MOGUL - Joanna Shupe
The Knickerbocker Club, Book 3
Zebra Historical Romance
ISBN 13: 978-1-4201-3988-4
February 2017
Historical Romance
New York City, 1889
Beautiful Lillian (Lily) Davies inherited her wealth from her father, and holds the highest position on the board governing business for the silver mine that created that wealth. She is holding it until her younger brother decides to take over the company, but Tom has gone missing. She has received a note from a Chinatown thug telling her she has to return what her brother stole or else, and the Pinkerton agents she hired can’t find Tom. There is one person she knows can discover her brother’s whereabouts: Calvin Cabot. She was married briefly to Calvin until her father had the marriage annulled because he claimed Calvin was only interested in her money. She had loved Calvin and waited a long time for him to come back to her. Her Pinkerton agent does find Cabot – in an opium den.
Calvin wakes up in a strange place, a room, he discovers, in Lillian Davies’s mansion. His good friend Hugo is with him, in this of all places. He is not going to explain himself to his former wife, nor do her bidding. He has spent long enough mourning their relationship when her father essentially black-mailed him into signing annulment papers due to knowledge about his Chinese wife. Yet the note from Lee in Chinatown worries him, and in some aspects, the Chinese man was involved in his annulment. As the owner of a powerful New York newspaper, and two others in different cities, Calvin wields a lot of power. His news empire has brought him great wealth, and his reporters can discover everything happening, or what happened in the past, in the city. He is already involved in a deal with Lee, one leading to manipulation on both sides. No matter how much he wants to keep the distance between them in place, he won’t let anyone harm Lilly, and if finding Tom will prevent that, he will find him.
MOGUL is a story filled with danger, and not just from Chinatown gang leader Lee. The romance contains convoluted features, especially with Lily misled by much of what she sees, knows, and believes. Lily is a head-strong, aggressive woman used to getting her own way since her father’s death, and not afraid of throwing objects at Calvin in temper because of her love-hate view of him, including bullets. Calvin is a powerful, hardworking man who has raised himself from an impoverished childhood. His love for Lily, and a promise he made, make him avoid telling her all the truth about any of the situations in which they land. These two will find romance, but how they can reach any lasting relationship is a challenge. The story is filled with all the position and privilege of the wealthy and powerful in the Gilded Age along with the malevolence and power of the dark underside of New York at the time.
The print copy of the MOGUL also includes the novella, TYCOON, which was the first episode in this series.
Robin Lee
