Reviews for The Italian's Defiant Mistress

The average rating for The Italian's Defiant Mistress based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-11-06 00:00:00 Randall R Wilkinson The Italian�s Defiant Mistress, India Grey�s debut novel was incredibly amazing! That level of writing and the complexity of the story and characters was not what I would expect from a first� timer�!!!! The depth and intricacies of the story make more than just a quick and fast insta-love story. Set in a world that I am somewhat familiar with � my husband being a fashion/advertising photographer, I was curious about how the author would portray the glitzy and glamorous�� Using some of the most beautiful cities in Italy, we enter the lives of celebrities, of supermodels, the world of fashion shows An alluring world that we can only dream of, the life of excess and drugs, pervasive need for fame and riches, the constant glare of cameras/flashes recording every moment of your life�.more, more and more� The unique plot, which begins when the young heroine, Eve Middlemiss, arrives in Florence�yes, the amazing and glorious city of Firenze� on a mission!!! To expose and destroy the person who caused her sister�s death. Using the cover of a supermodel�s assistant, she attends the famous di Lazaro fashion house, when she discovers the man that she had been staring at and felt drawn to at the show is Raphael di Lazaro, world famous photographer and eldest son of the di Lazaro dynasty�. and the person she thinks is responsible for supplying the drugs to her sister. Raphael di Lazaro (damn, I love his name!!!!)and his half brother Luca are heirs to the di Lazaro fashion empire. Raphael is on a mission to expose the true nature of his brother�s life�a drug user and supplier, who feels nothing about using people to achieve his goals�.to live a life of hedonism, regardless who he hurts or destroys along the path. Determined to keep Eve away from his brother�s clutches, he spirits her away to his home in��ooh my gosh�.what could be more romantic??? Raphael & Eve shared a sizzling chemistry � passionate, painful, sexual tension, conflict, sadness��A complex alpha-hero, strong, caring, responsible, determined and a na�ve and feisty and spontaneous heroine��two people who learn that not all in life is black and white, that sometimes things are not what they seem to be and how mistrust and lies can change your life forever. And that along the road on the journey you are going on�.to find that love can really make your world be a better place to be in. This was a deeply moving story that pulled at so many of my emotions. Brilliant book and a definite KEEPER �to be read again!!!!!

Review # 2 was written on 2014-12-19 00:00:00 Brandi Stephens It's moments before she has to strut her stuff down a catwalk wearing a plastic dress and Eve's having a bit of a panic. She's no model! She's not even the fashion journalist she's pretending to be. No, Eve is a junior academic in Renaissance poetry, but she's here investigating her sister's death and if that means walking around half naked then, by golly, she'll do it. 'Just focus on one person and pretend you're sex walking to them,� Eve�s model friend tells her, so Eve myopically does and that's how she first sees Raphael. Blurry hot guy. The fashion show is a retrospective of Raphael's Dad's long career in fashion, and Raphael's also there for Reasons, but he's really taken with Eve's catwalk sashay. The two of them rapidly transition from eyes meet to intros with dialogue to finding an empty room to kiss and get rather handsy. It's all moving so fast, quick, throw in some plot! Eve let�s something slip about drugs, and Raphael�s all, woah, maybe she�s involved in the Badness! Must keep a close eye on her and find out what she knows! And take her to my family�s houses and touch her and remember that she is probably the enemy and stop touching her, and then forget that and start touching her again! This is an embarrassing admission: for almost the entire story I thought Raphael was a secret agent. He's media shy, and he backstories on about how he was in Columbia for 18 months and there were drug lords, and I thought he was probably hanging out with them and drinking whiskey and laughing at divers petty cruelties. Oh look, flies are landing on that tortured minion�s open wounds! I shall guffaw and make snide comments! And then I shall have tiny worries about the darkness corrupting my soul and push them aside because, the mission! In his opening scenes Raphael�s taking calls from some guy I assumed was some sort of law enforcement about witnesses and evidence and the case against the villain dealer. His job is being a photographer but that was obviously his deep cover story, and while there's nothing at all plausible about him being a secret agent I thought that was the whole point. These books aren�t long enough to give the rich, authentic details of the adventures of secret agents as are found in movies or American TV, so I thought I was being expected to let it all go, and just be all �oh neat, Italian James Bond, that�s exactly what I wanted to read.� Which: happy to give it a go. I was thinking: well, he�s wrapped up the main bit of the mission in Columbia, and this bit in this story is just about the final piece in the puzzle, and this time it�s personal. It continually struck me that all of this was completely unrealistic, but I just kept telling myself: this is fiction, this is Harlequin Presents, shut up brain! Of course, that never works completely, but I did try. When Raphael and Eve fly to Venice in the family's private plane I was having a debate with myself as to whether he could claim it as travel expenses. I concluded that he could because of the mission, but thought the other agents would probably think he was being a dick if he did. I was fully expecting the story's crucial scene to be Eve held at gunpoint by the dealer villain while Raphael looks on and feels all the feelings. You know, about how he'd been wrong about her and this job is too filthy and should never have touched something so pure, and how he's so in love with her and couldn't admit it and now it's too late and he'll die before he lets anything happen to her etc. Just imagine that muscle tick moving under his jaw, the only sign that belies the indifference in his glacially cold eyes. Needless to say, that doesn't happen. I'm not one to complain (such a lie), and there's plenty of other stuff going on to keep me entertained. Eve and Raphael are both highly suspicious of each other - Eve thinks Raphael is the evil dealer, and Raphael thinks she Knows Something. Not much, because he also thinks she's a bimbo and he is not at all impressed by the muckraking publication she supposedly works for. Eve is also an accidental nudist, which is certainly great for getting Raphael's attention, but not great for demonstrating she has much going on, noggin-wise. The both do a satisfactory amount of yearning for each other�s bodies while trying to resist because of the other�s status as a potential baddy, although not quite enough to divert me from the fact that Eve�s sister Ellie was her twin, they looked heaps alike, and Ellie lived with Carolina, who was Raphael�s betrothed before Raphael discovered that she was unfaithful. And, involved in the evil drugs. So at no stage did Raphael ever meet his betrothed�s roommate? And, why did I think Eve thought Ellie had been murdered again? And that Eve had to go undercover to investigate? I don�t know. There�s a courtroom scene at the end with lawyers yelling obiezione and cross examination to prove their love and a judge who�s like, whatever, I�ll allow it, which is all possibly not exactly how the Italian justice system works, but I�ll allow it too, because it was cute.