Revealing Angel

A contrived, B-movie-style plot--about an ultra-popular Italian screen star, her American sister and a charismatic Roman politician--combines with cardboard characterization and overblown prose in this melodramatic first novel. After her father's death, Boston schoolteacher Stevie Templeton arrives in Rome, where she is mobbed by fans of movie actress Angel Concelli, who has recently died under mysterious circumstances and whom Stevie resembles. Confused and frightened, Stevie is rescued by a woman who claims she is Stevie's grandmother and announces that not only is Angel her sister, but that her mother (whom Stevie thought had died while she was a child) is alive. While she digests the news and begins to suspect that Angel may have been murdered, Stevie is pursued by Angel's lover, married politician Gian-Carlo Cassieri, and by lawyer Nick Funaro. Filled with formulaic sex scenes and pseudo self-analysis, this tale will irritate even the most dedicated fan of romantic suspense novels. (June)