue for the next story, although it was told or from the perspective of the hero of that novel.

I really enjoyed all the members of the Lyons family as well as the Christmas spirit that flowed through these novels. While this may have been my introduction to this author, I am definitely going to look into her other books.

I received a digital ARC from NetGalley. These books were refreshing. I have missed the readings of old and the Shakespearean style. What a wonderful collection

This box set comprises of four separate stories revolving around the Lyons family who are loosely based on the Plantagenets, or rather the Plantagenets depicted in the film Lions of Winter. The author has drawn on this movie as well as Shakespeare and set the stories in Victorian England at Christmas. The books are well plotted, the characters are realistic and have depth of character and the challenges they face are relatable.
I got more than I expected from this box set and look forward to reading more from this author.