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After finishing the Kindle Clear Out and the last book Seized by Love, I could feel that I needed to pick something that I knew would suck me in to avoid a book slump. After thinking and debating on several items, I decided to go back to Cora Reilly. Thank goodness I picked this. Instead of entering a book slump over the weekend, I ended up reading four books that weekend and starting a fifth late Sunday night. And there wasn't a readathon! I was feeling pretty sick on Sunday though, so I ended up reading since I wasn't able to do my normal Sunday chores. Alright, back to my review. The book that started my Cora Reilly binge over the weekend was book two of her Born in Blood Chronicles, Bound by Duty.
This book focuses on Dante, the heir to the Outfit, Chicago's Italian mafia and Valentina. Valentina is a daughter in the Outfit and we saw her briefly in Bound by Honor since she's Aria's cousin. As Dante is reaching the point of taking over the Outfit soon, he's expected to marry and have kids. However, what's different about this book is they are both widowed. Dante's wife had passed from cancer a couple years prior and they were completely in love with each other. In Valentina's case, her husband was killed less than a year prior. While Valentina and her husband were friends before marriage, it comes out that he was actually gay and their marriage was never consummated. There is a little bit of contention for Dante choosing Valentina as a wife over some of the other young daughters, but he was hoping to find someone that was a little older and more aware of what would be expected. The joke is on him though since Valentina is still a virgin and not experience in the intimacies between a couple.
Oh this book gutted me. I absolutely loved Dante. He's definitely cold and stand-offish, but it's mainly because he's been trained to be like that. Emotions can cause issues when dealing with business, especially as the heir. I really felt for Valentina. Since her marriage was never consummated with her first husband, she was really looking forward to having a real marriage. However, Dante keeps himself away from her and she has to seduce him. He does find out about her previous marriage (as it was pretty obvious once they slept together). I loved how once they finally start to connect both emotionally and physically the way their love for each other felt so natural. Dante still hides a lot of his feelings, even when they're alone, but I loved the little touches and ways that he subtly showed he cared.
Dante really is pretty close to a perfect hero for me and is definitely one of my favorite heroes. I absolutely adore the alphaness, it just hits a sweet spot for me. I was excited to see a different kind of love story with them both being widowed and it definitely had me crying and swooning throughout. I am so excited I decided to try Cora Reilly's books and as mentioned above, immediately jumped into the next one!
Have you read Bound by Duty?
Bookishly Yours,
Stasi🍎
STATISTICS: Bound by Duty, Cora Reilly, 5-stars, 0 days, eBook, 318 pages, published in 2015
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