Vendetta by Catherine Doyle

I didn’t see it at first, sitting between the cash registers and a stack of order pads. It might have been there for hours – or longer- just waiting, while I spent another day of my summer dying of boredom inside Gracewell’s Diner.

Published in January 2015 by Chicken House

Pages – 333

When five brothers move into the abandoned mansion next door, Sophie Gracewell's life changes forever. Irresistibly drawn to bad boy Nic Falcone, Sophie finds herself falling into an underworld governed by powerful families. When Sophie's own family skeletons come to life, she must choose between two warring dynasties - the one she was born into, and the one she is falling in love with. When she does, blood will spill and hearts will break ...

*****

I’ve been waiting for a book like this for a long time. And I am extremely excited by the fact that it is the first part of  a trilogy. I just hope we don’t have to wait too long for the second instalment.

Sophie, the main character, is a feisty young girl, living in the shadow of her father’s crimes and working every hour she can in her father’s diner. I loved her from the moment she drummed her nails on the countertop in the first scene. The reason I loved her so much, is that she reminded me of a younger version of me. I grew up working in restaurants and doing the whole waitressing routine, so it felt like home to  wander around the diner with Sophie.  Then we have her rather English friend, Millie, who is just plain adorable and typically English.

And we can’t forget the rather gorgeous Falcone boys!!! Who are dripping in gorgeousness and wafting out this bad boy aroma. This book is worth reading, just to get to know them. Now they aren’t your normal boys – oh no, we are talking about boys from the Mafia. So when I say they are bad, they are really really bad.  There are a lot of similarities between this book and Romeo and Juliet – you have the star-crossed lovers in Nic and Sophie, both from rival families and a gloomy premonition bounces around the book as you soon realise their love might be doomed. I have an inkling that Sophie isn’t just interested in one Falcone brother. In fact, I would also put money on one of the other brothers being rather interested in Sophie too.

This book has a lot packed into and you easily get sucked into the story and find yourself speeding along with the plot. One of the topics it deals with is date rape, which I felt was an extremely topical subject to be included.

If you haven’t worked it out yet, I loved this book! I loved the characters, the storyline, the pace and just about everything else in between.  I may take to author stalking, just so that I can get my hands a copy of the second book!

Vendetta by Catherine Doyle out now in paperback (£7.99, Chicken House). Find out more about the author at http://catherine-doyle.tumblr.com and http://www.catherinedoylebooks.com.