Mogul by Joanna Shupe
The Knickerbocker Club #3

The last of the men currently members of the Knickerbocker Club finds his woman in a fast-paced, well written, second chance at love love story. I am not sure if others will be added to the club or if another series will begin using some of the support characters from this series. Either way, this was an ambitious and delightful book. Why ambitious? Well, it deals with Chinese tongs, the Chinese Exclusion Act, privilege, kidnapping, friendship, honor, honesty, trust, love, family, expectations, goals, culture and a whole lot more.

Calvin Cabot and Lily Davies have history – history that not many know about in New York – history they have both tried without success to forget and put behind them. When Lily’s brother goes missing and finding him is essential she calls on Calvin to assist her. Their past issues, their volatile relationship, their intense attraction and their misconceptions make a partnership rather tempestuous and difficult but, as time passes and more is revealed and the plot thickens the air also clears making for a very interesting read.

I liked Calvin and Lily together. I might have liked a bit more about their courtship but the glimpse into it was probably sufficient. I can see why things worked out as they did but really wish the two had not had to spend so many years apart. I wonder if Lily’s brother, Cora, Marcus and perhaps others will find themselves in a new series set in this era and if so, look forward to reading their stories.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for the ARC. This is my honest review.

4.5 Stars

Another winner by MS Shupe! I just loved this book of those magnificent men of The Knickerboker Club. This was an exciting read which had me at first page. The era of new ideas and the filthy rich who lived during a most daring time. This book can be read as stand alone, but please read past stories that will catch up with past characters.
Calvin Cabot is a self made man who owns several newspapers and has become rich in the bargain. He is also one handsome dude who is invited to all parties where is often sought after by rich widows. Being a rogue, he plays the field but one woman has always had his heart: his ex-wife Lily Davies.
They married young but Lily's father told her that all Calvin wanted was her money. I didn't like her father after that. So they annulled the marriage and went separate ways.
Now years later Lily wants to find her brother. He has disappeared so the only person she knows is her ex-husband Calvin (who by the way was found in an opium den) by Lily.
Calvin can't believe that he was tracked down by his ex-wife and wakes up in her house.
Even though Lily can't stand Calvin, the truth is she is still attracted to him. She loved him to the moon and back. The kind of love often read in sonnets that truly inspire romance.
Now Lily being older and wiser person, tells Calvin that she will shoot him again if he tries to pull any stunts towards her . Calvin beings older and wiser believes her.
Oh, the true madness of first love is magical when they come to show a different side of each other.
When they learn to trust their hearts, can their destiny be fulfilled with love everlasting.
There is such depth of love for each of them, if only they believe.
I appreciate Net Galley for this ARC title in which I gave an honest review.

I've enjoyed all of Joanna Shupe's Knickerbocker books. I love the setting (I haven't read many or any books set in this era before) and her characters are fun and feisty. The men are powerful and sometimes unprincipled. The women are strong, bold, and unconventional. I enjoyed learning about the history of Chinese exclusion, which I didn't know very much about.

I thought the plotline re: the H/h relationship felt a little forced. The story opens with how their short-lived marriage gets destroyed b/c of Calvin's secret, but his persistence in keeping that secret (which ended up being pretty easily shared by someone else later on) and his inability to tell the truth seemed to set up some boundaries that could have easily been overcome but just never were until the end. There were some issues that didn't really get addressed or resolved, like his bitterness toward her over her being involved with a rival publisher. There were a couple clunkers in the story: namely, when the heroine reflected on 1) how people shouldn't be judged by their skin/race because everyone is equal, and 2) how everyone, even miners, deserved to receive equal pay, or better working conditions, etc etc. Those are both true, yes, but they felt like editorials and I found them to be perhaps unrealistic in light of the time period + the heroine's incredibly wealthy, privileged upbringing and station in life. Despite these things, I still really enjoyed the story and am glad I had a chance to read it. I'll read anything by Joanna Shupe!

Note: The last 25% of this e-book was a completely separate short story, Tycoon, which I also really enjoyed. I didn't realize there was a short story at the end so it was a nice bonus.

I received a copy of this title from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I really enjoyed Mogul and it was my second favorite book in the series behind Magnate. Readers not familiar with the previous two titles in the series can read this book with no problem - it works well as a stand alone title. Lily Davies and Calvin Cabot were married for three weeks before her mining baron father found her and forced an annulment. Four years later, Lily needs Calvin's assistance with a situation created by her missing younger brother but he has ignored her letters; she kidnaps him from an opium den in Chinatown where he goes to recover from flare-ups of malaria away from public scrutiny. After a few attempts by Calvin to flee, Lily attempts to secure Calvin's assistance but he brushes her off and tells her to hire a Pinkerton to assist. After visiting the dangerous Mr. Lee, Calvin reluctantly agrees to help Lily. Shupe has created a strong heroine more than able to hold her own in Lily in any situation and the equal to Calvin. Lily has a strong will evident in her running of her father's company after his death despite skepticism on the part of the board until her younger brother comes of age and is ready to take over for her. For his part, Calvin's loyalty to his friend Hugo is admirable, but his unwillingness to confide in Lily was frustrating. I enjoyed how he appreciated Lily's strengthen and didn't look for her to change to conform with society expectations. The Guilded Age setting is refreshing in the historical genre and Shupe explores a part of US history (the Chinese Exclusion Act) and it's impact on society of the time. I've enjoyed all stories in this series and look forward to Shupe's next title.

I’ve read and enjoyed all the books in Joanna Shupe’s Knickerbocker Club series, so I was eagerly looking forward to Mogul, the last book in the set. I like second-chance romances and the pairing of the self-made media mogul and the society beauty who were married but quickly separated intrigued me, so I settled in to read with reasonably high expectations.

Unfortunately however, they were not met. While there’s certainly an intriguing storyline that is linked with hero Calvin Cabot’s past and an inviolable promise he made some years earlier, and there’s no question that he and our heroine, Lillian Davies, are still deeply in lust with one another, plot holes, uneven pacing and unclear motivations lead to a less than cohesive whole.

Four years ago, and following a whirlwind romance, hard-working, dedicated reporter Calvin Cabot eloped with and married Lillian Davies, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. They’re confident they’ll be able to talk Warren Davies around, but he threatens to cut Lily off without a penny and also to expose Calvin as a bigamist, because he’s already married to a woman he met while he lived in China. Believing that staying married to Lily will do her a massive disservice – she’s been brought up in the lap of luxury and Calvin certainly won’t be able to keep her in expensive dresses and jewellery – and because of a promise given to his closest friend, Calvin gives into her father’s blackmail, leaves and the marriage is annulled.

Lily has picked up the pieces and got on with her life, now believing that Calvin was nothing but a fortune hunter. Her father has since died, and she has taken over as president of Davies Mining, something she hopes is an interim measure until her younger brother, Tom, can take over. But Tom is missing, and the only clue she has to his whereabouts is a note written in Chinese, which has both Tom’s and Calvin’s names written in it. Lily has no alternative but to approach Calvin, who by now, owns three newspapers and is one of the most influential men in the country. He spent several years living and working in China and knows the language; and while it galls her to have to ask him for help, Lily puts aside her personal feelings and concentrates on trying to help her brother.

At first, Calvin wants nothing to do with Lily or Tom, but he translates the note for her, which says that Tom has taken something of value belonging to Wah Lee, the man who pretty much controls the whole of New York’s Chinatown. Calvin reluctantly agrees to do a bit of digging to see what he can find out, but in reality he knows more or less exactly what is going on.

Calvin’s Chinese wife isn’t his wife at all, but is actually married to his friend Hugo, a freed slave who saved Calvin’s life more than once when they were both working in China. The plan had been for Shin-yee to join Hugo in the US, but the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed before she could do so and with no legal way of getting her into the country, Calvin asked Lee for help, telling him that Shin-yee was his wife. After almost five years and no sign of her being able to come to the US, Calvin has begun to get impatient and has started to do a bit of sabre-rattling in his newspapers, running a series of articles about the extent of the corruption in Chinatown. And to make a bad situation worse, it seems that the “something of value” that Lily’s brother has taken is Lee’s daughter, Ming Zhu.

The stage is set for a gripping story of move and countermove as Calvin tries to protect Lily and Tom from the danger presented by Lee while also fulfilling his promise to reunite Hugo with his wife. This plotline is fast-paced and well-executed, with plenty of twists and turns and moments of danger and peril; but Calvin’s almost pathological need to keep secrets from Lily is frustrating, and the many misunderstandings between them seem to be thrown in simply to add complications to a story that already has quite a lot going on.

The sexual chemistry between Calvin and Lily is undeniably strong, but I never felt these were two people who have changed very much or grown over their four years apart; their relationship seems still to be built on the all-consuming lust that drove them together in the first place. Calvin agreed to walk away from Lily in part because he felt she wouldn’t be happy without her high-society lifestyle; yet I had to ask myself why on earth he didn’t think of that before? The other reason was because of his promise to Hugo; if it got out that Shin-yee was married to a former slave, it would make it even harder to bring her to the US, so Calvin allowed Lily’s father to believe him a bigamist rather than tell the truth or ask for help.

The thing is that I can’t quite buy either of those things, and given they’re the reasons behind the break-up that provides the impetus for the story, it leaves the whole thing on shaky ground. While the thriller plotline is very well executed – it’s the best thing in the book – and Ms. Shupe has clearly researched the situation regarding the Chinese immigrant community and the restrictive immigration laws very extensively, the other elements to the story aren’t as strong. The explanations for Mr. Davies’ interference, and how Calvin acquired his first newspaper are overly convenient, and towards the end, Ms. Shupe lobs in a last-minute threat to Lily’s position as president of Davies Mining and a sordid, kinky secret kept by her boring would-be fiancé which Calvin, naturally, digs up in order to run him outta town; both of which make the ending feel rushed and the reader feel that the bow tying everything up is just a bit too neat. And I am not a fan of romances where it’s left to other people to point out to one or both of the protagonists just how much in love they are, or how much in love the other person is with them. It’s not uncommon in a romance for one character to need a little push, but this is no little push – it’s several very forceful and completely unsubtle shoves.

It’s common practice these days for ebooks to contain taster chapters and teasers for other books by the author, but in the case of Mogul, the final quarter is actually given over to Tycoon, the prequel novella to the series. This meant that the story actually ended at around the 76% mark on my Kindle, so this is not the 352 page novel it’s billed as. I was not aware of this when I picked up the book, although there's a flash on the front cover claiming "free bonus novella!" If you’ve already bought Tycoon, you may feel it’s a bit of a cheek to use it to pad out the pagination of another book and ask you to pay for it again; potential readers, be aware that Mogul is considerably shorter than advertised.

It pains me to say that Mogul – which I’d anticipated being the best of the series – is actually the weakest. I’d give a strong B/B+ to the thriller, but a C to everything else, so I’m compromising with a B- as a final grade. It’s a bit of a whimper to the end of what’s been a thoroughly enjoyable and well-written series set in a time and place that doesn’t often feature in historical romances. For that, if nothing else, Ms. Shupe deserves praise, and even though Mogul didn’t live up to my expectations, I will definitely be picking up whatever she comes up with next.

I have heard amazing things about the Knickerbocker Club series , so when I got the chance to read Mogul early I was thrilled and I dived into this story as soon as I could . I love it ! Mogul was such an amazing read.

In this book we follow Calvin and Lillian these two have a past and I just love it when characters have a past because with that you get all the back story that goes along with that .Calvin and Lillian once ran away together to get married however when we meet them in the beginning of this book they are separated and the only reason Lillian is seeking him out is because the situation she is currently dealing with is dire and she really has no other place to turn. Watching Calvin and Lillian romance reignite over the course of this book was just wonderful, every moment we spend with them weather they are fighting , having a sweet moment or a sexy one was just wonderful and I am so happy with how everything turned out of these two . The romance that Joanne Shupe writes in this was so very swoon worthy and filled me with all the happy ever after feels . We spend a lot of this book trying to find out where Lily's brother disappeared to and let me tell you this story took some twist and turns that I did not see coming and I loved that.The setting was just so wonderful I have not read many Historical Romances set in the america so setting of this story also added something new to the table.With a fiery romance , a unique cast of character and the setting of New York City during the Gilded age Joanne Shupe creates an excellent story with Mogul

I cannot wait to see what Joanna Shupe will write next

I’ve liked the premise of the Knickerbocker Club from the start, but somehow the books didn’t quite live up to my expectations. There was something about them that didn’t work for me as much as I’d hoped. Mogul is different. I felt the story was well-balanced and well-paced. Both the hero and heroine are strong and complex characters and I believed their interactions and their romance. I liked the insight into Chinese culture and I wouldn’t have minded reading more about Calvin’s adventures in China.
I enjoyed Shupe’s writing but I felt she sometimes took the easy road, e.g. the explanation of how Calvin bought his first newspaper, Lily’s father “testing” their love, and some of the characters’ motivations.
I hope Cora will have her own story.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I give it 4 stars.

I have enjoyed this book very much . I love the story and the characters.

This is one I do highly recommend

Elopement! Blackmail! Annulment! Kidnapping! Chinese tongs! Poison! Chases! Racism! Forbidden love! Sexual chemistry! Scandals! Sacrifice!

Can't believe it only took 12 exclamation points to summarize Mogul. A LOT happens in this book. This was no tame historical taking place in a ballroom. Possibly the most action-packed and dramatic of Joanna Shupe's Gilded Age series, it may also be my favorite (I still have a soft spot for Emmett Cavanaugh of Magnate).

And unlike the pallid couple pictured on the cover, Calvin and Lily are a dynamic, thoroughly modern couple whose sexual chemistry and high emotions fairly jump off the pages. After Lily's father tore them apart, Calvin and Lily are full of hurt, resentment, and yearning. But thrown together, Calvin has his work cut out for him to prove he's worthy of Lily. Good thing he's a three newspaper-owning, Cantonese=speaking, protective, possessive badass.

I hope this isn't the end of the series. Glimpses of secondary characters have been intriguing, not to mention the novelty of romances set in the little-used Gilded Age.

Calvin Cabot is the owner of a well-respected national newspaper and the power to bring the upper crust of society to its knees. Lily Davies is a desperate heiress from his past who begs for his help in finding her brother and she’ll let nothing stop her from bringing her brother home especially her former sexy as hell husband. They have a rather steamy past they’ve both tried to forget. Calvin Cabot and Lily Davies fell in love quickly and completely and they eloped. Lily’s father found out and then their marriage was annulled.
Lily and Calvin discover what her brother has done to anger a powerful man in Chinatown. The storyline involves the Chinese immigrant community, a rival Chinese thug Calvin has been trying to get to help him bring his friend Hugo’s wife to America. All Lily wants is to protect her brother, but she gets more than she bargained for when she sought out Calvin’s help. All the while Lily tries to keep Calvin at arm’s length, the sexual tension is always there just under the surface just waiting to explode and consume them with a fiery passion they can no longer deny. Another great book from Joanne Shupe. I love this Knickerbocker series, each book is hard to put down!!!
I received an ARC copy from Net Galley in exchange for my honest opinion and review.

mogul is the third installment in joanna shupe's knickerbocker club series. the books take place during new york's gilded age, which resembles a regency with more technology. in this installment we finally get calvin cabot's backstory, and it's a doozy.

raised by ardent missionaries, calvin spent his childhood in poverty and deprivation. and he never wants to live like that again. when he met lily davies and fell in love, it was the real thing. but her father's interference and the secrets he was afraid to share meant that their sudden marriage was annulled just as suddenly, and very, very quietly. calvin has done his best to forget lily, without much luck. and lily, who believes that calvin only married her for her money, is so quick to believe the worst of calvin at every turn.

this is what made their story somewhat frustrating. because if these two characters bothered to actually tell each other what was going on, they would have saved themselves so much grief. also, at one point lily says that she tried to contact calvin twice, but he never responded. he says he never heard from her again. did her father interfere more? at a certain point we're given to understand that if either of them had actually fought for each other he would have overcome his objections, but other times it's hard to see that would have been true.

anyway, calvin and lily reconnect because lily's younger brother tom has gotten himself into trouble with the nefarious mr. lee, who unfortunately resembles the lo pan character from big trouble in little china. here's the thing, i think shupe was trying to bring up a dark period of american history and american attitudes toward immigration. and indeed the chinese exclusion act of 1882 provides a powerful lesson on what it means to exclude entire groups of people from immigrating, and perhaps certain lawmakers who have similar ideas should read more about it and learn about the consequences. the problem is that by framing the story in such a way where the villian is predicated on stereotypes that led to the act in the first place the story gets a bit muddied. but unlike so many other romances, at least there is some diversity here, more steps need to be made to include positive stereotypes as the dominant story. there are a number of asian characters in the story who are good people, and who do only good things, but mr. lee is a cornerstone of the story, and unfortunately that detracts from the message of inclusiveness as a whole. especially given how horrible some of the actions he takes are in the third act.

also, while it makes sense that calvin would be tolerant of mixed race marriages and other cultures given his upbringing. the other lead and supporting characters' blasé acceptance is a bit harder to swallow, because that in no way fits with the attitudes of that time, no matter how illuminated the individual. society doesn't just accept banning an entire group of people from immigrating without some strong prejudices being in play. and we are talking about very sheltered and privileged people here.

one final comment, i don't know who did the cover design for this novel, but they did an awful job matching the character descriptions to the photograph they ended up using on the cover. the lead heroine is described several times as having blonde hair, and even if this is the image they wanted to use, if the publisher had a halfway decent cover designer, they should have been able to adjust the hair color in photoshop. and sure, i get that it's just the cover image, and it shouldn't affect how you read the story, but the truth is that the cover gives you a visual cue, and when your written cues don't match it is very distracting.

It’s bittersweet for me to review “Mogul” because I love this series so much and for reasons that I cannot comprehend the publisher didn’t encourage more books in this amazing series. I first discovered Shupe when I was listening to the audio of her book “ The Harlot Countess” her distinctive writing voice immediately grabbed me. When I first read “Magnate” the first book in the series I was obsessed with the Gilded age and the magnetic Knickerbocker Club. I wish I could tell you that I have a favorite story in the series but I don’t. Each book presents such fantastic chemistry and individual characters that I felt transported in the Gilded Period in NYC. Liz and Emmett, Ava and Willam and now Calvin and Lily are some of my all-time favorite couples!
“Mogul” lives up to the previous books in the series. Just like the previous books, I loved the heroine, loved the hero, the chemistry sizzled between them and I was completed enthralled. “Mogul” brings us the story of Calvin Cabot. Calvin much like Emmett, from the first series, has humble beginnings. He is an everyday reporter who meets the very lovely Lillian Davies. Unlike Calvin, Lily is very wealthy and from a very prestigious NYC family. Calvin does not know who Lily is, all he knows is that he can’t stay away from her and that the more time he spends with her the more he likes her. Lily always very level headed and strong falls deep in love with Calvin and they elope and get married. That is just the beginning!
When Lily’s father learns of the elopement he immediately puts both Lily and Calvin to the test-a test they both fail.
When the story picks up again, Calvin owns the most powerful newspapers in New York. He is a driven newspaper man and Lily, despite her best efforts, needs his help finding her brother. Calvin wants nothing to do with his ex-wife but as their history starts to bring many skeletons out of the closet for both of them he finds that he has no choice.
Lily and Calvin are a dynamic couple. They both know how to get the best or worst out of each other. They both carry a lot of pain form their past and have a lot to learn. I love Shupe’s “Knickerbocker”series for many reasons: the main characters never fail to make me fall in love with them and their story. I’m emotionally invested in their journey and can’t wait to see where the author takes her characters. The time period is phenomenal. There is so much to learn and hear about I could read about it and not get bored! What a fantastic time in our history. Shupe also has the single talent for making secondary characters an additional part of the story. I want to know more about Ted, Cora and Brandon! What will happen to them?? For me, this series is right along with Lisa Kleypass’s Wallflower and Elizabeth Hoyt’s “Maiden Lane” series. “Mogul” lived up to all my expectations and surpassed them. Bravo Shupe!

Available Jan. 31: Mogul by Joanna Shupe

****3.5/5 stars- loved itjshupe-mogul

Mogul is another great Gilded Age historical romance.

Recommended readers:

If you're a fan of not-your-typical setting: Gilded Age
if you like Candace Camp, Jane Feather and others
and if you like a super-quick read
Here's my Rankings:

3.5/5 for characters
3.5/5 for plot
4/5 overall
REVIEW FROM BOOKS FOR HER:

Two star-crossed lovers have fought themselves for years to forget their love - and when Lillian Davies needs help finding her missing brother, she knows there's one person, the man who she'd least like to ask for help. Calvin Cabot is a self-made newspaper mogul, and seems to try to help all those around him, even at his own expense. One of my new favorite historical romance authors, Joanna Shupe's The Knickerbocker Club Series has been refreshing and quick-reading. Though not my favorite in the series, Mogul is excellent. Shop the full series: The Knickerbocker Club.

Available Jan. 31: Mogul by Joanna Shupe

We met Calvin Cabot in the first and second books of the series and I always thought he was very mysterious. A soon as I saw that his book was next I knew it had to go on my to be read ASAP. The book starts off by showing us the connection between Calving and Lillian and what truly happened all those years ago. I thought this was a brilliant way of starting off the story because we begin to form a connection between the two characters. In addition, we also got to see how their relationship had truly been a loving one.

When they meet up all those years later things have changed. Calvin is no longer the boy that Lillian had meet all those years ago and this time she’s the one that needs his help. Without giving too much away Lillian needs Calvin’s help in finding her brother. He’s disappeared and she’s desperate to find im and through that desperation we get to see her true character. Lillian may be a socialite but she’s definitely not a wallflower and she can hold her own. I really enjoyed reading about a woman with her character strength, especially during the gilded age (perhaps too unrealistic). However, her push and pull of Calvin kept driving me crazy. Then there was Calvin’s big secret which was definitely interesting. But if these two had actually had great communication all those years ago none of these things that happened would have occurred.

One of the biggest reasons I didn’t give it 5 stars is because of the ending. I felt like it was way too rushed and I would have preferred we had gotten more closure, perhaps seeing them a couple of years down the road. I also wished we had seen more of the other male characters from the previous books. I always looked forward to the interactions between them. Overall, I would really recommend this book and I hope Ms. Shupe has more stories stet in these era.

Where do I start with Mogul? This book was honestly one of my most anticipated reads for 2017, especially after I read Baron and absolutely LOVED it. In fact, I rated Baron 5 hearts, it was that good.

Unfortunately, Mogul didn’t live up to my expectations. As much as I want to love it, I just couldn’t. I think I even skimmed the last few pages.

Unlikeable Characters

One of the main reasons I didn’t like this book is because of the heroine, Lillian Davies was just so unlikeable. Sure, she was a spoiled rich socialite, but she was grated on my nerves.

One of the things that I expected her to do was rise up and take over her father’s company, but she didn’t. She didn’t even try to find ways to improve the mine. She HAD plans to improve the conditions of the workers, but it just didn’t come to fruition because she was just not that believable as a leader. She was able to wrest control of the company in the end, but she didn’t redeem herself to me.

Romance that Didn’t have Steam

I actually liked Calvin Cabot. With his similarities to the big newspapermen of the age: Pulitzer and Hearst (also, I saw Newsies again a couple of weeks ago, and damn is Christian Bale so young!), he was an interesting character. But his romance with Lillian fell flat, too.

This is a second chance romance since Calvin and Lillian were married for only a few days before their marriage was annulled. Even though this is one of my favorite romance tropes, it just didn’t work for me.

Recommendations

Should you read it? I honestly think you should read Baron first before you read this. Unfortunately, The Knickerbocker Club series is a hit and miss series for me.