Catch a Falling Heiress

November 10, 2014
Guhrke’s third American Heiress in London historical (after How to Lose a Duke in Ten Days) attempts to critique the familiar formula of “he has a title, she has a fortune.” In the late 1800s, Linnet Holland returns to Rhode Island after a discouraging search for a titled husband in Europe. Linnet agrees to meet her former crush, Frederick, in a darkened pagoda, where he intends to propose. Jack, the impoverished Lord Featherstone, follows Linnet to the pagoda to keep her from making a mistake with Frederick. But when Linnet and Jack are discovered there alone, he tries to save her reputation by kissing her and proposing marriage himself. Linnet sees Jack as just another fortune-hunting lord with a crumbling English estate, and at first she refuses to marry him. But when Jack and Linnet meet again in England, he works hard to win her heart, having decided that she is the only woman for him. While the precipitous engagement is somewhat contrived, the clever banter of courtship makes excellent foreplay for sensuous love scenes.

November 15, 2014
An impoverished English aristocrat is determined to protect an American heiress from an unscrupulous fortune hunter but, in doing so, compromises her himself, then finds he's falling for her-even though she won't give him the time of day.Having set an elaborate trap intended to cause a New York villain to show his true colors, the Earl of Featherstone is appalled when the blackguard tries to save himself by convincing heiress Linnet Holland to marry him. Stepping in to prevent that, Jack kisses her, thus shredding her reputation and obliging him to propose marriage to her, a suit she refuses. Deciding he's the last man on Earth she'd marry, and convinced he's a fortune hunter himself, Linnet sets sail for England to try to get a jump on the scandal and find a husband across the pond. Unfortunately for her, after that kiss, Jack has decided she's the wife for him, and when her father offers him a financial incentive beyond her dowry, he becomes more resolved. Following her back to England, Jack finagles his way to a house party she's attending and devotes himself to wooing her. The courting starts off horrendously but quickly moves into mutual interest until Linnet discovers Jack's agreement with her father and concludes he can't be trusted. Guhrke pens an intelligent and moving romance full of distrust and misunderstanding between two headstrong characters who are trying to find happiness against the odds. The unusual social backdrop of New York's Gilded Age adds an interesting dimension to a story that hinges on a number of intriguing financial elements. A sexy, smart romance with a unique arc that's enhanced by its upper-class old New York social setting.

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January 1, 2015
The plan was going perfectly until she walked into the ballroom. Jack Featherstone spent the last year cultivating a business partnership with investment-banker Frederick Van Hausen as part of a secret plan to see Van Hausen pay for his crimes by being convicted of embezzlement. Jack knows that by now Van Hausen is desperate for funds, so when he spots Van Hausen effusively greeting Linnet Holland, Jack immediately knows what Van Hausen is trying to do. If Van Hausen were to marry an heiress like Linnet, he would have enough cash to bail himself out of his troubles. However, when Jack tries to stop Van Hausen by proposing to Linnet himself, he discovers she has a mind of her own when it comes to exactly whom she is willing to marry. With incisive characterization, deft pacing, scintillating wit, and elegantly wrought prose, RITA Awardwinning Guhrke fashions another fetching addition to her smart and sexy An American Heiress in London series, following How to Lose a Duke in Ten Days (2014).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)