“Nothing makes me happier than a new book from Joanna Shupe!”―Sarah MacLeanThe final novel in Joanna Shupe’s critically acclaimed Uptown Girl series about a beautiful do-gooder who must decide if she can team up with one of New York’s brashest criminals without losing something irreplaceable: her heart.Manhattan kingpin. Brilliant mastermind. Gentleman gangster.He’s built a wall around his … gangster.
He’s built a wall around his heart…
Orphaned and abandoned on the Bowery’s mean streets, Jack Mulligan survived on strength, cunning, and ambition. Now he rules his territory better than any politician or copper ever could. He didn’t get here by being soft. But in uptown do-gooder Justine Greene―the very definition of an iron fist in a velvet glove―Jack may have met his match.
She wears hers on her sleeve…
Justine is devoted to tracking down deadbeat husbands and fighting for fair working conditions. When her mission brings her face-to-face with Jack, she’s shocked to find the man behind the criminal empire is considerably more charming and honorable than many “gentlemen” she knows.
Forming an unlikely alliance, they discover an unexpected desire. And when Justine’s past catches up with them, Jack may be her only hope of survival. Is she ready to make a deal with the devil…?
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Loved this conclusion to the Uptown Girls series! Justine was wonderful, and Jack was exactly the sexy criminal we all love. Add in great historical detail and sexy bowling(!), and you have a fabulous read. My only tiny gripe was the hypocritical way that Mamie and Florence treated Justine.
I’ve been a Joanna Shupe fan since her first book and this just might be my new favorite. Justine is the youngest Greene sister and is often overlooked by the adventures and scandals of her two older sisters. However, she’s more determined and convicted than even Florence. She wants to make a difference in New York and stand up for those less fortunate than herself. To do so, she needs to gain help from the true devil of downtown New York, Jack Mulligan. Jack came up from nothing to rule the streets of downtown New York. He’s a self-made man and has constructed a persona of a suave and ambitious criminal whose not afraid to get his hands bloody. But when Justine barges into his life, she forces him to take a hard look at what he wants from the empire he created. Jack is charming and the attraction between him and Justine is instantaneous and steamy. But what I loved even more was how he came to realize that he wanted to make choices that would make her proud. If Florence stood out as the favorite heroine of this series, than Jack will be the favorite hero. I mean, how can you not love him?
Joanna Shupe’s stories all have a catnip factor—but Devil of Downtown has a double dose! It’s my favorite yet—highly recommend!
*received an ARC; this is my honest review.
I enjoyed this last book in the Uptown Girl series. The quiet younger sister, Justine, proves to be the strongest of all the sisters as she battles injustice in the downtown New York City slums. She challenges and engages Jack, the biggest gang leader, to become a better man. I received an ARC from NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers for my honest review.
Justine is in the area to call upon Jack Mulligan, 32, to discuss his employee, Robert Gorcey, who has recently fled his wife and 5 children leaving them nearly penniless. She insists that he make the man pay his family or she will turn it over to the police who will do the job he refuses to do. Irked at her being a do-gooder and knowing that he has more power than any of the city’s elected officials, he decides to help her. Gorcey is brought in and told he will pay a monthly stipend to his wife. Now, Jack insists that Justine owes him a favor in the future.
Jack has been on his own since he was a small child scratching his way up and now he is a very wealthy man. However, some of his wealth has been earned illegally. Jack is also a very handsome man and dresses very well. His smooth manner draws Justine in like a bee to honey.
They work together as she enlists his help with fund raisers and finding missing husbands. Of course, this friendship leads to much more than that. Justine finds herself responding to Jack’s allure and he can’t get enough of her. Since they come from different sides of the tracks so to speak is there a way that they could be accepted as a couple in society?
I loved Jack and Justine. Both are outspoken and brave and care about one another oh so much. This is a really romantic story with lots of intrigue and, good heavens, tons of sex. I not a reader that cares for explicit sex in a book, but this had some humor that helped make it more readable. The gilded age is a favorite time in history for me and I love reading books about it. Well done, Joanna Shupe.
Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Rated 4.5 Stars
The Devil of Downtown was wonderful. It was steamy and sexy. I loved the interactions between the main characters, Jack and Justine as well as getting glimpses of the previous couples. I enjoyed this book and highly recommend it and the rest of the series.
Copy provided by publisher through Edelweiss
It was a very interesting and entertaining read.
This is book 3 of the uptown girls series and again I was initiated in this series in disorder, I have to read the previous ones.
I really liked Justine, her determination and spirit to help anyone in need no matter where they are and the danger they are in. And the fact that she is just exactly the same in her personal and intimate life only adds more points to his already very well defined personality.
Jack would be the other part of that world where to stand out and be respected you do anything to achieve it, although there are villains and then there is Jack, although he operates blackmailing and scaring everyone we also see that he has a compassionate and fair side in the whole world of crime, cares about its people and because of than he earns not only respect but also loyalty and support that is well tested when he need it.
Justine and Jack will begin a relationship of favors that will lead them to a relationship that none of them seemed prepared to have but without realizing it, they will fall into their web and even if they try to escape it will be too late.
I like that the story is moving slowly and the relationship of Justine and Jack in the same way, the author does not rush anything, on the contrary, gives us a little taste of what would be a relationship between these two characters with well-defined personalities, no doubt I have enjoyed very much of those passionate moments as those who keep debating their views.
It’s certainly a highly recommended reading.
4.5 stars
I received an ARC from author and Netgalley on exchange of my honest review.
Thank you so much.
I have really enjoyed the Uptown Girls series. This final installment has the same tone as the others. This one centers around the youngest daughter of the wealthy Greene family. She is a dedicated do-gooder and her family doesn’t realize how strong and capable she is. She butts head with the notorious ruler of the Bowery underground, Jack Mulligan. Of course, Jack has a heart of gold buried beneath his rough-and-tough exterior and Justine is just the girl to bring it out. No matter that her sisters have married similarly rough guys, they want to protect Justine.
I loved how Justine rose to the occasion and became her own woman. I like the way Jack was attracted to her and was surprised by her strength. This was a fitting and satisfying end to the series. I look forward to see what new Gilded Age book ideas Joanna Shupe has brewing. She is a terrific writer.
This was an entertaining, well-written book. Justine is a “do-gooder” who works passionately for the causes she believes in. Jack grew up on the streets and earned his territory with hard work, cunning, strength and ambition. They seem like opposites but when they start to get to know each other they discover hidden passion and common interests. The story was fast-paced and hard to put down. This book can be read as a standalone story, though it is the last in the Uptown Girl series. I enjoyed it and look forward to reading more books by this author.
Miss Justine Greene is the youngest of three girls. She did a lot of charity work and she helped the legal society that her sister, Mamie, and her husband, worked at. He a lawyer and she did everything else. They offered free advice about legal affairs and such. Justine found husbands that had run out on their family and either took them to the police or forced them to pay a stipend so the mothers could get some food from their babies. She also worked at a soup kitchen in the ghetto, She was always flitting around downtown, at this time helping people was the most important thing in her life. She thought she was plain and not very attractive.
Mr. Jack Mulligan was the biggest criminal in Manhattan. If anything happened he knew it. He had a lot of money and power. He had become an orphan at twelve and thrown out of the orphanage. To fight his way to the top and he had been there for several years but it had been hard. No one knows even him how many times he had been stabbed, shot, or how many fights he had been in. He was covered from the neck down with scars from his endeavors. He spoke several languages, he was intelligent, charismatic, handsome, and tall.
I loved this, it was an unusual crime boss story. The tale moved along at a comfortable pace and offered insights into the characters. You get a touch of the organization of the group. It is large, fifteen hundred men and a huge area to look out for. There are some surprises along the way and as the book goes along it gets a little complicated. It is so worth the time to read this great novel. I believe you will be intrigued and find the novel hard to put down. It is steamy.
I received this ARC from Net Galley and voluntarily reviewed it and loved it.
We love our bad boy romances and Jack is perfect. He is a criminal but has a good heart which he does not like others to see but in walks Justine and he gives everything he can to help her. For favors? He says so but you can tell he wants to help. I love that about him. Sometimes the heroines in stories are not the most likable characters but not Justine, she is such a good person and man I got tired just reading about everything she does to help the people in downtown. Also, she takes no guff from her sisters trying to berate her. She stood up for herself and for Jack. Jack and Justine make a perfect couple. Oh and I loved the bowling alley scenes and some previous characters showing up. A great end to this series. Joanna writes a great story that will keep you enthralled. What will be next?
I received a complimentary copy from the publisher through Edelweiss.
Who needs grump and sunshine when there’s the Devil and the Do-Gooder?!
So I really thought Florence from the Prince of Broadway was going to be my favorite Greene sister but then Justine slayed me as she slayed Jack Mulligan.
The quiet, earnest Greene sister has been volunteering her time and help to those in need since she was fifteen but being a woman in Gilded Age New York, even a wealthy one, means that she often needs the assistance of a man to really get things done (ugh!). Jack Mulligan has built an empire of less than honorable and legal standing but he still cares for his people and is always willing to help…for a price.
Jack’s reaction to Justine’s passion in the first chapter had me hooked. He calls her a do-gooder but he doesn’t fetishize her, he respects the hell out of her and that was so sexy. But what I loved most about the book was Justine and her unwillingness to compromise who she is, a fighter and a natural leader even though she doesn’t always see that (but he does!). And let me just say, her leading the march down Bowery is one of my favorite things about this whole series that has been five stars all the way.
I just wish we could have more of these Uptown Girls and their men!
I received a complimentary review copy of this book but all opinions are my own.
I’ve so adored this series, my first from Joanna Shupe. The Greene sisters are a force of nature, and I loved getting to know them!
Justine Greene is the youngest of 3 daughters, and she loves her family, though they all treat her as some kind of naive child most of the time. She has a servant’s heart, and she loves to help others who are less fortunate. Especially when the people she’s helping have nowhere else to turn. Since her eldest sister Mamie, and Mamie’s husband Frank, started the local legal aid society she’s been helping with cases there, as much as she’s able. Often when they’ve done all they can, she can investigate further. Lately many of her cases have been tracking down deadbeat husbands/fathers, and forcing them to give financial support to the families they’ve left behind. She has a detective who helps her, though he’s not always available. While tracking one man, she discovers he works for the largest crime syndicate in town, and she hopes the man in charge will help her to find her target.
Jack Mulligan grew up in a brothel, and then on the streets after his mother’s death. He’s had a VERY rough life, and he learned quickly how to fend for himself. As he got older, he started amassing some power, and before long had warring street gangs all combining forces under his rule. Now at 32, he runs a huge syndicate, who are involved in all manner of illegal dealings, but never brothels. He’s the most powerful man in town, and he likes it that way. He worked hard, and fought hard, to get to his position, and he plans to stay on top as long as possible. But, lately there’s a local upstart looking to usurp him, and now he’s got an uptown do-gooder on his doorstep demanding his help. His attraction to Justine is unexpected, and he doesn’t think it could ever be reciprocated, but he’ll try to sway her to his way of thinking any way he can.
Jack and Justine’s chemistry was SO HOT, and you could feel it leap off the page, from the first moment they met. I loved how she wasn’t scared of him, and didn’t cut him any slack, and all of that just made him want her even more. She was an enigma to him that he was determined to discover, and everything about her caused him to continue on his course to getting her to give in to him. They played push-and-pull beautifully, all while truly getting to know each other, and their connection was just MAGIC.
It was interesting to see another side of our main characters from the earlier two books, Justine’s older sisters, Mamie & Florence, as well as their men, Frank & Clay. How they treated Justine, as the “baby” sister to be coddled and protected, as if she didn’t know her own mind, was quite hypocritical, knowing what all shenanigans they got up to in their own books. It was actually shocking to me at first, as I expected more understanding from them. But, both sisters wanted to protect Justine, and knew that Jack was a step too far as a romantic partner for her, as the family would never accept him with his criminal connections. Though he truly wasn’t all that different from Clay in book 2, in my opinion, so I thought the sisters were being WAY overzealous. But, family dynamics are funny that way, and seeing both sisters from Justine’s POV was very enlightening as to why Justine is the way she is. Jack’s right-hand men, Rye and Cooper, on the other hand, both loved Justine, and fully accepted her into their circle, and I loved that contrast to how her sisters were behaving.
Jack and Justine had such a full, strong connection, that when cracks started to show, I was dreading that black moment. The author really made me love these characters so fiercely, and I wanted them both to get everything they wanted, without knowing how she was going to get them there. I loved this story so much, and could not have asked for a better ending to this series. I highly recommend all 3 books!
Shupe’s end of the Uptown Girl series doesn’t disappoint. Justine Greene is a woman on a mission to find a husband who abandoned his wife and children. Showing up at Jack Mulligan’s door was her first option. Jack is a Gentleman Kingpin of Manhattan. The last person he expected was this do-gooder. From that moment on, Jack is enthralled and is willing to do anything she asks. Until Justine realizes asking comes at a price. I just couldn’t put it down! I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book.
my first historical romance and I enjoyed it very much. Love the forbidden nature of the scandalous relationships. Can’t wait for bk3
I liked this one. Justine didn’t bow down to kingpin Jack. It was for sure fun and entertaining with their banter and being together. I love the synopsis of the story and whats neat is that Joanna tells us exactly who these characters are based on real life people.
I received this book at my request and have voluntarily left this unbiased review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
This is the third and final book in the series and as in the last one, I loved the storyline but the swearing and sex for this reviewer was a bit overwhelming so if you don’t like these things or are not willing to just skip it like this reviewer did don’t read it. But I love how the storylines in these books are so different from the usual society reads and the characters are so wonderfully written. They have to be rough and the swearing is just part of their life that is why I still read them. Ms Sharpe has a real talent for bringing these times and lives to life. I must admit I found a real soft spot for Jack. He is a crime lord with a big soft heart and Justine is perfect for him. I received this book as an ARC and was happy to do a review.