So yeah, I spent the entire book braced for all the things that didn't happen at the end (Deb settling down and taking her place in respectable society in particular) and then it was absolutely nothing like that, and I loved it.

I haven't read it in decades, but I remember really enjoying Faro's Daughter, and the subversion of romantic expectations may have been what did it. The Corinthian (1940) and Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle (1957) I have re-read recently enough to call definite favorites.