Reviewed by Sarah Bean the Green Bean Teen Queen for TeensReadToo.com

It's 1900 in New York, and scandal and gossip are never far behind.

Elizabeth Holland is back and everyone is awaiting her re-entrance into society. But things are not as they seem in No. 17 Gramercy Park. Elizabeth and her sister, Diana, are both grieving the loss of their loved ones. When the sisters are invited along on a trip to Florida by the newly married Schoonmakers, they decide this is the perfect escape.

Penelope Schoonmaker isn't pleased to invite the woman her husband is in love with along on her trip, but she knows she must keep her enemies close if she's ever going to get what she wants.

Carolina Broad is climbing high in society, but her place is not secure and her newfound fame and fortune could disappear any moment.

I've been addicted to the LUXE series since it began, and ENVY continues to add more gossip and scandal to the story. I thought the twists and turns in ENVY moved the story along quicker than the previous two stories. I loved that the author moved a lot of the action to Florida - it added new scenery and lots of fun situations. There were many times I told myself "just one more chapter" because I needed to know what would happen next.

Each chapter tells a part of the story from a different character and I found myself enjoying each storyline this time around. Yes, I still wanted to yell at Penelope, would get annoyed at Carolina's social climbing, and tell Diana not to make so many assumptions, but I think that's part of the fun of the series.

Anna Godbersen does such a great job at getting the readers involved in the characters that you can't help but cheer them on, or even root against them. I also thought there were some characters this time around who got stronger and started to stand up for themselves, so I'm eager to see where they end up.

I will be first in line to get my hands on a copy of SPLENDOR, the next book in the LUXE series, when it's released. ( )

That delightful mix of high society in NYC at the turn of the century and Gossip Girls-type plots make this a great read. I couldn't put it down, and although book 2 ends in a way that has you reaching for the next book, it is a great, engaging read! ( )

I reallyed loved Luxe and Rumors. While Envy was a fun read, I found it too predicatable. Still going to read Splendor when it comes out. ( )

Anna Godbersen’s two ‘Luxe’ novels – Rumours and Envy – are truly guilty pleasures, very much in the fantastical Barbara Cartland style of bodice-ripper, although better written and certainly more sexually explicit.

The Holland family is at the apex of fin de siecle New York society and the two daughters of the house, fascinatingly fair Elizabeth and bewitchingly brunette Diana – are the toast of the town.

Elizabeth’s betrothal to the divinely beautiful millionaire playboy Henry Schoonmaker seems pre-ordained – until the bride-to-be is kidnapped, presumed dead, leaving her fiancé bereft and her family destitute.

Like soap operas, Chick Fic’s most endearing quality is its sheer unlikeliness: Elizabeth isn’t dead, just eloped with the groom; Henry is not bereft because he is in love with Diana, and a cast of amoral vixens and adventurers haunt the pages with little better to do than thwart the cause of true love.

The villain Penelope blackmails Henry into abandoning Diana and marrying her and at the same time Elizabeth’s groom is spotted by the police and shot dead, since they believe he has kidnapped his mistress – and so ends Rumours…

Envy is even more unexpectedly absurd and the Holland girls are invited to go on holiday with the newly wed Schoonmakers and, naturally, Henry and Diana resume their relationship much to the fury of the evil Penelope.

The book ends with Henry heading off to war: when dainty Diana hears this she cuts off her long, lustrous curls, puts on an old army coat, dons a man’s bowler hat, and sets off to enlist with him, posing as a man.

That exquisite face, that swan neck, those perfect breasts, that delicate yet deliciously curvy little body is magically transformed by just a change of apparel – but that is how things work in the world of Chick Fic and you either accept it or don’t bother reading it at all.

Great fun – total tosh of course but the ridiculously entertaining pages are peopled by beauties with great grey eyes, magnificent clusters of wild curls, tiny, plump pouting mouths and pearly teeth, floating along an absurdly small feet, in a flurry of fur, feathers, frills and flounces. Fabulous. ( )