Dolci

The Family #4

by Katrina Jackson

Giulio

I don't want to be the boss.

I want to stay in bed for at least sixteen hours a day with Zahra. I want to pretend that what we have can last. And every now and then I want to shoot some people. In that order.

But with Salvatore on the hunt for whoever is trying to kill him and Alfonso in Positano trying to keep Zahra's sister safe, that leaves me in Naples with the weight of our entire organization on my shoulders, with Zahra.

And what does the love of my life decide to do in the middle of all this danger? She wants to date. She wants to discover Naples and Italian cuisine. And she wants to explore a life with me.

I don't want to be the boss, but with Zahra by my side, even I start to believe that life could be sweeter if only we let it.

Content warnings

Torture on the page
Threats of violence and murder
Ableist language

Genres: Romance, Novella, Contemporary Romance, Mafia Romance, Black Author, Erotic Romance, Interracial Romance

53 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 29, 2021

About the author

Katrina is a seasoned spinster with an active imagination, a love of romcoms and a keenly critical nature. She's a college professor by day who writes romances by...weekend. Right now she also happens to be on summer vacation. She enjoys yogurt, sparkling water and her three cats, who don't appreciate her love.

Reviews

[mina reads™️]

Zahra and Guilio 🥰 my beloveds

[Nancy L Thompson]

Where was the story???

This was just porn on paper. Where's the story?? I'm really disappointed in this book?? I'm glad it wasn't any longer. I skipped the majority of it.

[Bri Little]

*4.25 stars*

This novella was very steamy and I just loved how Giulio was this dangerous, edgy, tough guy but totally a simp for Zahra!! Love to see it. This was just 50 pages of him fcking her and feeding her Italian desserts. So well written that I didn’t need much relationship development, which this didn’t have cus it’s a quick, hot read. The pregnancy stuff at the end was a bit much for me but overall, Ms. Jackson got me curious about reading more mafia romance.

[Darcy]

This one was very short and very hot. I feel like the subtitle should be food and fucking around Italy. 😂 These two are very much into each other and not afraid to show it. It's nice to see that amid all the other stuff they are navigating.

[sadiereads_]

this novella just proved that giulio and zahra are my faves

cws torture on page

[hea booktubes]

Sex and Italian Food.

[Whitney]

This was just as sweet as the Italian treats that Giulio fed to Zahra and just as hot as the summer day that led to some very good pizza and interesting…hand activities lol.

[Nicky]

2.5

[Brandan WH]

Another great addition to the series

3.5 stars
This novella is just enough to keep you wanting to continue the story. Bad, it’s unique in that we get to hear more about Giulio and Zahra from his perspective and it’s delicious.
We get to read about how nervous he is in keeping Zahra safe, how he hates being the stand in for his boss and how much he hopes that Zahra is as in love with him as he is with her. We can infer what Zahra thinks and, honestly, half the time I’m annoyed she’s not taking things more seriously but I think that was by the authors design why would she be worried if she’s not 100% sure what’s going on? Why would she consider the dangers of going out to dinner when that’s not something she’s accustomed to thinking about?
All in all, this was a quick insight into Giulio’s brain and I enjoyed it. I also loved the chapter titles. And, of course, the sexy sexy times are unmatched. Ms Jackson is incredibly creative and I always appreciate how enthusiastic her characters are during these times.
Now, on to the next book!

[Leigh Kramer]

Hot treat of a follow up to The Hitman! This is more of a bridge to the Enforcer than a contained short story but I sure enjoyed seeing what Zahra and Guilio are up to.

Characters: Zahra is Black American celebrity publicist. Giulio is white Italian mafia hitman. This is set in Sicily, Italy.

Content notes: torture (MMC’s line of work), MMC threatens to kill victim’s elderly mother if he doesn’t give him the information he needs, concern of FMC’s safety (no direct threats), recent assassination attempt on mafia boss, police corruption, past death of mother, family planning discussion, unprotected sex (no pregnancy results), MMC thinks about FMC getting pregnant while they have unprotected sex, on page sex, vaginal fisting, public sex, sensation play (ice cubes), alcohol, ableist language

[sinag]

2/5 stars!

Katrina Jackson really mastered the craft of writing an effective steamy scene and kudos to her for that! The steamy scenes saved this book for me, a little bit, because reading inside Giulio's head was so fucking boring lol. Good thing that Giulio and Zahra were not vanilla because the different things they did during their steamy scenes made me a little bit invested with what's going on and refrain from DNF-ing. But, outside of the fisting and their horniness, this book was actually pretty boring.

[Gina Martin]

3 Stars

This was not what I expected. I did not care for this story. All Giulio and Zahra did was hunch and eat dessert throughout the entire book. Though this book was short, Giulio made very few boss moves. He was mostly making moves on Zahra, but I digress. Like I said, this was not what I expected.

[Red]

So hot and nice. Loved reading about those 2 again. It's intense and beautiful. Am so rooting for them to make it. Hopefully we'll get some satisfying ending for them in the next installment of the series.

[Chris]

CW: violence

This is a short story of Guilio and Zahra in between their book and The Enforcer. It's cute and very sexy.

[Cynthia Marie]

Don't go into this thinking it's going to be an important part of the story. It was literally just a bunch of smutty vignettes of Zahara and Guilio during the events of The Enforcer. It was well written and the smut was great, but that's quite literally it.

[Gemma]

This is fine. It’s not really enough of a story to be good or bad. I will say it gave me a lot of anxiety that Zahra seemed to never consider the danger they were in, and was chill giving Giulio non-stop panic attacks, but whatever, whatever. Haha.

[Weekend Reader_]

Eating sweets

Y'all Katrina warned us that there's a lot eating and sex. Friends Dolci is a short film of sweets, eating, and well sex.

CW/N: death, torture, kidnapping, anxiety

[Danni]

This book made me so happy.

[Sadie Hope]

OMG I love this series, and can't wait for more! I loved reading this directly after the Enforcer and hope to catch up with Shay and Salvatore soon!

[Amanda]

Sexy. Short. Steamy. Heart wrenching.

[Jenica]

I am loving this series.

[Shalana]

Food, f**king and fisting. And it's well written.

[Chelsea]

This was cute, hot and fun, however we don't make any progress in the overarching series plot.

[Lauren Schnoebelen]

3.5⭐️

Super sweet seeing more of the two of them together but there wasn’t as much banter as I would like.

[Morgan]

This is literally just sex and food

[Maja]

Short and filled with smut. Fun!

[Dee]

Wow

There love story is beautiful. A lot of sexy time so be prepared for that. But your also get to see them fall more in love with one another

[Lucía]

Es breve y normalmente valoro mucho eso, pero me estoy hartando de estos libros que se limitan a ser una mera sucesión de escenas de sexo

[Betweenpaperbackworlds]

I love seeing little moments in between

[Sarah]

Mostly sex and food as Zahra and Giulio plan for a forever together.