A Dirty Business by Tijan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
From New York Times bestselling author Tijan comes a raw, tempestuous romance between the criminal underworld and a parole officer that paints a thin line between right and wrong.
A Dirty Business
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When Jess Montell meets Trace West at a hockey game, she doesn’t know his name or occupation. What she does know is there’s an instant attraction that’s impossible to ignore—or forget. And forgetting is exactly what she wants to do when she learns he’s not just a successful Wall Street suit but the heir to one of New York’s biggest Mafia families.
…
The last thing Trace needs is a romantic anything with law enforcement, and parole officer Jess has trouble written all over her. Too bad he likes trouble. Especially when it’s a brunette bombshell with attitude and legs for days.
…
She’s an absolute spitfire, and he wants to stoke that flame.
…
Trace didn’t ask for the Mafia life. Jess doesn’t want any part of it. They both know it’s safer to stay away, but the temptation is too hard to resist—no matter how great the danger.
Awesome and Unpredictable!
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💚🖤💙💜❤️
Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌍🌏
Character development: 😠😘🤓😉🥰
The heroine: Jess Montell – she is a parole officer during the week and works as a bartender at a trendy New York Nightclub on the weekends. She has a brother in jail for killing their father and an alcoholic mother. Jess lives with her best friend Kelly and loves her job as a parole officer and she is very good at it. In her job she sees good and bad like black and white, you are on one side or the other with no gray areas in between.
The Hero: Tristain West (a.k.a. Trace) – he is a Wall Street hedge fund manager and his uncle Stephano is the head of a mafia crime family. He often helps out the family when his uncle, who is more of a father to him than his own, asks it of him. When his uncle’s health starts failing and another family tries to start moving in, Stephano tells Trace he wants him to take over the family business.
The Story: From the moment Trace sees Jess, he knows he wants her, though finding out she is a parole officer puts the kibosh on his plans to get into her bed. However, he can’t stop himself from finding out more about her and when he sees her in the club he and his best friend own, he can’t seem to stay away from her.
Before Jess even knows who Trace really is and who his family is, she knows his reaction to her badge means he is bad for her. She tries to keep away from him but can’t get him out of her mind. Trace has the same issue but I like him, he is a bit obsessed with Jess and is stalking her a bit. His stalking is a lot more high class than in some books. More like background checks and watching her work from his VIP room at the club. Either way, these two have a ton of chemistry going on and you can feel it in the air every time they get near each other.
This book was a bit different than most of the Tijan books I have read. She usually writes about a younger crowd of people and these characters were in their late twenties/early thirties and though they didn’t quite have everything in their lives all together, who does? They both had bad childhoods and crazy parents and I think they really needed each other.
The writing was great, and like all Tijan books, the supporting characters were all that and a bag of chips! The world building was on point and I just love a lead female character that is a total rebel and yet feminine as well and the hero was nothing to sneeze at either. I definitely wouldn’t kick a guy like Trace out of bed. The mafia storyline was really good as well and had me on the edge of my seat throughout the book. I want to know more about Ashton and that ending threw me for a loop!
I voluntarily read & reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts & opinions are my own.
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