The Rogue of Fifth Avenue: Uptown Girls
In this first in her Uptown Girls series, set in Gilded Age New York, Shupe matches society princess Mamie Greene with self-made lawyer Frank Tripp, who’s hiding humble origins behind his polished success. Mamie is annoyed when Frank interferes with her plot to steal money from her well-heeled peers and redistribute it to the needy folks in downtown tenements, but she turns to him for help when one of her beneficiaries kills her abusive husband in self-defense. Frank agrees to defend Mrs. Porter as an excuse to get near Mamie, and Mamie’s crusades of social justice and combating domestic violence take backseat to steamy love scenes as she sets out to overcome Frank’s objections to seducing her. Frank’s influence helps Mamie stand up to her nerveless fiancé and domineering father, and her soft heart nudges Frank’s developing conscience about the ways he’s rejected his birth family to climb the social ladder. Intimacy that makes spoken consent sexy and a real heart for the socially and economically disadvantaged drive a well-plotted love story between two well-matched people, and Mamie’s canny and intriguing sisters promise that the rest of the Uptown Girls series will be just as much delicious fun.
