ARRANGED OBSESSION (Marino Crime Family 3) by BB Hamel-review

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date August 19, 2025

I married my stalker.
Right after he stole me from his brother.

Cormac Whelan’s a beautiful and godlike mafia devil who rules the streets of New York City. And he can’t stand the idea of my arrangement with his brother. I wasn’t supposed to get anywhere near that psychopath Cormac. Except he’s waiting up at the altar on my wedding day. Now I’m trapped by a vicious monster, and it gets worse.

Cormac is deeply obsessed with me and it’s terrifying. But the attraction I feel toward him is equally dark and twisted. All I want is to open and run a women’s shelter… and maybe I can use Cormac’s infatuation against him. He’ll give me whatever I ask for, so long as I submit to his possessive and sinful rules. I’m playing with a savage, and unless I’m careful, he’s going to break me in ways I may never come back from.

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REVIEW: ARRANGED OBSESSION is the third instalment in BB Hamel’s contemporary, adult MARINO CRIME FAMILY dark, erotic, Mafia romance series, set in the author’s Rossi Crime Family worlds. This is thirty-eight year old, Irish mobster and assassin Cormac Whelan, and Mafia princess Bianca Marino’s story line. ARRANGED OBSESSION can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Any important information from the previous story lines and series is revealed where necessary.

NOTE: Due to the nature of the story line premise, there may be triggers for more sensitive readers

Told from dual first person perspectives (Cormac and Bianca) ARRANGED OBSESSION follows the ‘arranged’ marriage between our story line couple. In an effort to shore up power, Bianca’s brother Don Adriano Marino has arranged a marriage between his only sister to the youngest son of the Irish mob but when all is said and done, Bianca discovers that man at the altar is not the man she was contracted to marry. Cormac Whelan is known as the Ghost; the Irish Clan’s assassin, and a man who has been stalking our heroine for close to seven years. Refusing to watch the woman he loves marry his younger brother, Cormac becomes groom, guardian and protector of the woman who will become a target in an impending war with the Russian Bratva.

The world building focuses on a series of secrets and lies, Bianca’s need to keep her freedom in the face of threats against her family and life. Cormac Whelan struggles with his wife’s need for her independence but Bianca has a target on her back due to a mistake made by our story line hero, and at every opportunity our heroine, often TSTL, is determined to defy the man with whom she is falling in love.

The relationship between Cormac and Bianca is one of arranged marriage, a brokered marriage for power but a relationship between a man whose obsession goes above and beyond. Bianca is the only things that keeps Cormac human, and in this, his need, preoccupation and infatuation with Bianca threatens his position as the ultimate assassin. The $ex scenes are intimate and provocative without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text

There is a large ensemble cast of colorful, powerful and determined secondary and supporting character including the return of Don Adriano Marino and his wife Lucy (Cruel Tyrant 1). We are introduced to Cormac’s parents Padraig and Siobhan Whelan, and brothers Finn, Declan, and Seamus. The requisite evil has many faces.

ARRANGED OBSESSION is a story of secrets and lies, betrayal and vengeance, obsession and compulsion, family and relationships, acceptance and love. The character driven premise is dramatic, edgy and dark; the romance is seductive and impassioned; the characters are desperate, determined, and charismatic.

Reading Order and Previous Reviews
Vicious Heir
Shattered King

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy