Roseanna M. White has a new stand-alone novel out, and it’s amazing! Here’s the scoop:
Sabina Mancari never questioned her life as the daughter of Chicago’s leading mob boss until bullets tear apart her world and the man she thought she loved turns out to be an undercover Prohibition agent. Ambushes, bribes, murder, prostitution—all her life, her father sheltered her from his crimes, but now she can no longer turn away from the truth. Maybe Lorenzo, the fiancé who barely paid her any attention in the last two years, has the right idea by planning to escape their world. But can she truly turn her back on her family?
All his life, Lorenzo’s family assumed he would become a priest, but he has different ideas—marrying Sabina and pursuing a career in the law. Despite his morals, he knows at the core he isn’t so unlike his mafiosi father and brothers. Has he, in trying to protect Sabina, forced her into the arms of the Prohibition agent bent on tearing her family apart? How can they rebuild what has so long been neglected and do it in the shadow of the dark empire of the Mafia?
Wow! Roseanna M. White digs deep into the darkest mafiosi mind and brings it to light in Shadowed Loyalty! This book highlights to contrast between evil and good in myriads of ways. It also exposes the slow fade that traps so many in sin and the compassion that we must have for those who are truly lost.
White excels at exploring complicated situations and examining them from every angle, and she does that masterfully in Shadowed Loyalty. This story takes a hard look at those who find themselves trapped in what our culture considers the worst of sins, seeking to understand both why people make choose to live in that lifestyle and how to love those who do.
These are weighty topics, and the story deals appropriately with that weight; but that makes it no less exciting. As always, White keeps you on the edge of your seat as the bullets fly and the danger mounts. I love the way that she digs into the 1920s time period and the ethnic neighborhoods of Chicago, combining the real history of the Italian mafia with Al Capone with her fictitious story.
More than most, I think, White settles on an answer to the ‘how’ questions that Shadowed Loyalty explores, though perhaps that’s just my mind liking the possibilities that she presents. I think that you can’t go wrong with the options presented in this book for when you’re faced with difficult circumstances, however, and White certainly shares many of them through this cast of characters.
Those characters often make bad choices, and those bad choices are really bad. While nothing in the story is explicit, prostitution is one of the crimes dealt with in this book, and several characters are caught up in that trade. It is clear when reading, even through the careful descriptions and the ’20s slang, what she’s referring to, and so while I think it has excellent lessons, fantastic potential for discussion (and great questions in the back of the book for this purpose!), and an exciting plot, teen readers should take care lest it is deeper or darker than they are ready to handle.
With that said, my seventeen-year-old loves White’s stories and is looking forward to this one – and I can’t wait to dig into it with her. It’s definitely the most exciting historical book I’ve read this year, so if that’s your style, get your copy now – and let me know what you think.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author. All opinions are my own.
