Geoffrey Hunter

Gilded Age #10

Rosemary Simpson’s two protagonists in her Gilded Age series set in New York city are heiress and lawyer Prudence MacKenzie and ex-Pinkerton agent Geoffrey Hunter,  partners in an investigative law firm.  Prudence is a member of New York’s elite, known as the Four Hundred, but she has defied society’s conventions and become one of the first female lawyers in the city, even though she is frustrated that she has not yet been allowed to argue a case in court.  Geoffrey is a Southerner who grew up on a plantation, but he left for the North as a young man because of his antislavery views, and decided to build a life for himself in New York.  The two of them have had a slow-burning romance since the beginning of the series.  Geoffrey realized he loved Prudence before she realized she loved him, and once she acknowledged her feelings, she resisted marriage for a long time because she didn’t want to give up her independence.  But now they are finally engaged and, as this book begins, in the late summer of 1891, the wedding date is set for mid-September, just a few weeks away. read more