The Legend of de Marco by Abby Green

Alright, so this was a cute if somewhat forgettable story. We have a a hero who trusts no one, uber-wealthy and drop dead gorgeous, and a down-on-your-luck heroine. Pretty much like every other Harlequin romance in existence. He came from abject poverty to a man of immeasurable wealth, but no one can ever know where he came from and the mystery of him is part of his social allure. Grace is still in abject poverty and their first meeting occurs when Rocco catches her pilfering food from the buffet. I thought that was an unusual meet-cute and I give Ms Green points for originality there.

When Grace's brother absconds with a million dollars of Rocco's money, Rocco holds her prisoner and a bargaining chip to lure her brother out of hiding. And that's where Ms Green lost me. In the first place, all the reasons Rocco used as an excuse to keep her made little sense to me. If Grace was in on the plot, she wouldn't have gone to the scene of the crime looking for her brother when everyone was still there. Asking security personnel if they'd seen him. Made no sense. And in the second place, holding someone against their will would be a lot bigger deal in the eyes of the law and the public than if the public found out someone was able to steal from Rocco. Because what we are to believe is that Rocco refused to get the authorities involved because if word of the embezzlement were to leak out, people would not trust him with their money. But he was less concerned about word leaking out that he kidnapped and held prisoner a homeless woman.

But I get it. The plot needed some reason for Grace to stay in Rocco's company to get the romance part of the story going. I just wished it would have been something more believable.

I felt the author tried to develop the characters, but the story and their backgrounds still came off a bit disjointed, but that usually happens when an author has a lot of information to get into those 180 pages. So I understand that.

As for the characters, one couldn't help but to feel sorry for Grace. Her life and background were so terrible. Rocco I think tried his best to come off as a hard nosed a(insert letters here)hole, but there was just enough decency in him that he didn't quite make it. And that's a good thing.

A cute, fast paced read.

As other reviews have said the h is held by the H because he is suspicious that she is involved in her brothers embezzlement of money from his company. I struggled with the H, he was alpha but also had a really vicious streak in him too. He belittled the h on a number of occasions.

He didn't trust her right up until the very end and although the ending redeemed the book enough for me to give it 3 stars, I was still annoyed by a number of things that happened throughout the book. I hated the way he wanted to marry someone socially acceptable to make himself feel better about himself. It was difficult to like him after some of the things he said and did to the H.

His final abuse of her near the end of the book made me really hate him and although the author wrote a fairly good ending it didn't make me love this book.

But not too sappy. I did not like how the H felt that he had to be accepted into high society to feel validated. The heroine was perceptive enough to recognize this and feel pity for him. That said, he was still the normal arrogant personality that signifies the H. This story was well written,with all the elements I like in a book. It showed the build up of his emotions, even though he was very distrustful. He showed remorse and was apologetic when necessary. Despite that, she was no walk over. I liked her character, she really stood up for herself, and was very wise in how she read and reacted to his character. We always expect a happy ending, but this one was really nice.

The story was not my type if you like anime with princes then this is not the manga for you

Awesome

I love all of Abby Green's books and keep checking to see if there are any I have not read. The dialogue is always entertaining and you get truly drawn in the drama that unfolds. Of course it is always great knowing that it all ends well but worth getting.

This was a really good book with believable characters. I could feel the love between both characters. It wasn't the typical hero is rich beyond his means and can't relate to the poor heroine. It was a good emotional story that had both his and her point of view.

Abby Green is one of my favorite authors and she always does a wonderful job with her romance stories. I would not hesitate to recommend any of them.