Lynne Graham

The Italian's Inexperienced Mistress

Natalie

** spoiler alert **
           If I could give this book negative stars, I would.

This book is being offered for free electronically as part of Harlequin's 60th anniversary celebration. I decided to snag it for a couple of reasons. First, my dad used to have a subscription to the Presents line when I was a teenager (they were giving away free Norman Rockwell glasses and he wanted them, I don't get it either) and second, I read a handful of romance blogs and occasionally titles from this line would get positive reviews. And I figured that if Harlequin were offering it for free as part of a celebration of 60 years of romance novel publishing, it would be one of their stronger titles.

Ha. How wrong I was.

Angelo is a self-made billionaire. He grew up in abject poverty after his mother left his father and she was disowned from her Mafia family. She ended up being swindled out of all her money by the father of our heroine, Gwenna. Gwenna is, basically, Cinderella. She has an evil stepmother, evil stepsisters, and a foolishly weak father. She was also born out of wedlock and apparently this was still a big scandal in England in the mid-80's--who knew?

So Angelo is bent on revenge and buys the company Gwenna's father works for--and discovers he's an embezzler and has him arrested at a big charity event (for maximum humiliation!). Gwenna is distraught and goes to Angelo to find out what she can do to get him to back off. She tells Angelo that her father will sign over all the rights to his property. Angelo agrees, but with one condition: that Gwenna also become his mistress. Because she is stupid, she agrees. (Honestly, she is too stupid to live--why has she not kicked her family to the curb? They're all uniformly pretty awful.)

So then Angelo pretty much takes over her life--after slagging her off for liking to garden because apparently he has issues around people working with their hands--and installs her in a huge fancypants house and makes her put her beloved dog (who has separation anxiety issues) in a pet hotel. 

So then he tells her he wants to have dinner with her and after some confusion, dinner happens. And then he takes her back to the house and rapes her.

I mean, there's really no other way to put it. He wants to have sex. She doesn't. Because of the power inequity between them, he is able to force her to comply with his wishes. She does not consent.

She then retreats to the bathroom and locks the door. He wants to rape her again or something, so kicks the door in and corners her in the bath tub. And then tells her that he doesn't want to hurt her.

And that's the point at which I had to stop reading. Because I don't want to read rape apologia, which this, in my opinion, is. 

I need a unicorn chaser after reading half of this book.

The Italian's Inexperienced Mistress

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