Rule, or Better Yet, Conquer

Claudine von Brandt was raised to be the perfect Duchess. She was poised, perfect, and pragmatic. But in the end, perfection wasn't enough to keep a heart that never belonged to her. When her engagement to the Duke of Herhardt dissolves in scandal, the Empire expects Claudine to retreat into the shadows of spinsterhood.

Claudine does no such thing.

Instead, she accepts a proposal from across the ocean. Her new husband is everything the aristocracy despises: Brutally ambitious, and "new money." He is an American tycoon who wants a trophy wife with a pedigree to legitimize his empire. He thinks he has purchased a beautiful, silent ornament for his grandiose mansion.

But America is a jungle, and Claudine has spent her life surviving among vipers. As she trades tea parties for boardrooms and curtseys for contracts, the American elite will learn a hard lesson: Claudine von Brandt may have lost the crown, but she hasn't lost her teeth.

If she cannot reign in the Old World, she will conquer the New.