VELVET KINGDOM BY BB HAMEL-a review

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date February 2, 2024

My relationship is falling apart when I decide to spice things up by taking some steamy selfies at the office. Seems like a great idea until my gorgeous-but-strange boss Renzo Rossi walks into the room as I’m contorting in the mirror.
And he’s not shy about complimenting my pose.
Life gets even worse later that day when my boyfriend breaks up with me and skips town with all my stuff. Dumped, humiliated, and at my lowest point in forever, I’m seriously considering joining a nunnery, if those are still a thing.
When Renzo drops a bombshell:
His arranged wife skipped town and he’s desperate to fill her place. Now he wants me to marry him, carry his surrogate child, and get paid five million dollars.
Turns out, the Rossi Famiglia one of the five biggest mafia organizations in the city of Philadelphia, and Renzo needs an heir to hold on to his legitimacy.
My life can’t get worse, right? And anyway, this is just a temporary deal. Except one nighttime visit turns into two, which turns into three, and soon I can’t get him out of my bedroom.

•••••••

REVIEW: VELVET KINGDOM by BB Hamel is a contemporary, adult, dark, Mafia romance story line focusing on the Rossi Famiglia Don Renzo Ross, and his office assistant Madeline ‘Maddie’ Sorrento.

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

Told from dual first person perspectives (Renzo and Maddie) VELVET KINGDOM follows the fake relationship and marriage between our story line couple. Maddie Sorrento’s boyfriend took everything the day he said they were never going to work but Maddie never expected to find herself considering her boss’s offer of a fake marriage and real pregnancy in the face of his own humiliation when the woman he was contracted to marry ran away. With no other options, and her own sense of self esteem in the proverbial gutter, Maddie accepts Renzo’s offer, an offer with an expiry date and the potential sacrifice of a child she could love. What ensues is the building relationship between Maddie and Renzo, and the fall-out when the other heads of the crime world families don’t agree with Renzo’s plans for the future.

The world building focuses on several paths including the Rossi family matriarch’s health struggles, the siblings inability to accept what will be, and the jealousy and threats inflicted upon our story line heroine. From the outset, Renzo treats Maddie with respect and love, and in this, our couple will find themselves falling in love against their original plans.

The relationship between Maddie and Renzo begins as employee and boss but desperate for an heir and internal support, Renzo offers Maddie money and marriage, a marriage that comes with an expiry date should they have a child together. Maddie refuses to leave any child behind, and a pregnancy may be the biggest threat to their growing relationship. The $ex scenes are intimate and passionate without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text.

We are introduced to the Rossi family siblings: Stefania, Carlo, Saul and Gian, as well as their mother Stella, and Renzo’s right hand man Dante; several heads of competing crime families, as well as Maddie’s friend Nicole, and housekeeper Tara. The requisite evil has many faces.

VELVET KINGDOM is a story of power and control, betrayal and vengeance, secrets and lies, acceptance and love. The fast paced premise is entertaining and inviting but the conflict is limited; the romance is seductive and sensitive; the characters are energetic, sassy and spirited. VELVET KINGDOM ends on a happily ever after-for now, as the main threat to the family has yet to be resolved.

Copy supplied for review

reviewed by Sandy