A Scandalous Deal

Starred review from February 19, 2018
In Shupe’s shimmering second Four Hundred historical romance (after A Daring Arrangement), set in the late 19th century, a daring architect falls for her employer. Lady Eva Hyde travels from London to New York to start working on the Mansfield hotel project in lieu of her father, famed architect E.M. Hyde, who was commissioned for the project but is too ill to complete it. While aboard ship, Eva shares a memorable champagne-infused evening with Phillip, a handsome fellow passenger. Both are shocked when they meet again in New York: Phillip is Phillip Mansfield, the hotel’s owner. He reluctantly agrees to allow Eva at the construction site if she purports to be Hyde’s secretary and only stays until Hyde can join them. He is unaware that the designs are Eva’s own and that her father will never be well enough to come to New York to work. As Phillip starts to thaw towards her professionally and becomes increasingly enamored of her personally, sexual tension leads to romantic interludes. Readers will adore Eva’s determination to succeed professionally and insistence that Phillip must respect her career goals if they are to have any chance at love. Agent: Laura Bradford, Bradford Literary.

March 1, 2018
When a lady architect tries to construct the hotel of her dreams, she builds herself a love story as well.Lady Eva Hyde is beginning to believe the gossips who have named her Lady Unlucky. But it's not because she's had three fiances and all three have died; it's because she hates boats, but sailing to New York City is the only way to save her architect father's reputation and finances now that his mind is going and he's no longer capable of designing anything. Onboard, her unluckiness lifts briefly when she meets a handsome stranger and they share a nice dinner--and her first intimate encounter. She's mortified by her behavior the next day, especially after discovering that the handsome stranger is Phillip Mansfield, hotel magnate and, as her father's client, the man she needs to win over. Mansfield, ambitious and at odds with the city establishment, is not pleased to learn that after hiring the famous E.M. Hyde, he's been sent the man's daughter instead. Trying to keep the project on track, and also to keep Eva nearby, he allows her to fill in; though she tries her best to keep their relationship professional, their chemistry keeps pulling them together in quiet corners. When so-called accidents start to happen whenever she's on-site, Eva is concerned only with making the most of her chance to be an architect, and she and Phillip both need to decide whether their careers should be more important than their attraction. Shupe (A Daring Arrangement, 2017, etc.) has done it again--the second book in her Four Hundred Series is engaging and steamy from the second chapter, featuring an ambitious heroine every contemporary reader can cheer for. Her detailed writing evokes the extravagant buildings and precarious politics of Tammany Hall with precision, offering the perfect setting for the melodrama of the sweeping plot. It's not necessary to read the series in order, but with stories this fun, readers won't skip any of Shupe's books.More charmingly scandalous Gilded Age romance that will thrill any historical romance reader.

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April 1, 2018
Phillip Mansfield hired English architect E. M. Hyde to design his new hotel in New York City, and technically that is exactly what's underway. But ever since illness struck her father and robbed him of the ability to work, Eve Hyde had been filling in for him, with no one the wiser. She is positive she can fulfill her father's commission for the wealthy American hotel magnate as long as she keeps the right amount of professional distance between herself and her new employer. This isn't a problem until Eve arrives in New York City for her first meeting with Phillip and discovers that he is the very same man with whom she shared a brief shipboard dalliance mere days ago while crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The latest in Shupe's marvelously different Four Hundred series, set during the Gilded Age, offers historical-romance fans a surfeit of literary riches with its perfectly matched protagonists, polished prose, perceptive plotting, and sumptuous sensuality.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)