If you’ve missed the Tacones, you can now be put out of your misery. Renee has taken mercy on us, and released Dead Man’s Hand. This is Gio and Marissa’s story.
So, back a couple of books ago, the Tacones were supposed to be meeting the Bratva in a local cafe, one that the Tacone family has used over the years. Only this time, it wasn’t as easy a meeting as it could’ve been. No, it was an ambush, and the Bratva tried to kill all the Tacones. Most of the Tacones made it safely, but Gio got shot. Now he’s better, at least physically, but he doesn’t know what he’s alive for, he’s dealing with PTSD, and he’s having nightmares every night, and sometimes, the woman at the cafe, Marissa, is the one who gets shot and even killed.
Marissa’s family has owned a lovely little cafe for years. She’s helping her grandparents keep the cafe going as well as working at a restaurant. She’s working every chance she can, and it’s wearing her thin. But then, her little cousin Mia needs a $30K operation, and they need the money right then and there because they don’t have insurance. So Marissa turns to Gio to get the necessary money. And that starts a wonderful chain of events. Well, some wonderful and some terrible. But things happen.
Marissa and Gio are both broken people, for different reasons. Their brokenness shows up in different ways. In Marissa, it causes her to not trust anyone. She’s afraid of what will happen if she does trust them. That frustrates Gio, because he wants her to trust him, and she takes 2 steps back for every one she takes toward him. Of course, she’s torn between what’s going on with Gio and her family, which isn’t a nice place to be.
Part of Gio’s problem is that the family has changed what it’s doing, which means he doesn’t know who he is in context to what he’s always done with his family. That part right there leaves him confused and not sure what to do, and then add in the PTSD from the shooting, and you get all kinds of confusion. Luckily, he has Nico who can help him get some stuff straight. And Marissa kinda smacks people around for him when necessary.
I’m really looking forward to Paolo’s story. I think that he’s the last of the Tacone children to get into a relationship. I’ll have to doublecheck to be sure.
The scene when Gio teaches Marissa and Mia to play poker is cute af.
I really don’t care for Marissa’s Nonno.
OK, that’s all there is for today. Go check this out, as well as all of Renee’s other books. Happy reading!
In Between the Pages 