A Daring Arrangement
Part of a series of romances set in the Gilded Age in New York City, Shupe’s story follows Lady Honora Parker, recently disgraced in London due to her affair with an English artist. Her father sends her packing to his sister in New York to find a suitable husband. Lady Nora wants to be back in the arms of her lover, so she strikes up a fake engagement to Jules, a Wall Street tycoon with no interest in a wife but who wants entrance into the upper social strata, where Lady Nora is welcome. They soon become interested in each other. Jules has a dark past to uncover, even as Nora’s artist arrives in New York bent on revenge.
A Daring Arrangement is more costume drama than historical, repetitive and with too much “telling” and not enough advantage taken of dramatic possibilities. This might have been a diverting novella, but at 373 pages some readers might find themselves as overstuffed as a guest at one of Mrs. Astor’s dinner parties.
