The Gilded Heiress by Joanna Shupe

From USA Today bestselling author Joanna Shupe comes a spicy Anastasia story full of secrets and betrayal, set among the glittering streets of New York City’s Gilded Age.

In 1880 a baby was stolen from the wealthiest family in America. Though no ransom was ever demanded, the Pendelton family never gave up hope . . . and their reward became the stuff of legend.

After being raised in a children’s asylum, Josie Smith ends up on the streets and quickly learns how to take care of herself. Her singing voice draws crowds on every corner, and she’ll stop at nothing to become famous and travel the world, loved and adored by all. Maybe then she won’t think about the family who gave her away as an infant.

Leo Hardy isn’t afraid to use his charm and wits to make a fast buck, especially with a mother and five siblings to support. When he stumbles upon a beautiful young woman singing on the street, Leo notices her striking resemblance to the infamous missing baby’s mother, Mrs. Thomas Pendelton. The Hardys lost everything thanks to the Pendeltons, and once Leo sees Josie, he seizes the opportunity to settle the score. All he needs to do is pull off the biggest swindle of his career.

As the two are catapulted into Knickerbocker High Society, they grow closer to their goal, as well as to each other. But secrets can only stay hidden for so long. Soon the truth unfolds, and both Josie and Leo must separate what’s real from what’s just gilding.

Long story short, The Gilded Heiress was not for me. I was very excited about an Anastasia retelling in New York, but the magic this could have been was lost to a very creepy male protagonist. And I mean very creepy. A conman finds an 18-year-old girl, 10 years his junior (ew), who he thinks he can pass off as the missing daughter of a family he dreams of getting his revenge against. He exploits her love of singing and promises to make her dreams come true before lying and scheming his way into her heart… and her bed. He says it’s love, but I never believed him. He holds her future in his hands, thereby essentially making her do whatever he wants. She set ground rules and boundaries before they entered into their partnership, and he began disregarding them almost immediately. He took her away from her home to New York where she became 100% dependent on him and he relished that fact. He locked her in the house they were staying at so he could go off galavanting all night and then got mad at her that she snuck out. The way he spoke to her was manipulative and predatory. His unfiltered inner thoughts were even more repulsive. Nobody needs to be in this guy’s head. When the romance started to gain momentum, I wanted to run in and rescue her. There was nothing sexy or swoony about any of this for me. All I saw was a 28-year-old man taking advantage of an 18-year-old girl by dangling her dream in front of her nose like a carrot.

I should have just DNFed when I got to the very detailed (and honestly uncomfortably written for my taste) threesome in chapter 2 that I’ve been trying to scrub out of my brain since I finished the book weeks ago. Our hero made law enforcement mad, so he ran to his friend’s brothel and OF COURSE the only way she could hide him was to throw him into bed with two women who could take turns sitting on his face so the police officer wouldn’t recognize him when he barged into the room. I didn’t sign up for this! I continued because I love the movie Anastasia. I know that this storyline sounds very similar to the movie, but the big uncomfortable difference here is the age gap (in the movie they’re only a couple years apart) and the fact that this guy seems predatory. That’s not how the movie is. I continued because I wanted to see how things ended, but if anything this book has just ruined the movie for me because now I’ll be thinking about it the next time I watch it. I know people love Joanna Shupe, which is why I own 6 of her other books. This was my first full-length novel of hers (I read and loved a Christmas novella of hers, Miracle on Ladies’ Mile, last year) and I truly, truly hope her other books are not like this one.