Twisted Hearts (The Camorra Chronicles Book 5)

Although the end was nice and it was a great read, if you don’t like men whores that are disrespectful to women this isn’t for you. Honestly it wasn’t my cup of tea but I enjoyed reading it anyway.

I have been a loyal reader of Reilly’s from the beginning, I fell in love with Aria, feared alongside Valentina, wanted to behead Matteo with Gianna... you see what I mean? I thought I would hate the Camorra Chronicles when they came out, but soon enough I fell for the Falcones, too; Remo being the most fantastic of them all.When I saw Savio’s story was coming out, I lost it. I was incredibly excited, and preordered (with a release day at the expense of important life milestones!). As soon as I got my hands on the book I flew through it. Reilly, as per usual, delivered in creating a couple that was unique and that went through lots of personal growth. It was a good book.That said, I felt like Gemma’s character was a bit too... childish? She acted immaturely and naïve to a point that I wanted to smack her around and show her to a library or even the internet. Gemma is supposed to be this bad äss chick that is hit with one of cupid’s lightning bolts (because that was NOT an arrow) when she was very young, but while she IS fairly bad äss and fights and can “hang” with Savio, I always felt like she never fully developed as a character. We never find out what became of her as an individual, whether she ever found her path as a person, whether she developed aspirations, we are left with one of those “and he loved her, and finally she had meaning/worth”. I hate that there was an amazing opportunity for her to be a person, choose her path/ career, and see her grow as an individual with more than love in their head, and that Reilly made it almost an after thought. Gemma grew over the book, but she needed more development. More so, when you compare her to Savio.Is this Reilly’s best work? No.Would I re-read it? It wouldn’t be my first choice (Aria, Gianna, Growl or Remo’s would), but eventually I would.Is it worth the money and time? Yes, why? Savio.Most commonly shouted sentences while reading? “Dammit, Gemma!”“Fucken, Savio...!!!!”“Why is Adamo always such a little betch???”“God, I love Remo.”Exciting things I hope are in our future?1. Adamo falling in love with Aria’s daughter (who is a bit of Gianna and a ton of Lily, it seems!)2. Adamo growing up and quitting his little betch ways.3. Nevio and Greta getting their own books, because, yes.4. The book that I am almost sure will be coming on the Mad Man from L.A.

Another amazing book by Cora Reilly I was honestly going to skip this book after seeing bad reviews on Tik Tok about it. I heard people say that Gemma didn’t have a backbone and they didn’t like Savio's character, or that Savio only wanted Gemma because she was promised to someone else. However, once I started the book, I was more interested in Savio and why he was a "lady’s man.", You see that he uses sex as a way of coping with his emotions, especially being a Camorra, and he isn’t about to be open about it. I thought Gemma’s and Savio's relationship was cute. Even though Savio messed up and "cheated" before marriage (which is expected of most mafia men in this world), he turned out to be faithful and a good husband. He wanted Gemma but was afraid to leave his old life behind. Savio isn’t my favorite, but his and Gemma's story was uniquely beautiful. Gemma turned out to have a backbone in the end.

Disclaimer: do NOT read if you are not prepared for a spoilery, feminist rant!As much as I love Cora Reilly’s mafia romance books, this one wasn’t for me. For one, the two main protagonists are even younger than usual, starting when Gemma is 10 and Savio is 13. When Gemma is 13 she starts crushing on Savio and basically never stops. At the end of the book they are 18 and 21 respectively and have sworn eternal love to each other, which stretches my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point (or rather beyond) with its implied HEA.Aside the age issue (and the accompanying immaturity) Savio is the worst manwhore ever and revels in it constantly. I don’t mind the main protagonists having (extensive) sexual experience, but after a time I just found his endless meaningless sexcapades disgusting and off-putting, especially as he openly continues with them even after Gemma is promised to him. Even though I didn’t expect him to become celibate, it would have been nice of him to be at least a little more circumspect, instead he thinks nothing of rubbing her face in it, as it were, whereas he goes completely crazy if another boy/man just talks to her.From her appearances in previous books of the series I actually had quite high hopes for Gemma. After getting her very traditional father to allow her to train fighting I thought she would put up much more resistance to just being married off to the first bidder at 18.Savio doesn’t really feel like getting shackled at such a young age, but at the same time he doesn’t want anybody else to have Gemma. So he comes up with the scheme to have Gemma attend college and postpone the marriage until after she has graduated. Gemma doesn’t really want to attend college, so she decides to take gender studies, for the sole purpose to annoy Savio (never mind that nothing ever comes of it).But since the author herself opened the door to "gender studies", let’s critically examine some issues through the lens of gender."Double Standard": Gemma is brought up in a very traditionalist mafia family, so she is expected not only to remain pure until her wedding, but her family is doing their level best to also keep her ignorant (so her friend Tony (Antonia) has to sneek her magazines talking about female "issues"). Savio is constantly making fun of his friend Diego – who is Gemma’s older brother – for trying so hard to make Gemma adhere to the outdated rules, while he himself is quite the party animal and is sexually rather promiscuous. Savio is fond of pointing out Diego’s hypocrisy, completely missing the irony that he is no less hypocritical. While he himself continues to have sex with random girls even after he makes Gemma’s father promise her to him, he expects her to remain a virgin. He playfully tries to seduce her into having pre-marital sex with him, but doesn’t really expect to get it, because the cow giving away the milk before she has been bought (as it is so nicely put in the book repeatedly), would lower her value in his eyes. So Gemma has to hold on to her innocence and at the same time she has to overlook his promiscuity."The Saint and the Slut": This one is actually closely tied to my previous point. In the psycho-analytic literature also referred to as the Madonna-whore complex, in (popular) culture it describes the representation of women as falling into one of these two categories, basically with no overlap allowed. This split is deeply rooted in Classical Mythology as well as Christian tradition (consider the juxtaposition of Marie Magdalene and Marie, mother of Christ). It pervades Western Culture from Tiziano’s Sacred and Profane Love to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Moreover, it’s also a distinction that is represented within the Falcone family, where none of the men had any prior relationships, but [insert past tense of f-word denoting having sexual intercourse] countless faceless and (mostly) nameless women, who are categorically referred to as sluts. The wives are represented as virtuous and pure (at least in spirit) and as loving mothers. The epitome of this saintlyness being Kiara (the wife of Nino), who also mothers all the men in the Falcone family, whereas their own mother was portrayed as a crazy psychotic monster, even if in reality she resembled nothing more than the personification of a modern day Medea. But as a warning to all women their mother needs to be killed for daring to question the "law of the father", which upholds a culture that is deeply patriarchical in nature.(Toxic) masculinity: contrary to popular belief and the way they are portrayed here, gender studies are not only for bored (mafia) princesses that don’t know what else to study. At their core gender studies are interested in the relationship between the various genders, how power is distributed among them and how those relationships relate to the structure of society at large and at the same time pervade every tiny nook of our lives, from different dress codes for boys and girls in school, unequal wages for the same work, to how seemingly neutral laws affect men and women differently, to name only a few examples. They also not only look how the idea of women (and how they should behave) is constructed, but also on how hegemonic masculinity (the ideal of what a man should be within a given culture) is equally constructed. Masculinity studies have revealed how cultural expectations also put a large strain on men when they are struggling to live up to certain cultural ideals. Stereotypes that a "real man" should be the bread winner, the boss at home, strong, unemotional, aggressive, sexually experienced, etc. to the exclusion of all else are referred to "toxic masculinity"… I think we see this play out with Savio who is unable to have a normal relationship with a woman and constantly hides behind humor and sarcasm. So when he is confronted with a girl/woman whom he cannot denigrate with sex, he struggles to interact with her in a meaningful way. Also, because of the way he has been socialized into an extremely patriarchal society he is unable to recognize feelings (outside of a loyal attachment to his brothers), much less admit to them. That’s why in the beginning he views Gemma as a "trophy" he can win and put his brand on, without engaging with her on an equal level. His partial recognition of their mutual relationship comes rather late and is not terribly convincing…I hope the books dealing with the next generation offer more of a critique of the asymmetrical hierarchy within this highly gendered mafia culture.

This one was shorter than the rest in the aspect that their struggle was supper trivial and took the least amount of time to figure out, and the ending while beautiful seemed to have come out of no where I’d figured something big would have to happen for Savio to be able to show his true feelings but it seemed as if he got it together randomly and it was the last page? Other wise I adore their story

A game of cat and mouse is the best word to des robe this one. Savio has been present in all of the Camorra books so we know him as the sarcastic, funny, no strings, ruthless guy. And he is. This story focuses on the courtship, or lack there of between him and Gemma, his best friend's sister who's loved him since she was 10. I gave this book 4 stars, because although it's another great read from Cora Reilly, Savio was too arrogant and selfish for too long. The story was too slow burn for my taste and though I loved how Gemma made him pay, I felt it was difficult to redeem the hero. Even when Remo was at his most monstrous was he redeemable because of his feelings for Serafina.

firts of all I Know this book has the Flamingo Squad divided, I must confess that I finish this book at 4:00 a.m and I was confused, a little mad and then decided to go to sleep. When I woke up, well rested and more relax, I re-read the book (I do that most of the time for some reason), and I find myself liking the book, the story, the feelings,I won't say I didn't want to punch Savio at some points, or Slap some sense into Gemma, but I loved the story.That being said, I love the book, the story, and Savio, especially Savio, the one that wants to take care of Remo, and not give him any trouble, that one that loves sweet things to eat, and makes time to play or spend time with dollface, and the relationship he has with Fina and Kiara. I love that we got to see why he is the way he is, why he tries harder not to be a burden and all that stuff about his childhood.Gemma, I get her beliefs, why she acts the way she does, and thinks that way too, but I think she was too inmature sometimes, and I get it, she was young, and was getting married to the man she wanted since she knew what love was, but I didn't share that idea that people change over nigth, she wanted Savio to change, to be what she wanted, the beautiful thing about all of this is that she ended up being what he needed.So mostly this book, you love or hate, I'm on the love side, I want to see more of the bull and the kitty.

Cora really managed to surprise me so much, I didn't see none of this coming.This book is somehow different of all the other ones from Camorra. I feel like the flashbacks and the way their marriage wasn't the first event of the book made it so new and fresh. Cora showed a lot of different sides of Savio. His trauma was so big and he buried it so deep down that he acted like everything was a joke so he wouldn't break. I hated Savio in the beginning. He made me so angry and I wanted to protect Gemma as much as Diego did.Gemma is so different from what I expected. Her upbringing was so conservative since her family is Tradicionalist, but she is still such a strong girl. In the beginning, you can clearly see how protected and innocent she is. She lives in a pink world with princes and princess and she wants Savio to be that prince, because that's the side of him she knows.Plus, I need to say it: I love reading Gemma kicking ass. She's amazing and there are two scenes where you can see how good of a fighter she is.Toni is one of the new characters I'm SO in love with. The way she defended Gemma, the way she was ALWAYS at her side, no matter what... I missed a friendship like this since Bound by Duty. Toni is such a good friend, and I hope we get a book of her! I also love Diego: he's such a good brother and son.I'm also some happy about some new babies!! The family scenes made me cry. With all that, we can also talk about how Remo really managed to make me love him even more. I think with every book, he shows more and more why he's so respected.In the end, I'm happy with this book. I think Cora did a really good job of surprising us and showing different sides of each characters, especially with all the time jumps and all that happened. I already want more!

Savio.. Even though he is cocky you still love him...he is a true casanova... Gemma is absolutely adorable ... I love it when she resists Savio... Great book in the camorra series by Cora.. And ofcourse i love the falcone clan... I wish this series never ends.. Eagerly waiting for Adamo's book...

Savio el más mujeriego de los hermanos ( más que Remo y ya es decir) es el protagonista del libro.Durante años Gemma ha fantaseado con convertirse en la mujer de Savio. Savio al principio no le daba importancia ya que Gemma era una niña y pensaba que era el típico cuelgue que tienes por los amigos de tu hermano mayor. Pero van pasando los años y los sentimientos de Gemma por él no cambian, pero Savio no es hombre de una sola mujer. No es hasta que los padres de Gemma a sus 16 años le arreglan un matrimonio que él decide que el único hombre que la tendrá será él. Pero eso no significa que él no pueda seguir disfrutando del resto de mujeres.Ha habido momentos en el libro que hubiera deseado que Gemma le mandara a la porra y si te he visto no me acuerdo porque el tío le falta al respeto a menudo,sabiendo que Gemma se lo va a pasar.Pero aún así he de decir que los Falcone me encantan y que nunca decepcionan. Me muero de ganas de leer sobre la segunda generación (Nevio, el hijo de Remo, promete muchas travesuras).