A Review of The Gilded Heiress, by Joanna Shupe

The Gilded Heiress is a sexy, fresh, first-person romance that will keep you turning the pages well into the night. The main characters are scrappy and relatable, and they will charm you from page one. So much fun!

Setting

Boston and New York, 1896.

Main Characters

Josie Smith is an orphan who has determination, a voice of gold, and not much else. She sings on the street corners for money and has no idea how to translate her dreams of becoming a famous singer into reality.

Leo Hardy is all charm. He is a confidence man and good at it. He has had to support his mother and a house full of sisters since his father drank himself to death, so he can’t afford the luxury of principles.

Romance

When Leo spots Josie singing on a street corner where he is having a slow day with his card hustles, he can’t help but think of how she could pass for the missing daughter–kidnapped as a baby–of his father’s former employers. If he can get Josie to New York, he can collect the reward and gain revenge on the millionaires who fired his father after the kidnapping. He poses as a theatrical manager and offers to take her to New York and get her on the stage. One of the first rules of a successful con is not to get involved with the target. No matter how pretty she is.

Josie isn’t fool enough to trust Leo without a contract, and even then, she keeps a careful eye on him. She has never had anyone she could count on besides her best friend growing up at the orphanage. And she refuses to become reliant Leo, no matter how kind and charming he is.

But the more time they spend together, the more they bring out the best in each other, and eventually, they cannot resist each other’s charms. Neither expects anything more than a brief flirtation, and they certainly don’t expect to grow to need each other.

Plot

But Leo has a past, and when he needs to call in favors to help get Josie in front of the best Broadway producers, his former associates want in on the action. Josie and Leo will each have to decide who to trust and what, in their increasingly complicated situation, is the right thing to do.

Historical Worldbuilding

As always, Joanna Shupe does fantastic worldbuilding. She starts us out on the streets of Boston, with card hustles and brothels. Then she quickly moves us to New York, feeling the differences in the culture of each city’s thoroughfares and back alleys at the turn of the century. Josie and Leo travel by train, streetcar, and carriage, and even get some theater tips for Josie from the great Lotta Crabtree herself. We hear the city, we smell the food, and we move right into the energy of the 1890s. It is divine!

Turn-of-the-century Broadway

Tropes

This is an Anastasia retelling, done in a way that works convincingly for early New York. We also have a hidden identity, with Leo pretending to be someone he is not.

Secondary Characters

Leo’s family plays bit parts, but they are so likable that you have no trouble believing Leo would be willing to con half of Boston to keep a roof over their heads. The Broadway characters are delightfully quirky and believably surprising. And Leo’s friend, Ambrose, shows us what Leo used to be.

Point of View

This book is written first person, alternating between Josie and Leo’s points of view.

In Summary

• This is a rollicking historical romance, full of city energy and likeable characters doing what it takes to survive and thrive with the cards they are dealt.
• It is set primarily in 1896 New York after starting in Boston.
• Josie and Leo are likeable and relatable characters who fight their way through life, and still manage to find joy. Josie is strong-willed and self-reliant, and Leo could charm the greatest cynic. It is impossible not to root for them.
• As always, Shupe gives us immersive historical detail that drops us right into the setting ourselves. You can feel the energy radiating off the page.
• The tropes are an Anastasia retelling and hidden identity.
• The heat level is a 3 out of five. There is explicit sex on the page, but it is not frequent or the primary focus of the book.
• There is a scene where sexual assault is a threat.

Keep them Coming!

Many thanks to Joanna Shupe for the advance copy of this novel to review. What other historical romances have you read that are set in the Americas and you think others might enjoy? Any good Latin American or Caribbean romances you have read recently? Please email me or post in the comments below with suggestions for other titles!

Love historical romance? My latest novel, Passion’s Duty, is set during the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War (also known as the French & Indian War). That is the war that laid the foundation for the American Revolution. We are embarking on the 250th anniversary of the Revolution, so this is the perfect time to read it. Be sure to check it out!

If you would like to know when I post new reviews, please sign up for my newsletter. The reviews come out roughly once a month, and you will also get news about my own writing and bonus content. No spam–just bookish delights!

Image by unknown photographer (scanned by and courtesy of Derzsi Elekes Andor), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Links to purchase books are affiliate links, which do not affect the price you pay, but do share a tiny percentage of the proceeds with me, which helps pay for this website. Thank you for your support!