Review: Well worth the read!
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 12, 2013
I've read Brita Adams' Tarnished Gold and I loved it, giving it 4 stars. I have a real thing for the movie industry and this book definitely met this need. But I had a little bit of a trouble getting into TARNISHED SOULS: FRANKIE AND GENT, hence the 3 star rating.Frankie Moretti is a Mob boss who controls a lot of the city, and he's rich and powerful. But five years later, Frankie is under attack from the very men who sought to drive him to power and who now want him dead. So they do what every greedy Mobster would do--send a hit man to take him out. But not just any hit man. They send along Gent Vitali, who has a history with Frankie both as a friend and a lover.Their lives cascade into treachery, guilt, remorse, violence and rekindled passions as the two men fight for their lives and each other. It's a gritty, well-written story, with wonderful descriptions of the New York they live in, the danger, the glamour, and the constant pressure to stay alive and make each moment count.I struggled a bit with the language, the colloquialisms and gangster speak. I understand the need for it in this book, but I just couldn't get comfortable with it personally. That's no reflection on the book or the story. I enjoyed the way two tough men danced around each other's emotions and sparred with each other physically, the way two damaged, tough souls were able to meet and find each other again. The evocative descriptions of the times they lived in, coupled with some thrilling events, make this a great read if you love the era of the 1930's and the background of Hollywood.It's an honest, well researched account of what life was like during these golden or perhaps not so golden days. It's an account of two men struggling to find some happiness and solidarity in being together in a time when such things were not able to be open and when treachery and danger lurked around every corner.Well worth the read if you like a well written historical story with a hint of sensual M/M in between the pages.Reviewed by Susan Mac Nicolfor TheRomanceReviews.com