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.

#TBRChallenge 2022: The Italian's Deal for I Do

The Book: The Italian's Deal for I Do by Jennifer Hayward

The Particulars: Contemporary romance, Harlequin Presents #3323, 2015, Book 1 in Society Weddings series, Out of print, Available in eBook

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: I have a signed copy, which means I picked this up at a conference - and it is a truth universally acknowledged that Wendy will grab any category romance not tied down when she's at conferences.

The Review: There are two types of romance readers - those of who fall for Presents like drunks on 3-day benders and those who think the drunks need an intervention.  Look, can Presents be problematic and feature characters you want to run over with a truck...uh, several times?  Yes. But man oh man, when you find a good Presents - one that sucks you in from the word go?  It's a heady experience that I can't really explain.  This book starts off with a requisite Alphahole hero who is a thundering jackass but once the heroine has a lightbulb moment?  I couldn't inhale this story fast enough.

Rocco Mondelli's beloved grandfather has just died - the creative force behind fashion's venerable House of Mondelli. Unfortunately when he should be focusing on grieving and comforting his bereft younger sister, Rocco instead has to accept the fact that even though he was the one who pulled the family business back from financial ruin his grandfather did not leave him controlling interest in the company.  Rocco has to answer to the board.  A board who thinks he's a hot-headed, unstable playboy.  As if that weren't enough - Rocco finds out his grandfather bought an expensive apartment in the heart of Milan for former supermodel Olivia Fitzgerald - a woman young enough to have been his granddaughter! Olivia disappeared from the spotlight some years ago after a meltdown at New York's Fashion Week - and she's been on the down-low ever since.  Now here she is, in Milan, in a grand apartment Rocco's grandfather paid for and the old man paid her regular nightly visits.  That can only mean one thing as far as Rocco is concerned.

Olivia had her reasons for leaving behind a thriving modeling career, a beyond messy family situation and breaking a $3M contract with a cosmetics firm. She's trying to rebuild her life in Milan with the dream of one day becoming a designer. This would be where Giovanni Mondelli comes into the picture.  He sees Olivia's talent and years ago had a torrid affair with her mother (rest assured, there is zero question of Olivia's parentage).  There's nothing between them romantically, but in walks Rocco (who blindsides her at her favorite café) hurling all sorts of accusations.  She tells him the truth - there was no affair, Rocco is off his nut.  Rocco, being a Presents hero, naturally doesn't believe her - but he also cannot deny that he needs her.  The Board wants to see stability and they want to see the company thriving. What better way to drum up excitement for Mondelli's new line than to sign reclusive model Olivia and oh, by the way, they're engaged!  Except, of course, none of it goes according to plan.

You have to love a heroine who despite carrying around a mess of problems (panic attacks, a mother who should be shot into the sun, and what was behind the Fashion Week meltdown) not faffing about and telling the hero upfront that no, she wasn't doing the mattress mambo with his elderly grandfather. And Rocco is so cruel, so blind with rage and single-mindedness, he doesn't believe her.  As the reader I wanted to shoot him into the sun after the fall-out from the café scene but I was so sucked in at that point I had to see what happened next.  And what happens next?  Magic.

There's a point in the story, right before a fake celebratory engagement dinner with one of Rocco's BFFs that Olivia realizes that the attraction between them isn't one-sided.  That Rocco, for all his bluster, is just as attracted to her as she is to him. That the Alphahole doth protest too much and that, gentle readers, is when the tables are turned.  Because Olivia comes at him with both barrels making for one sexually charged, frustrating dinner date.  From then on I didn't come up for air.

What follows is Olivia working past her fears and her trauma to return to the runway and fulfill her dream of becoming a designer.  Workaholic Rocco needs to get past his own family baggage, his fear of commitment and learn that falling in love does not mean absolute and total destruction of you as your own person.

Rocco has three best friends he went to school with at Columbia University, plus a younger sister, that show up just enough on page to spark interest in the other three books in the series (written by different authors).  While Stefan seems like an even bigger jackass than Rocco, I'll admit that I'm now curious to glom my way through the rest of the series.  

While my audiobook consumption has been on point so far in 2022, my actual eyeball reading has been in the doghouse. Everything has been a struggle and only a couple of books have held my attention.  This is by far the book I've torn through the fastest this year.  Say what you want about Presents, when the author hits their marks there really is nothing quite like 'em.

Final Grade = B