Title: Working for the Mob, Romantic Comedy
Author: Clara Hawk
ASIN : B0CNKWXTJ2
Available as an ebook on Amazon.
After Genevieve Baker runs away from New York City and her parents’ arrangement with a professional matchmaker, she lands in small town East Lannington. She intends on living with her sister, but soon discovers she’s come to a small town run by the mob and her sister is in her own disastrous situation. The mob’s leader Art Necci, a handsome gunslinger, makes her heart race and her hands shake. Genevieve defies her heart to focus on finding a job, and helping her sister Lucy recover from her own heartbreak. Lucy ran away from their parents a few years ago to live with a boyfriend who leaves her destitute and alone just as Genevieve arrives in town. The two women quickly discover that the entire town is owned and run by Art. He provides a small house, rent free; sets Lucy up as a cashier and waitress at the local café; and employs Genevieve, or Genny, to do his books. While working at the café, Lucy discovers a true talent for baking bread and scones, turning the café into a tourist destination that delights everyone. In gratitude, Art purchases an industrial oven and an espresso machine to increase profits. The experience makes Genny recognize that marriage isn’t the true path her parents think it is. She wants to manage things and she’s good at it. Art encourages this entrepreneurial spirit and gives her more and more responsibility and pay raises while not charging rent, and, in fact, purchasing entire wardrobes for the sisters after earlier circumstances made them run away with only the clothes on their backs.
It doesn’t take a wizard to realize Genny and Lucy are now beholden to the mob. But it ends up that this is the good mob. While East Lannington is run by Art who gives back to his community, West Lannington is run by an evil rival mob, where the leaders, the Valuncia brothers, have impoverished their small town and lined their own pockets. Of course, there’s a war between the two factions. It’s a war Genny can’t ignore once she finds herself in a sexually charged relationship with Art.
It isn’t quite clear, initially, what era this novel is written as the dialogue appears to follow contemporary usage, style, and slang, but a speakeasy found midway clues readers in that this is set during Prohibition. The author would have benefitted from doing more research on slang terms and the decade of their origins; nevertheless, this mafia romance novel, or romantic comedy, will please readers of the genre. The romance novel is fast paced with plenty of action, a few shootouts, and lots of sex that allow for twists and turns that keep readers engaged.
Reviewed by Ann Angel
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