The Courtesan Duchess (Wicked Deceptions), by Joanna Shupe
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The Courtesan Duchess (Wicked Deceptions), by Joanna Shupe
Free Ebook The Courtesan Duchess (Wicked Deceptions), by Joanna Shupe
Can a bold-faced lie lead to everlasting love? One by one, the impetuous heroines in the Wicked Deceptions series intend to find out, each in her unique way... How to seduce an estranged husband--and banish debt!--in four wickedly improper, shockingly pleasurable steps...1. Learn the most intimate secrets of London's leading courtesan.2. Pretend to be a courtesan yourself, using the name Juliet Leighton.3. Travel to Venice and locate said husband.4. Seduce husband, conceive an heir, and voila, your future is secure!For Julia, the Duchess of Colton, such a ruse promises to be foolproof. After all, her husband has not bothered to lay eyes on her in eight years, since their hasty wedding day when she was only sixteen. But what begins as a tempestuous flirtation escalates into full-blown passion--and the feeling is mutual. Could the man the Courtesan Duchess married actually turn out to be the love of her life? The books in the Wicked Deceptions series:1. The Courtesan Duchess2. The Harlot Countess3. The Lady Hellion
The Courtesan Duchess (Wicked Deceptions), by Joanna Shupe - Amazon Sales Rank: #732456 in Books
- Brand: Shupe, Joanna
- Published on: 2015-03-31
- Released on: 2015-03-31
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.70" h x .90" w x 4.10" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Mass Market Paperback
- 352 pages
The Courtesan Duchess (Wicked Deceptions), by Joanna Shupe Review "The powerful passion in this riveting tale of betrayal and forgiveness will knock your socks off!"-- NY Times bestselling author Sabrina Jeffries"One of the best debuts I've read in years. Joanna Shupe's The Courtesan Duchess is fast-paced, compelling, and super sexy. You won't be able to put it down."-- Award-winning author Valerie Bowman "This original and alluring novel is a very promising beginning to Shupe's career."-- Publishers Weekly "Passionate and seductive!"-- RT Book Reviews "Joanna Shupe is a wonderful new voice to historical romance!"-- NY Times bestselling author Jennifer McQuiston "Joanna Shupe's compelling story of an estranged couple brims with emotion and sensuality."-- Bestselling author Miranda Neville "From its first naughty page, be prepared to be swept away by The Courtesan Duchess."-- Historical author Maggie Robinson
About the Author Joanna Shupe has always loved history, ever since she saw her first Schoolhouse Rock cartoon. While in college, Joanna read every romance she could get her hands on and soon started crafting her own racy historical novels. In 2013 she won Romance Writers of America's prestigious Golden Heart® Award for Best Historical. She now lives in New Jersey with her two spirited daughters and dashing husband. Visit joannashupe.com.Find Joanna on social media:Twitter: @JoannaShupeFacebook: facebook.com/joannashupeauthorJoin Joanna's mailing list to learn of new releases and giveaways: bit.ly/1qyg47L(Just cut and paste the link into your favorite browser.)
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Most helpful customer reviews
51 of 54 people found the following review helpful. Mixed feelings By S. Mahnken I’ve been on the hunt for new historical romance authors to add to my reading list, and when I saw Joanna Shupe’s debut novel available on NetGalley, the premise sounded intriguing enough for me to give it a try. In The Courtesan Duchess, Julia has been abandoned by her husband after a marriage forced upon him by his father. The allowance she has received from the ducal estate has been gradually cut back to the point that it will no longer support her, so she decides to embark on a wild scheme. She will hire a noted London courtesan to teach her how to seduce men, track down her errant husband in Italy, and get herself with child. Once she has an heir to the dukedom, the family will have to give her more money, Julia reasons. And yes, she will be deceiving him, but he owes her after leaving her to get by on her own for the past eight years. When Julia’s plan works and she embarks on a passionate affair with her own husband, though, she realizes that she hasn’t taken his or her own emotions into account. Is it possible there could be more than passion between them?I'm clearly out of step with other readers of this novel, because I didn't love it. When I read the initial description of the story, I wondered about the whole pregnancy plot, which seemed kind of harebrained to me. There’s no way for Julia to ensure that she would have a son, so even if she managed to get pregnant, her plan is hardly foolproof. Also, how would the author handle the prolonged deception that would be necessary for Julia to ensure that she is pregnant? Well, the answer is, she doesn’t; Julia spends exactly one week with Nick, her husband, but of course she get pregnant with no trouble. So, I wound up just rolling my eyes over the whole pregnancy part of the plot.The sad thing about it is that the author’s basic idea—that of a woman planning to trick her husband by pretending to be a courtesan and becoming his mistress—is actually a pretty good one. Remove the plot to get pregnant and have her trick him because of feelings of curiosity and a desire to exact a measure of revenge for his abandonment, not to mention extracting a pound of flesh in the form of money and jewels gifted to her as his mistress. And if she got pregnant anyway, that would be even better in terms of creating an interesting plot, with both of them being trapped by her schemes. Now that would be an intriguing read!There were a few other aspects of the book that didn’t quite work for me. For one thing, it’s one of those romances where the storyline depends on misunderstandings between the two main characters that are driven primarily by an unwillingness to communicate with each other. That’s fairly common in romance novels, and I can tolerate it to some extent. But there’s a LOT of that in this novel, to the point that I started to get exhausted by their boneheaded behavior. Also, part of the plot involves attempts on Nick’s life that he rather ridiculously treats as minor annoyances, until they very melodramatically aren’t. Again, very boneheaded, and the climax of the action really depends on Nick being very stupid in his choices for how he treats one particular character.So, with all these reservations, why three stars? Even with the things I didn't love about the book, I got hooked on the story and kept reading. For a new author, Shupe writes well, and her treatment of the historical elements of the novel is very well done. I think the plot got away from her a bit, but a simpler storyline, without overdone pregnancy plots and murderous villains, might have worked much better. I’m curious to see more of her work and will definitely be checking out the next book in her series.An ARC of this novel was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful. lust and baby-making resolves 8-years of misunderstanding By Unquietly Me (Katinka) In THE COURTESAN DUCHESS by Joanna Shupe, the conflict that keeps the hero and heroine apart is a big misunderstanding, one of my least favorite romance tropes. In the novel, Julia, the Duchess of Colton, pretends to be a courtesan in order to trick her estranged husband Nick, the Duke of Colton, into sleeping with her and impregnating her with his heir.At the start of the novel, Nick has been living in Europe and engaging in general debauchery for eight years. He did not consummate their marriage before he left and abandoned his responsibilities at home, because he hated his father the former duke for blackmailing him into marrying her. During that time, Julia had become pretty much penniless. Her father did not leave her with much of an inheritance after he died; Nick's cousin Templeton took over the family's finances after Nick's father died; and the widow of Nick's older brother, the former heir to the dukedom, hasn't moved out of the duchess's room. Instead, Julia has been living in her London townhouse with her aunt. After she realizes she can no longer support her and her aunt because Templeton has been reducing her stipend and will only increase her funds for sexual favors, she sells all her jewelry in order to finance her courtesan training with Pearl Kelly. She believes the only way she will get Nick's attention and get him to sleep with her is if he believes she is a redheaded courtesan. So, she achieves her goal, and during the seven days they are together, they naturally fall in love.Julia is surprised to discover that Nick is actually a nice guy and not the villain he seemed for abandoning her, and becomes devastated when she realizes she has fallen in love with him. When she panics and leaves Venice, Nick draws the conclusion that she had been lying to him and sleeping with him to cover up the fact that she has gotten herself pregnant by one of her other lovers. What Nick doesn't know is that Julia was a virgin and had never slept with anyone but him. He follows her to London, where she tells him the truth about her virginity but does not tell him why she was motivated to deceive him. Because Nick doesn't trust her and thinks she's still lying to him, he punishes her by sending her away to the country because. From then on, the novel becomes predictable and stale, and I started skipping pages just to get to the good parts—Nick and Julia and their love story. The remainder of the novel is about Nick figuring out the truth and realizing that he is in love with her too. There is also a subplot involving attempts to kill off all the Coltons and steal their money so that the villains can have the dukedom all to themselves. It is obvious who the villains are, and the plot devices to portray Nick as a sympathetic and complex character are familiar but lovable.I thought the pace of the novel was unbalanced. In Venice, they couldn't have enough of each other. In England, they only kissed once and didn't make love again until the very end of the book, after the baby is born (nine months after their week in Venice!) and after they had resolved their problems and declared their love for each other. As in all big misunderstandings, their problems could have been resolved sooner if they'd simply talked. I don't know why Julia didn't even attempt to contact him and tell him about her problems, except if she didn't confess, there wouldn't be this interesting plot about a duchess pretending to be a courtesan in order to sleep with her estranged husband and having really great sex in the process. Nick seemed like a nice enough guy that I'm sure he would have helped her out if he knew about her problems and the way his family and relatives were treating her. The sex scenes were titillating and well-written, but purely physical, that is, their tender, sweeter lovemaking was not shown, and the emotional love was not expressed concurrently with the physical love.Still, it was an entertaining read. Though the villains were one-dimensional, the main characters and secondary characters (Theo, Simon, Fitz, Quint, and Pearl herself) were likable and sympathetic. Apparently, the sequels will feature Nick's best friends Simon and Quint. Since Simon is a blond fellow, I might read the next one.*This review is based on an eARC I received from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful. A sexy, amazing book! By Kiltsandswords This book is so steamy! The premise is that Julia will impersonate a famous courtesan, travel to Italy, seduce her wayward husband and return to England carrying his heir. It’s the seduction part that is really well developed. The chase and dance that Nick and Julia (or Juliet as she introduces herself) was just SO MUCH FUN! Julia was a revelation! She taunted and teased Nick and played the seductress to perfection.If you love a book where there is INSANE foreplay followed by some of the best love scenes written, then this is the book for you! The innuendos and dialogue between Nick and Julia as she is wooing him was amazing. This passage is just one of many:“I find myself curious about you, Juliet. I’ve never seen Winchester so bewitched by a woman, at least not before I left London. And the stories circulating about you are wildly fantastic, almost as if they’re fabricated. Then I meet you, and there’s an air of innocence about you that is incredibly alluring.”Julia’s eyes widened, but before she could respond, he continued. “I feel a…pull toward you that I’ve never experienced before with a woman. I’m intrigued.”Heavens, her husband could be charming. She fought to keep the mood light, despite the fact that her tongue felt thick with desire.“Intrigued? And here I had hoped for interested. Or better yet, infatuated.”“Oh, I am all of those things as well.” He brushed his knuckles against her cheek in a tender gesture.It’s just so rich that he is infatuated with his own wife – a virgin no less! The teasing doesn’t last long as Nick isn’t one to be put off. I was so curious to see how a virgin bride would handle a worldly man like Nick, while pretending to be a famous courtesan. If the flirting was hot, the time between the sheets (and everywhere else) was incendiary. These two have some amazing chemistry.Of course it doesn’t always go to plan. Julia is in serious danger of falling in love with Nick. She runs back to England where the rest of the story takes place. Her partner in crime, Simon, left Nick a note telling him who Juliet/Julia was. Hell hath no fury like a Duke wronged. The Nick we encounter in London is very different from the lazy, indolent lover in Venice. He storms around London like a rampaging demon. He finds the motivations behind Julia’s impetuous, yet well planned visit to Venice. While he despises what she has done, he solves the problems he left behind for Julia to face.There is so much more going on with this story that just flirting and sex. Nick is a really complex character. For a Duke, he has despised his position and the reasons why are the kind of things that can haunt a person their whole lives. Nick has crazy demons, but the author doesn’t let him off the hook for being an ass to Julia.Julia has endured a lot in the past eight years since she married Nick. She has had to deal with banishment, being preyed upon and sexual harassment. Julia is one of the strongest characters I have read in a while. She manages to find a way through things and has incredible determination.While they are back in London, one thing that hasn’t changed is the attraction they feel for each other. Julia and Nick feel that lurid clawing passion that makes you do crazy things. Such as ignore each other or be cruel because you are hurting. I wanted them to hurry up and reconcile, but what would be the fun in that?This was a fantastic book. I stayed up until 4 AM reading it. I’m amazed I’m even coherent to write this today. All I know is that I had a wonderful time spending time with these characters. I loved the plot, the sexiness and the twists and turns. This is a great story and I highly recommend reading it!Reviewed for www.kiltsandswords.com
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