The Fortune Hunter Book

Meagan McKinney of Lions and Lace fame, wrote this less famous story in 1998. It has trappings of the old-school romance with perpetually angry hero and what turned out to be not so strong heroine. More on this later.

Two things attracted me to the story: time period (the Gilded Age) and subject matter (Spiritualism). I love stories set during the Gilded Age- time full of conflicts, contradictions, and societal changes. I knew I could rely on the author to provide authentic description of the period with meticulously researched and effortlessly presented details. And I wasn't disappointed in that. The book's historical setting is not some collection of facts but integral part of the story.

Czarina Renski and Countess Lovaenya, aka the Murphy sisters, are Medium Extraordinaire of Fifth Ave during the time when nothing is more fashionable than attending a séance.
Countess Lovaenya is really Lavinia Murphy who fled a brutal St. Louis orphanage with four younger "siblings" and learned a spiritualist's ways from the carnies and gypsies she met on the road to New York. Lavinia's history could be summed up as one long painful crawl from the gutter. Her dark childhood notwithstanding, Lavinia is warm, generous loving woman who will do anything to support her "siblings".

There is no shortage of rich and famous clients who flocked their apartment in order to communicate with the spirits of departed relatives and friends. Their most persistent and generous client was a wealthy New Yorker, Wilhelm Vanadder. Wilhelm used seances to communicate with his lover whose reputation he tarnished and who died giving birth to his illegitimate and never acknowledged son, Edward Stuyvesant-French. Having made his own fortune on the frontier, Edward vows to expose the sisters as frauds and to destroy them for polluting his mother's memory. When his father unexpectedly dies and leaves everything to the Countess Lovaenya, Edward has more reasons for revenge. He would destroy sisters and return the father's fortune to its proper owner- his wheelchair-bound half-sister, Daisy, the only legitimate offspring of the despicable man.

It's from-enemies-to-lovers story where I was waiting for romance to finally appear among the drama, angst and Edward's verbal assaults like this:

"You're a whore, Lavinia Murphy."

"You soil my sister just by speaking her name. I forbid her to keep company with a couple of whores and their gaggle of illegitimate whelps." .and so on and so forth…I was contemplating marking the story dnf many times but, strangely, it drew me back and I continued plowing through waiting for Edward's remorse and attrition. It was the only way, in addition to Lavinia standing strong, the romance could work. Well, my girl Lavinia, who gave me such a promising start disappointed me by getting into "he is a jerk but I'm so attracted to him I can't help it" attitude. We get this kind of thinking when Edward finally kissed her:

She wanted this. He worked on her like a drug and now all she wanted was more. The female animal inside her longed for him, and the need merged with her heart that cried out for substance after the long, endless drought of her life. Meanwhile, Edward keeps his verbal assault with:

"I understand you too well, Lavinia. I've had women like you all my life. Little conniving thieves, willing to sell themselves for their latest desire."To say romance didn't work for me would be an understatement. The author's emphasis on Edward's hate throughout the story left love in shambles and the couple's HEA a suspect. If there were a remorse on Edward's part, I somehow missed it. The love between the couple seemed to humiliate rather than ennoble them. And that's why, despite excellent historical setting and competent writing, I can't give the story more than 2 stars.