What Books Are Similar To Pinocchio In Venice?

I watched my family scrape and starve so I could save enough to come to Sicily for a tan, a fling, maybe my first proper kiss— maybe even lose my virginity to a hot stranger I’d never see again. I did not come to wrestle a kidnapped toddler out of a speedboat at gunpoint. One minute I was hiding from a flirty Italian on the beach. The next, I was running barefoot across the sand in a bikini with a terrified little boy in my arms… while men in black suits shot at me. Now the whole island thinks I’m the kidnapper. Especially the grey-eyed man with the gun who looks at me like I’m his next target. I don’t know his name. I don’t know who the boy really belongs to. I just know the man hunting me isn’t a hero and he’s not going to let me walk away. If I survive this holiday, I’m never leaving England again. If he stops looking at me like that… I might even miss the danger. Holy hell. I didn’t just grab any child. I snatched the heir to the Don of the most ruthless mafia outfit in Europe. And his best friend—the grey-eyed man with the gun—wants my head on a spike. I never imagined I’d die a virgin. But here I am.

Seven Classic Faery Tales are given a very adult makeover. You are entering a world of myth, magic, and Immortals. Throw in the humans for the added spice of erotica and violence. Mix together and you have dark adult faery tales ........ Do not read if easily offended!

She married him to save her father's life. He married her to settle a debt. Neither of them expected to fall in love. Isabella Romano never wanted this life. She grew up watching her father drown in debts he couldn't repay, surrounded by men who smiled while they threatened. She wanted freedom — a future she chose for herself. Instead, she got a wedding dress, a stranger's ring, and a debt paid in full through her own hand in marriage. Dante Moretti is the coldest don their world has ever feared. He took control of his family's empire at twenty-three and buried his heart alongside the woman he lost. To him, Isabella isn't a wife. She's a payment. A term in a contract he never wanted to sign. But their wedding day doesn't end quietly. A traitor is dragged from the crowd in chains, blood staining the white flowers, and a warning whispers through the garden: someone close to Dante wants him destroyed. As Isabella is pulled deeper into a world of danger and betrayal, she begins to notice the man hiding behind the don — and a cousin whose ambition hides behind a charming smile. Slowly, dangerously, Isabella becomes the one person Dante can't afford to lose — and the one person who might finally teach him how to feel again. Because somewhere between the cold rules of his house and the warmth she refuses to let him extinguish, Dante starts to understand that love isn't the weakness he always believed it to be. But in this family, nothing comes free. Not loyalty. Not power. And certainly not love. When the past finally catches up to them, Dante will have to choose: the empire he built his life around — or the woman who taught him to want something.

Everyone said I was Domenico Calvetti's most obedient woman. On our first wedding anniversary, he flirted with a pair of twins at the gambling table. He had lipstick smeared all over his shirt. I smiled and wiped it away with a silk handkerchief, but he swatted my hand aside. "Don't kill the mood." In the third year, the star performer from the club he ran showed up at my door with a gun pressed to my temple, demanding to take my place. Without flinching, I disarmed her using the technique he taught me and disposed of the body myself. Behind me, he held his new lover and laughed softly. "Lucia, you always know what to do." In the fifth year, he blew up the library my father left behind just to make his new flame, Marilena Rossetti, smile. That library was my mother's favorite spot when she was alive, and it held the only photographs of our family of three. The explosion made me the laughingstock of the city. People whispered, "Signora Calvetti can't even protect her own memories." Everyone believed I could never leave the Calvetti family or Domenico, but they forgot how this all started. Back then, he rescued me from my adoptive father and fell in love with me at first sight. He knelt and begged to marry me, swearing he would protect me from blood and pain for the rest of my life. For ten years, I held onto those empty words. At our tenth anniversary party, his hundredth mistress arrived. Alice Russo, fresh out of college, held a glass of red wine and poured it down my gown while Domenico watched. "Signora Calvetti, this dress is so old. Given your position, you should be wearing something better." Everyone at the party waited to see my humiliation. Instead, I lowered my eyes and dialed Domenico's father's number. "Father, the ten-year agreement is over. I won't be Signora Calvetti anymore."

Every Christmas Eve in Port Saint Giovanni, the Camerlano family hosts the Claiming Rite at Saint Giovanni Manor. Twelve girls stand in a line. Whoever receives the white-gold signet pin becomes the heir’s publicly acknowledged bride candidate. I am Grace Sorrento, the bastard daughter of the Sorrento family. If I do not receive that signet tonight, by sunrise I will be put on a plane to Chicago and married off to a Rizzo, a man rumored to have killed two former fiancées. Adrian Camerlano, the boy I grew up with, swore to me in blood three days ago that the signet would be mine. But when the moment came, his hand turned. With a smile, he pinned it on Lucia, the orphan his family had sponsored. Then he leaned close to my ear. "Let Lucia have her moment. No one has ever really looked at her before. Don’t worry. This is my estate. No one will dare arrange your marriage without my say." I grabbed his sleeve, but he removed my fingers one by one. "Lucia has no roots and no last name. Tonight is all she has. But you are a Sorrento. Even without the signet, no one will touch you." That phrase, no last name, drew every gaze in the ballroom toward me, full of pity and quiet mockery. The next morning, I boarded a flight to Chicago. When Adrian heard, he made one call to Port Saint Giovanni Air Control. "Ground every plane. Nothing leaves today!"

Lady Sarah Emiline Lucia needs to hide her identity for fear that mobs will kill her and her family after her uncle—Napoleon Bonaparte—is exiled to Melba. She is sent to Hampshire, England to stay with friends of her father. To stay safe, she must play the role of her maid, while her maid assumes Lady Sarah’s identity. Complications arise when she meets the very handsome man, and she suddenly wants him to look at her as a real woman, not a servant. Protecting her life, however, is more important than confessing the truthGabriel Lawrence’s pirate ship is almost captured and this time it was too close. He and his crew need to hide for a few months in hopes that Napoleon’s men who seek revenge, will soon forget about him. During his stay at his aunt and uncle’s in Hampshire, he meets the niece of his enemy. Because she doesn’t know who Gabe is, he will become close to her to see if she knows any more of her uncle’s secrets. But the beauty of her companion, Miss Emmie, captures his attention, and her quirky personality keeps him wanting more. But her over-zealous nature for adventure places both of them in danger and he’s forced to play the honorable rogue.How can he protect them both when an unknown spy is always one step ahead…and wants Gabe dead?