Review: How the Italian Claimed Her

How the Italian Claimed Her by Jennifer Hayward is a welcome return by an author who hasn't had a book out since late 2018 (by my count) and this was a quick, steamy read that avoids a number of common Presents pitfalls. Basically what we have here is a Presents for readers who don't necessarily think they can like Presents.  More on that in a bit...

Cristiano Vitale is now the CEO of his family's Italian fashion house after the death of his legendary designer grandfather and it's his job to save the family business. The label still has some prestige attached to it, but frankly not much else - and Cristiano's job is to drag the business into the 21st century.  He's got a hot up-and-coming designer and against his better judgement he's hired supermodel Jensen Davis to be the face of the revamped brand.  The problem being that Jensen is failing to meet her obligations to the contract she signed and stirring up mountains of gossip that reflect badly on the business.  It's time to bring her to heel.

Jensen is famous for being famous. Her mother a fading Hollywood actress who jumped on the reality TV bandwagon.  Having grown up in the spotlight and tired of her mother's shenanigans, Jensen has decided she's done with the reality TV show.  The problem being she still has her mother, with her various addictions (drink, drugs, gambling) and unspecified mental health issues.  Yep, you guessed it, in order to protect Mom and ensure she doesn't lose the TV show, Jensen keeps getting pulled back in - working triple time to keep her mother's finances afloat and agreeing to various "stunts" (like skinny-dipping in a notable Italian fountain with a prince!) to generate ratings for Dear Old Mom.  The problem being that the skinny dipping stunt (really, she was wearing lingerie - why does everyone insist she was naked?!) and resulting royal scandal has brought an enraged Cristiano to her doorstep.

What quickly follows is Cristiano whisking Jensen away from all her other obligations to his Italian villa so she can devote her every waking moment to honoring her contract to him. Inevitably what happens is that these two spark off each other immediately, a fact neither is terribly pleased about because 1) business relationship and 2) they're not what the other person "needs."

When one reads a Presents one expects a certain level of jackassery from the hero, and that's not what Hayward has written with this book. Oh sure, Cristiano is 1) Italian 2) Powerful and 3) Wealthy but his form of jackassery is a single-mindedness and workaholic nature. Yes, he railroads Jensen to Italy but he's doing it because she's not honoring the terms of her contract.  He also is an observant Presents hero, which honestly now is odd 😂.  Jensen's wild child reputation doesn't jive with the hardworking woman who doesn't do drugs and barely drinks any alcohol.  He recognizes that he's not getting the whole story with her and boy howdy, he wants the story....among other things.

I liked Jensen. She's got a bit of poor little rich girl in her but she's smart and hardworking, she just needs to stop enabling Dear Old Mom.  Her two sisters are cash-strapped trying to get their boutique off the ground, so it's all falling on Jensen to keep Mom afloat.  There's also some latent Daddy Issues and feelings of inadequacy and insecurity.  She's mightily attracted to Cristiano (and he to her!) but she's this messy former reality TV star and he's this scion of an Italian fashion dynasty.  And naturally there's another woman in the latter half of the story fanning the flames of those insecurities. (To call her The Other Woman stretches things considerably, Cristiano is past done with her....)

There's naturally a third act separation (seriously, this IS a Presents) with Jensen's mother once again throwing a wrench into the works and Cristiano angry over what he sees as Jensen falling back into bad habits.  What I liked here is that after the heat of the moment, when he truly stops to think things through, he realizes something is "off" with what he thinks he knows.  He's a Presents hero who readily turns his thinking around using logic and ferreting out the truth of the situation.  Seriously, it's odd 😂.  It's a romance that works well with two characters who rub each other in all the right and wrong ways, featuring some great tension and plenty of steaminess (boy howdy the scene in the pool!).

I'm glad to see Hayward back in the saddle and here's hoping we don't have to wait as long for her next book.

Final Grade = B

Note: At the time of this review posting the book is available direct from Harlequin. It releases wide to all retailers on September 26, 2023.