Luck Be A Lady
London, 1886. This fourth book of a series opens after a prologue shows Catherine Everleigh’s privileged childhood and Nick O’Shea’s very underprivileged one. Heiress to an auction house rivaling Christie’s or Sotheby’s, Catherine struggles to preserve her legacy as her grasping brother threatens it and her. Nick has risen from poverty in the East End streets. He is now a wealthy crime lord with a social conscience, and has secretly loved Catherine for some time. Their marriage seems unlikely, but is necessary to advance the plot. Sizzling, passionate attraction soon follows. There is a good deal of will-they or won’t-they make love as Catherine struggles to reconcile her feelings for Nick with her fear that she cannot combine marriage and career successfully. Danger threatens, and Nick rescues Catherine while foiling her deplorable enemies.
Anyone familiar with London’s East End will miss the characteristic accent in the working class characters, and events slow as the reader slogs through Catherine’s internal struggles. Still, this is a fairly entertaining story with a lot of heat. Fans of Ms. Duran’s first three in the series should like this one, too.
