Joanna Shupe Books In Order

Publication Order of The Fifth Avenue Rebels Books

Publication Order of The Four Hundred Books

Publication Order of Gilded Age Books

Publication Order of The Knickerbocker Club Books

Publication Order of Uptown Girls Books

Publication Order of Wicked Deceptions Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of The Kings of Italy Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Joanna Shupe is an award winning author that is best known for her historical fiction.

+Biography

Joanna Shupe is one of those popular novelists that aren’t always keen on talking about their personal lives. This can be seen with her Facebook posts. Joanna is pretty active on social media.

However, her efforts online almost always revolve around her love for history and the interesting snippets about history she comes across. Where other authors might bombard readers with posts and even pictures of their pets and their families, not to mention one or two curious posts about their eating habits, Joanna Shupe is more interested in revealing odd photos about fashion from centuries gone by.

None of this is surprising because Joanna is such a massive fan of history. The author can trace that love all the way back to her first Schoolhouse Rock Cartoon. It sparked something inside of her, and before long she wanted to know everything there was to know about America’s history.

College answered that particular prayer. Though, Joanna admits that her classes were not always as informative as she would have wanted. Her teachers took a great interest in the larger events of the times, the presidents with the strange names and all the industry.

Joanna cared more about the people of that time, not to mention the local culture. It was those stories that truly sparked her imagination. Luckily for Joanna, whenever her classes became less than appealing, she had her novels to run back to.

Joanna’s college years were characterized more by the many romance novels she read than anything else. And each time she came across a really good story, Joanna Shupe felt driven to produce her own amazingly racy novels; though, Joanna’s focus lay with historical fiction rather than conventional romance.

The author knew she adored history. She also couldn’t deny her love for the romance genre. It only made sense for her to combine the two to create something unexpected.

Joanna was initially drawn to the Regency Era above all else. The costumes and the seemingly exotic culture elicited excitement from her. The entire era felt like it was built to complement stories of a romantic nature.

However, Joanna Shupe, after a bit of exhaustive reading, found that the Gilded Age had even more of a flare to it. And it wasn’t long before she changed tactics and began to set her stories in that particular time period in American history.

Not many authors can claim that their love of history and romance has paid off, not quite like Joanna Shupe whose very first book was named RT Book Review’s Best New Historical Novel for 2015.

The author has books that have topped Top Ten lists from notable publications like Publishers Weekly and The Washington Post, which is no easy fit. Though, those accolades pale in comparison to the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart Award which Joanna Shupe won in 2013.

The author’s books, though popular, often attract a lot of criticism. Joanna tries to create strong heroines for her stories but she has a tendency to disarm and reduce them to simpletons whenever they encounter extraordinarily attractive alpha males.

The heroes of Joanna’s books do terrible things. Not only do they mistreat the heroines but Joanna is prone to justifying their mannerisms and actions with flimsy excuses. Some readers have been known to question the rationale of Joanna’s heroes and heroines getting together because they often only have the most tenuous of connections, mentally and emotionally, between them.

Joanna’s fans will applaud her for her writing style which is so slick that it seems to overcome her shortcomings when it comes to creating and developing her characters. In fact, even Joanna’s most fierce critics have admitted begrudgingly to enjoying her books because of her writing style.

Joanna has a husband and daughters.

+The Courtesan Duchess

The Duchess of Colton went to Venice with a very clear plan in mind. She would seduce her estranged husband, get pregnant by him and secure her future by giving him an heir. To do this, Julia would have to ingratiate herself with the leading courtesan in London.

Julia thought her ruse necessary because she hadn’t seen her husband in the eight years since they were married. Back then, Julia was just sixteen. Even though Julia goes in with a clear plan of action, she is surprised by the passion that begins to bloom between herself and her husband.

This book tends to annoy many of Joanna Shupe’s readers. The book finds the heroine running after a husband that abandoned her shortly after their wedding. While she stayed home, kept her virginity and remained a good girl, her husband went around sleeping with every woman he found mildly attractive.

When husband and wife finally meet, this after Julia tricks her husband into believing she is just another courtesan, he is not enraged by the ruse but he denies her baby, accusing her of sleeping with other men.

Joanna does very little to build Julia up as a strong character. Not only is the hero a terrible person who expected his wife to stay home and do the right thing while he went gallivanting around, Joanna’s excuse for his actions is ridiculously flimsy.

Julia, on the other hand, is a little too quick to forgive her husband for his actions. In fact, she quickly falls for him after they have sex, a turn of events that has been known to infuriate some readers.

+The Harlot Countess

Maggie is setting her world on fire as a political cartoonist with a grudge to settle. The fact everyone thinks she is a man probably helped her elicit the attention she now commands. Her penchant for insulting Simon Barrett, Earl of Winchester, at every turn also helps.

No one knows of Simon’s role as Maggie’s former love interest who betrayed her. Or, rather, Maggie always believed that Simon betrayed her. When she learns that events in the past might not have happened as she assumed, Maggie’s heart begins to struggle with new desires.

This book tries to raise its heroine, Maggie, up as a strong and independent character. But it undermines those efforts by having Maggie melt the moment she reunites with Simon, throwing aside her previously manifested smarts.