Saturday, November 7, 2015

Fun, Family, Romance and Suspence: It's All Here -- "Sinful Intent" by Chelle Bliss

It was supposed to be simple. Find the bad guy and save the girl.

I hadn’t expected Race True—a golden-haired beauty with a silver tongue that made me want to toss the rules aside.  I tried to fight my attraction to her, but she made it impossible.  Our chemistry became too much to ignore.

Temptation is dangerous.

In a moment of weakness, everything changed. We gave in to our carnal desires, letting ourselves drown in the passion we could no longer deny.  The problem was that I still had a job to do before her world collapsed.

If I failed at finding the person behind the threat, I’d lose Race forever.


This first book in a new series by this author is a spin-off from Men of Inked by Ms Bliss, a series that many of us really enjoyed.  The rambunctious carryings on by the Gallo Clan never seem to quit and as open hearted as they all seem to be, they are just as open in expressing their feelings about each other, romance, marriage, life in general and any subject that comes up in particular.  The previous novels focus on each of the Gallo siblings and this new series takes up the family saga but begins to focus on members of a new private investigative organization begun by Thomas Gallo and his sister's husband James.  Into this new configuration comes Morgan DeLuca, cousin to Thomas.  Morgan's mother is sister to Uncle Sal Gallo.  Morgan has just returned from eight years in the military where he was an intelligence-gathering individual in the Middle East.  His skills make him particularly suited to the investigative tasks at ALFA PI and he happily relocates from Chicago where the winters drive him crazy, to Florida with its tropical climate.  The only problem is that his mom decides that she is going to follow him.  Oh well, it's called "Taking the good with the bad."

This is Morgan's adventure, to be sure, but the novel is also the tale of a woman who seems to have lost everyone who is important to her.  Her beloved father was killed when Race was 12, her mother has blamed her ever since for her father's death, and now she has parted company permanently with her mom.  She has poured her heart and soul into building her career and even that is now threatened.  It is this which has brought her to the ALFA PI guys and it is here that she meets Morgan.  

Their story is filled with coming and going, hot and cold, on again-off again involvement.  Even when their relationship seems to have come to a settled phase, all is overshadowed by the increasing menace of a stalker, someone who is threatening Race in a very personal and hurtful way.

This is a really terrific read and has so much going on in it from page one.  I don't think anyone will not like the family dynamics, the rockem-sockem repartee between the Gallo men and those around them, the hot and erotic encounters between the characters, and the tension which is a part of the danger growing around Race and Morgan.  It is all tied together by an invincible bond of family love and acceptance.  

Beautifully written and told in the first person throughout, shifting POV and changing venues, readers will be delighted with all the complications, the threads of the story that the author so skillfully weaves together into a terrific book.  I hope the novels keep coming.  There are still so many interesting characters whose stories need telling in this panoply of players.  Stay tuned . . .