Elizabeth Power (1)

Blackmailed for Her Baby
3 Stars

At the behest of her former brother-in-law, Romano Vincenzo, supermodel Libby Vincent returns to Italy to confront the shadows of her past and perhaps to find the happiness once denied her.

Similar to book #1 in this Harlequin mini-series, the hero is domineering and belligerent while the heroine is overly passive. In the first half, Romano is verbally and even physically abusive in his attitude toward Libby, who constantly fails to stand up for herself. Thankfully, the second half improves once Libby reveals the truth of past events and Romano acknowledges his own shortcomings.

The book also contains a couple of other problematic tropes, i.e., Libby was previously married to Romano's brother and gave birth to his child.. However, she was sexually attracted to Romano at the time, which is rather cringeworthy. While these tropes are not a deal-breaker, they do undermine the romance to a certain extent.

Despite these issues, the book is well-written and enjoyable overall.… (more)

There I was happily reading along about some of my favorite HP tropes. There was even a soap opera esque twist that was fun, when it all went suddenly south. The end of this book was just plain bad. It didn't make sense according to the story as laid out, it was too short and too easy. Mostly though the book was full of misunderstandings and a hero and heroine who were too afraid to admit their love because they knew the other one didn't love them back. So the way the hero approached the heroine at the end made no sense. Just so odd. Bah.… (more)