#69-71: Harlequin Presents
#69-71: Savas' Defiant Mistress by Anne McAllister, Captive at the Sicilian Billionaire's Command by Penny Jordan, Androletti's Mistress by Melanie Milburne
Format: Trade paperback
Genre: category romance
Themes: love, power dynamics
Why I chose it: Research for a project I'm working on
Plot:
In the first book, Sebastian Savas buys a houseboat to get away from his annoying siblings… but the houseboat's tenant turns out to be his rival at work, and she won't leave! In the second, Julie is raising her nephew Josh after her sister dies in a train crash, but her job gets a lot more difficult when Josh's uncle, his father's brother, demands that she bring him to Sicily to join the rest of his family. In the third, years ago Nikki left Massimo, choosing to marry his stepfather so he could help her take care of her brother… but now Nikki's husband is dead, and Nikki is responsible for his debts - and Massimo is the only one who can help her.
Thoughts:
I don't like Harlequin Presents, as a general rule; if I'm going to read a Harlequin category romance, chances are it will be a Superromance. But I was reading these for a project. I was primarily looking for similarities between them, which is why I'm grouping them together. The main similarities I noticed: they're set in the world of the rich and important; the hero holds a lot of power (in the world, over the heroine, etc.); there are tiny scenes scattered throughout the books that share a single action or train of thought rather than the amount of story-progression a full scene would have; the conflict ends very late in the book, with practically no denouement to speak of. And they talk about babies on the final page. In all three of them. (I don't think that counts as a spoiler; it's a romance, so you know there has to be a HEA, right?)
The first book was all right, and the third book was well-written, although still not my cup of tea. I can't say the same about the second book; the plotting seemed sloppy, and it was filled with POV problems (the author would start out writing from one character's perspective, and then drift into the other character's head, and then back to the first character…) I still managed to get something out of it, though, despite the distraction of the writing problems.
Rating: unrateable (because I disliked them as reading material but found them useful as research material)