Review: At the Count's Bidding by Caitlin Crews

At the Count's Bidding by Caitlin Crews
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ooh, this is just up my alley!!!! A story about movie stars, Hollywood,
noble Italian families,Tuscany,a gorgeous Count and betrayal and revenge!!!!

Can’t wait to start page 1!!

Ten years ago Paige Fielding had betrayed Giancarlo Alessi in the most horrible and shocking way.
When he discovers her working for his movie star mother, he goes absolutely ballistic!! At first he demands that she disappears from his and his mother’s life. But then he decides that taking some revenge from Paige is a much better idea. He’s going to break and destroy her life just like she had done all those years ago. He blackmails her to travel with him to his home in Tuscany and she agrees because she feels guilty for what she had done to him and also she was rather fond of his mother!!

I so understood and agreed with Giancarlo’s decision in the beginning. After all, Paige had been rather mercenary selling intimate pictures of them together for a lot of money. Now, I was sure there was more to that story and why the hell she did not tell him right from the start was beyond me. She seemed like such a sweet and caring person so why not come clean with him instead of him believing the most horrible things about her.

Instead she lets him abuse and use her, takes all his verbal assaults and even agrees to the sexual torment he dishes out to her….check the scene when she goes down on her knees!!!! That’s when I decided that I needed to slap some sense into her. Because she continues with all this painfully monologues…on and on…open your mouth and talk girl!

Speaking of monologue…….pages and pages of it…..so much so that it became too irritating for me…..

Talk…..can I see some dialogue here??

By now, I am so totally not engaging with Giancarlo….his behavior is totally despicable. Yes, I get his pain, all his family issues…of which there are many….of course there are…after all his mother is a huge movie star who thinks only of her career and looks and his dead Count father was no better….what all the duties of being part of a noble family was important to him and his son!!! Dysfunctional family?? You bet. Let me add to this that Paige’s family history is not much better although is not about titled counts and movies stars but rather seedier Las Vegas types!!!

Can we get these two to talk openly to each other rather than pussyfooting around???

Of course Giancarlo is not a total idiot…and comes up with thoughts in his head that the Paige is getting to know now doesn’t match up with what she had done to him years ago……duh!!!! Took you long enough…she kept telling you so listen up better next time and it would not have taken you so long to find your HEA with her!!

At last, the real reason for Paige’s past actions are revealed, Giancarlo discovers that there is more to his mother than he had always believed and ….everything just works out really well in the end…..

My final thoughts:
I loved the settings, the plot and in the end, the characters as well.
What did not work for me….too much inner monologues and not enough dialogue.


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