Maisey Yates’s The Last Di Sione Claims His Prize concludes the multi-author Di Sione family series. Apropos of being the last volume, it tells the story of Giovanni Di Sione’s eldest grandson, Alessandro “Alex”. It completes Giovanni’s journey to rediscover a lost love, while fulfilling his secret wish to guide each grandchild to love and commitment. Of the volumes Miss Bates has read, the series’ unifying premise never faltered in meaningfulness. Giovanni’s benign machinations and his grandchildren’s adventures to love and the fulfillment of their grandfather’s request were compelling. This is as true of His Prize as any of the others, though Hewitt’s A Di Sione For the Greek’s Pleasure remains the best of the lot. Nevertheless, reading a Maisey Yates romance is never a loss for Miss Bates. Yates is consistently one of the genre’s finest practitioners, whether writing fantasy-driven HP, or closer-to-reality contemporary.

True to premise, Giovanni asks Alex to travel to Aceena in a “search-and-rescue/retrieve” operation to reunite him with a painting entitled “The Lost Love.” The painting, like the other lost and then recovered objects of Giovanni’s youth, is connected to a woman he left behind when he came to America to make his fortune. The portrait is in the possession of the disgraced, exiled royal family D’Oro. Though jaded and surly, Alex agrees to his grand-father’s request, aware of what he owes Giovanni – his upbringing, success, and most importantly, his rearing with love and care when Alex’s wastrel parents died in a car crash.

Alex travels to Queen Lucia and her grand-daughter, Princess Gabriella D’Oro’s home. Gabriella proves bookishly bespectacled and deceptively attractive once Alex looks past the bare feet, voluminous sweatshirt, and prickly manner. Alex and Gabriella are classic opposites-attract: his urbanity to her naïveté; his sexual experience to her lack; his eschewing of books and art to her love of them; his 36 years to her 23; his good looks to her plain-ness. These initial contrasts are highlighted by one of Yates’s greatest romance-writing strengths, banter. Alex and Gabriella are sarcastic with each other and it’s fun to read their exchanges. When Alex approaches Gabriella about purchasing the painting, she sends him packing. But he’s not dissuaded:

“Well, I see you were making use of my offer to tour the gardens.” He straightened his tie, the action drawing her eyes to his hands. They were very large. Naturally, as he was quite a large man. So really, they were nothing quite so spectacular. They were proportional. Useful. In possession of the typical number of fingers.

“No. I was skulking.”

… “I don’t trust you.”

“Excellent. I wouldn’t trust me either.”

“Excellent. No trust.”

Yates has the talent to do a lot with a few phrases. She captures her protagonists’ sharp exchanges and makes Gabriella’s attraction to Alex a thing denied, but funny, as the “fingers” commentary attests. Alex and Gabriella give as good as they get and Miss Bates liked that the romance was between intellectual equals. In the end, Alex’s promise to Giovanni and Gabriella’s love of history and art see them set off to discover the painting’s whereabouts.

Alex and Gabriella’s initial encounters are the novel’s best bits. Though she rejects everything Alex stands for: the money, the sundry women, the contempt for quiet and artistic aesthetic, Gabriella is charmed by Alex’s humour and wit, though she maintains “She was not going to allow him to amuse her.” Alex, in turn, sees Gabriella and the life of books and art she embraces as he would chancing upon an alien species: ” … one royal in particular who looked more like a small, indignant owl than she did a princess” and “She was fascinating much in the way a small creature might be.” Alex and Gabriella continue in this amusing vein for a while and Miss Bates most enjoyed it.

The novel’s second half introduces sombre notes and they’re not half as much fun for being predictable and conventional. Alex notices how beautiful Gabriella is, though initially plain, and it’s not half as much fun as her looking like an “owl”, with its echoes of Lightning That Lingers. Gabriella and Alex confess to having promiscuous, careless, reckless parents. Many women are dismissed and/or derided for not having Gabriella’s beauty or purity. Gabriella, on the other hand, suffers the agony of not being beautiful: “A man like Alessandro would never want a woman like her. With her large glasses … he would never look twice at her.” Gabriella is riddled with self-doubt and Alex is riddled with unworthiness. How can a jaded, sullied, bad man ever have anything to offer a smart, pure young woman like Gabriella? How can his dark soul and compromised self ever touch her? They both fall into what Miss B. calls the improbable romance territory of idiots, though they start out so clever and fun. Though Alex’s attraction to Gabriella is, ahem, obvious, her smart self dismisses it as a fluke, an aberration in Alex’s “rampant masculinity” (okay, that bit is funny). Alex, in turn, though Gabriella tells him she loves him, stays away “for her own good”. Don’t know of you, dear reader, but these are some of Miss B’s most disliked conventions.

In the end, despite the promising first half, Claims His Prize tips into over-the-top-ness. Alex rails too much about his sins; Gabriella becomes a dum-dum about her looks. The painting’s discovery and revelation of Giovanni’s past were well done and Miss Bates liked the way the series’ premise was resolved. A Yates romance with signature strengths and weaknesses, but MissB isn’t ready to abandon Yates’s romances any time soon. With Miss Austen, reading muse, Miss Bates says of Yates’s The Last Di Sione Claims His Prize, “almost pretty,” Northanger Abbey.

Maisey Yates’s The Last Di Sione Claims His Prize is published by Harlequin Books. It was released in January 2017 and is available at your preferred vendors. Miss Bates received an e-ARC from Harlequin, via Netgalley.

A desperate plea and a mysterious painting lead to an epic hunt in Maisey Yates' The Last Di Sione Claims His Prize. Gabby and Alex had a tough time working through past torments and old hurts, but they found all encompassing passion that threatened to destroy them both. Will the quest for this precious artifact heal two hearts or doom two souls. Ms. Yates definitely knows ravishing. Her stories thrive on strong characters and their trials and tribulations, but this particular couple had a difficult time maintaining a momentum. The pace seemed a little confused.

Entertaining with lovely depth of characterisation, particularly the heroine, dialogue, interaction and some lovely lines

I have thoroughly enjoyed this series and am sad to see it come to an end. We finally get the truth behind all the quests that the Di Sione siblings have undertaken through the series though many readers like me might have begun to suspect some of it. The author brings the series to a nice finish with a sweet twist at the end.

Alex is the oldest sibling, the one most damaged by his parent's excesses. He's the one who stood in the window and saw his father's mistress confront his parents with her son before his parents stormed out and crashed their car. He's the one who kept the secret until he needed to find his half brother to save his beloved Nonno. He would like to throw his money at the problem but unfortunately he has to team up with the princess Gabby to find the painting that he's been asked to retrieve.

As he skillfully seduces the innocent Gabby he finds himself becoming the seduced instead. He brings her back to the US and takes her to meet his grandfather. Finally when all the siblings come together having reconnected through this common quest, Gabby puts Alex out of his misery and asks him to marry her.

What a fitting end.

What a fabulous end to this series and Maisey Yates has put the icing on the cake with this one, it is now Alessandro's turn to get his beloved grandfathers last lost mistress back his lost love and to do this he must visit the exiled Queen Lucia of D'oro in the small country of Aceena where Alex's life is about to be turned upside down in such a good way.

When Alex arrives he is greeted by a young woman who appears to be owl like but there is something about her that draws him in she is a little feisty and stands up to Alex by saying that her grandmother is not available but of course Alex is nothing if not business like and determined to please his grandfather and the meeting goes ahead.

Gabriella D'oro has lived with her grandmother most of her life does not travel she is a complete blue stocking and wallflower and she loves it that way she studies history and art but the minute that this tall dark handsome stranger walks into her home Gabriella starts to feel sparks that are very new to her.

This really is a fabulous story it is sensual and moving there is drama a mystery and of course we finally get the full story of Giovanni's Lost Mistresses and what a very enchanting story that one is but of course this one is about Alex and Gabby and they travel a very sensual and magical path as Alex the monster (so he says) becomes Alex the lover and Gabby the wallflower becomes Gabby the beautiful. This one is sure to leave you smiling absolutely fabulous thank you MS Yates for a keeper it really does tick all of the boxes for a great romance.

Maisey Yates is one of my favorite HP authors and this was not my favorite of hers though.

This story was too slow for me and seemed to never pick up any steam.

The story line continued of the lost The Lost Mistresses pieces, and this one was a painting that needed to be located and returned. Giovanni Di Sione, the grandfather asks Alessandro his last grandchild, to find a missing art piece and have it returned. Alessandro is a successful business man who owes a lot to his grandfather and will do whatever it takes to make him happy. Alessandro is known to be cold and heartless, he doesn't do love or relationships.

He's told by his grandfather he needs to travel to Aceena for more information about the painting. That is where the royal family, The D'Oro live. The queen and her granddaughter Gabriella reside there and they are a key to finding some answers to the missing painting.

Gabriella's life has not been picture perfect for a princess. She hasn't had the greatest parents, in fact she lives a life trying to make up for their selfishness, their mistakes and terrible lifestyle.

When Gabriella and Alessandro meet sparks fly. They are paired together by her grandmother and are told they need to travel Isolo D’Oro to find the painting.

This was an okay ending to the series. But sadly not Masiey Yates best story telling.

A satisfying conclusion to The Billionaire's Legacy series! We've been seeing all of Giovonni Di Sione's grandchildren be sent off to hunt for one of his "lost mistresses", a sentimental object that meant a great deal to him that he wanted to see one last time before he dies. With this story, Maisey Yates brings us the story of the last grandson, Alex and we get to learn the story behind it all finally. Alex and Gabby had a fun depth to their relationship when they first met with neither hesitating to speak their mind, therefore bringing a good bit of humor to the plot.

Alessandro Di Sione is the last of Giovonni's grandchildren to be asked to hunt a treasure down for him. He knows what's been tasked to his siblings, so he's been expecting his time to come. Now he's being asked to find a painting that is only rumored to exist, and is beneath a shroud of royal scandal.

When Alex shows up asking about the painting, the Queen sends her granddaughter Gabriella D'Oro to accompany him on his search for it to their old estate on Isolo D'Oro. Alex is the cold, uncaring member of the family and he doesn't hesitate to show Gabby that side of him during their journey, but she gives attitude right back to him and amused, he actually likes it. Can she get him to see that the past that haunts him isn't the man he is today or will he continue to punish himself and withhold any happiness from his future?