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Angel of Darkness by Lynne Graham: 2nd time around
A couple of years ago I picked up a copy of Angel of Darkness by Lynne Graham, and for whatever reason, this book sent me on a most unfruitful glom of this author's backlist. This one, though, I liked enough to buy (or Bookmooch - can't quite remember). I re-read it quickly yesterday, thinking I might review it for AAR, but there's so little to review, I find I can't come up with enough.
Short summary: Kelda, a beautiful "top model" finds herself in dire financial straits when an ex-boyfriend is found to be married. Her long estranged, totally hot, exorbitantly rich ex-step-brother Angelo enters stage right. It seems her mother and his father are getting back together, and he wants to ensure she won't be a barrier to their reunion. Tempers fly, Kelda gives lip, and Angelo arranges for her to go out of country for a photo shoot, only it's really his Italian villa she will find herself at. Alone, at his mercy. And what he wants from her is everything...except marriage.
Okay, if I'm being totally honest, I can see what I liked about this book: coercion scenario, power struggle, heroine who puts up a fight before being taken down. Unfortunately, these plot elements occur amidst some of classic "I love you! I hate you! Let's have sex!" dialogue which makes the whole thing frequently seem like farce. Kelda isn't stupid, and Angelo isn't completely the Neanderthal he first (and second and third) appears, but the two of them certainly pretend for most of the book. Add a pregnancy (saw that coming, didn't you?), a shotgun wedding, some really pathetic miscommunication [read: lies] and you've got kind of a mess.
I am not sure what I was thinking when I first read and enjoyed this book, although I will say that it was better than the other bunch of Graham titles I read during my glom, all of which were atrocious. Angel of Darkness I'd give a C, maybe a C+ for campy enjoyability; the rest earned much lower grades from me. 
I have a huge love/hate relationship with Lynne Graham's HPs. I think they
qualify as a guilty pleasure, with emphasis on the guilt ... because they
*are* atrocious.
Meljean! I'm glad to see you here and am also glad someone else has
experienced the strange draw of Lynne Graham.