A strong finish to a strong-willed Gilded Age series.
A jilted duke finally finds the heiress he needs but not where he expects.
Anyone would feel bad for the Duke of Lockwood. Most broke English aristocrats who sail into New York, looking for an heiress who will trade her fortune to be made a duchess, end up with their pick of eligible debutantes. But by now Lockwood has been connected to and then dumped by not one, not two, but three women. (They all ended up engaged to their love matches instead, but still.) At this point, he can’t help wondering if it's a coincidence that they're all close friends with Miss Nellie Young and if she’s the cause of his misfortune, since they had an amorous midnight encounter by the ocean just before his third engagement fell through. The daughter of a railroad tycoon, her fortune could make her a potential match, but her reputation is checkered, to say the least. Not that she minds—Nellie prefers to be single, free to take lovers when she pleases and to spend her time getting around the Comstock laws to share information about family planning and contraception with other women. As Lockwood begins one last attempt to find a duchess to take home before it's too late to save his family's dukedom, somehow he keeps finding his way back to Nellie instead. Their shared appetite for risky intimacy isn’t sated by repeated encounters, and Lockwood realizes that regardless of Nellie's reputation, she's the future duchess he needs—but Nellie isn’t willing to give up her freedom. This is a satisfying conclusion to Shupe’s Fifth Avenue Rebels series, especially as no reader could fail to feel sympathy for Lockwood by now. The chemistry between Lockwood and Nellie is sizzling; Shupe has outdone herself again in bringing to life the rough-and-ready attraction between her two main characters. The book is also notable for showing a different side of Manhattan, as Nellie’s mother was an Irish maid and her family in Hell’s Kitchen is central to the story. Historically accurate details, especially surrounding the battle for information about birth control in the 1890s, round out this resonant tale.
A strong finish to a strong-willed Gilded Age series.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-304507-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A book that will wolfishly appeal to the most heated fans of omegaverse erotica.
Tess Covington is a talented, successful contractor who just learned that she’s a late-in-life omega wolf shifter. Her new boss, surly innkeeper Hunter Barrett, is an alpha who’s opposed to the remodeling she’s there to do.
Tess hasn’t made it public that she’s being considered for her own HGTV makeover show, but she runs her career like a well-oiled machine. She posts a lot of her remodels on social media, granting her a certain level of celebrity, and leans on her brothers to help run the business she took over after a stroke made it impossible for her father to keep working. Hunter’s last serious relationship with an omega 10 years ago left him deeply wounded, ending when his parents were killed in a car accident and he moved back home to take care of their lodge—hence his resistance to change. With few exceptions, Tess keeps her newly diagnosed omega status to herself. Unfortunately, as an alpha, Hunter sniffs her out and seems to be the only person capable of helping her with her sudden heats, so there’s a lot of very smutty caretaking. The specificity of omegaverse hierarchy might be new to some readers, but Ferguson’s worldbuilding is quick, easy, and deeply horny. General romance readers might enjoy the grumpy-meets-sunshine and stranded-in-a-snowstorm tropes, although for a book about shifters, the characters spend surprisingly little time in wolf form. There’s not much danger of character development or surprising plot elements here, but for fans excited to read about animalistic mating, that might be enough.
A book that will wolfishly appeal to the most heated fans of omegaverse erotica.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780593953693
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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