In Gilded Age romance The Lady Gets Lucky by Joanna Shupe the reader is not lucky

 

The Lady Gets Lucky by Joanna Shupe is essentially a completely standard Regency romance transposed to Gilded Age New York. 

I've said that one of the things I really like about Regency romances is that I neither know nor care about what life was actually like in Regency England.  As a 21st century American, stories set at balls attended by England's upper class in the early 1800's is as much a fantasy world as Game of Thrones.  

The Gilded Age in the United States is a bit different.  It was not overly taught in my American history classes -- robber barons, blah blah blah.  But I can place it. Reconstruction had ended in the South and things had gotten really bad again for black people, many of whom had been born into slavery.  Immigration was on the rise, as were anti-immigrant hate, sweatshops, and bloody union battles.  The country was having various colonialist adventures.  The babies born during this time had a good chance of dying in World War I or in the influenza epidemic of 1918.  

I don't know what it was like to be a rich New Yorker during the Gilded Age.  I suspect it was not as Shupe portrays in her book.  She discusses New York having a "season" much like Regency romance London a century before, with rich Bostonians descending on New York.  This seems unlikely, given the reputation the Boston Brahmins (rich people) had for thinking they were the hub of the universe.  Shupe also describes a class consciousness parallel to the England of Regency romances, which also seems unlikely given the mythology we Americans like to tell ourselves about pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and the possibility of upward social mobility, and that so much of the money in the United States was new money.

But I digress.  The plot of The Lady Gets Lucky goes like this:  Heroine Alice wants to learn how to flirt so she can get married and escape her overbearing mother.  Hero Kit has a lot of experience in romance.  He wants to start a supper club but needs recipes.  It just so happens that the best cook in the best restaurant in the city used to be the personal chef for Alice's family.  And, also, Alice's secret passion is cooking.  And, also, even though she has never done more than dabble in the famous chef's  kitchen, she magically knows how to menu plan, prepare, and cook for a crowd of 80 for Kit's opening night.  (For my reviews of other romances featuring not-quite-realistic chefs, see here, here, and here.  For a wonderful young adult novel that realistically discusses the work that goes into being a professional chef, see With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo.)     

In short, other than a new (and dubious) setting, this book offers little that is original to the historical romance genre.  Unless you're really bored I recommend skipping it.  

Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.