THE HEIRESS HUNT

In Gilded Age New York, a tennis champion is torn between a duke and her childhood best friend.

Maddie Webster and Harrison Archer grew up promenading on Fifth Avenue and playing in Newport. Although they are both from the same rarefied New York society circles, their home lives couldn’t be more different: Maddie’s family is loving and caring, fully supporting her dreams of becoming a women’s tennis champion; meanwhile, Harrison’s family is cold and cruel, always treating him as a worthless second son. Three years earlier, Harrison intended to offer for Maddie but was crushed to realize she thought of him like a brother. Hurt and disappointed in Maddie and furious that his family disowned him when he tried to stop his father's abuse of the housemaid, Harrison fled to Paris. Now his family has called him home. After his father’s death, his older brother’s gross mismanagement of Archer Industries has left the company in shambles. Harrison’s family wants him to marry an heiress to infuse cash into the business, not knowing he’s planning to wrest full control of the company by becoming the majority stockholder. Maddie’s betrothal to the Duke of Lockwood is all but assured, so she offers to host a house party to introduce Harrison to her friends. Harrison accepts her offer, intending to steal Maddie away from the Duke while he purchases the remaining stock he needs. The individual strands of Shupe’s busy plot aren’t effectively braided together. Harrison’s revenge plot against his family is introduced but then put on hold while he courts Maddie. The late-stage conflict between the lovers seems to be manufactured to elongate the plot rather than an organic outgrowth of their characters.

The first book in a new romance series fails to coalesce.