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The Lovely Moxie
A Love Notes Bonus
Welcome to the lovely newsletter!
Hey friend,
You’re receiving this newsletter because you can’t get enough of Love Notes and you want more story, more passion, more romance!
This week we’re diving into Moxie released on February 27, 2024.
Moxie is about a young woman who must prove she is worthy of joining her boyfriend’s mafia family.
What Was I Thinking?
I love a good mafia romance but I can’t read them all the time.
Too often it feels like the story is happening to the female protagonist. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time but no problem because a sexy murderer fell in love with her and saved the day. Yay.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read that story many times and I will again. That can be fun. That has its time and place, but not here.
Our leading lady is going into this with her eyes wide open. She wasn’t kidnapped or forced into a marriage of convenience or guarded against her will for her “own good”. No, our leading lady is in love and she’s willing to sacrifice her safety to be with the man she loves.
She’s a badass. Crazy but badass.
She has the love of a mafia boss’s son and she’s not gonna give that shit up without a fight.
P.S. Do the Ukrainians have a mafia? Doesn’t everybody have a version of the mob?
P.P.S. Fair warning: I do not speak Ukrainian so if it sounds wrong, it is wrong. Sorry, I tried.
P.P.P.S. I paid $15 to recover this story from my Evernotes history after an unfortunate copy-paste incident. Is it worth $15? No. Would I do it again? Probably.
I’m going to talk in more detail about this story and the characters.
Ready or not…
TL;DR?
Here’s what you need to know.
Paige is in love with Borys.
Borys is the son of Sergiy, head of a Ukrainian mob family somewhere in the USA. (Don’t ask me where.)
Borys gives Paige some $$ and a ticket to Portugal. He loves her but she didn’t grow up in the criminal underground. He doesn’t want the violence of his world to touch her.
Which is really too bad cause Paige goes straight to Sergiy. She tells him that she wants to marry his son and join the family. Guess what he does?
Sergiy locks her in a dark room for 3 days with no food or water.
Sergiy brings Borys with him to check on her. Sergiy taunts Paige. He tells her that even if she survives another night, he won’t let her marry his son.
(Did I mention she’s hanging from her wrists attached to some chains on the ceiling? It’s rough.)
Sergiy leaves the room. It looks like Borys is going to follow but instead, he locks the door and doubles back to free Paige. She resists at first.
"What? Are you crazy? I'm not going to let you die for nothing."
"Not...for nothing..." She took a deep breath and held his gaze. "For you...for you."
His dark caramel eyes melted. He leaned forward and touched his forehead to hers. "Then you understand. I can't watch you go through this, not even for me. Please love, you have to go."
Paige is about to give in and give up when Sergiy bursts into the room.
Surprise! This whole thing was actually a test for Borys!
Sergiy was testing his son’s feelings for Paige. He knew Borys wouldn't go against him unless he was in love with Paige. He would only let his son marry an outsider if he was truly in love.
(Why he couldn’t just ask Borys how he felt about Paige? We’ll never know.)
Once he knows the truth, Sergiy agrees to let them marry. Woohoo!
Where Are They Now?
The wedding is epic.
They host it at a vineyard in the spring. Borys and Paige share their first kiss as husband and wife under a trellis lined with roses and peonies. Everyone cheers.
Borys is Sergiy’s only son. He’s the heir to his father’s mafia empire. So everybody and their mother (literally) comes to the reception to pay their respects and meet Paige.
The party is a riot of drunk uncles and aunties. Cousins making obscene jokes about the wedding night. Kids running in and between rows of grapes.
Paige doesn’t have a family. (Who else would be desperate enough to risk her life for love?) Her parents are dead and she has no siblings. Thankfully, Borys’s family welcomes her with open arms.
They like her moxie and her “don’t take shit” attitude.
(Just ask cousin Dmytro who ended up with a fist to the face after he tried to cop a feel during a dance with Paige. He and Borys had “words” after.)
Borys’s mother, Anna, is excited to have a daughter. She helped Paige pick her wedding dress and promised to babysit their future kids. Which will happen sooner than she thinks.😉
Sergiy even walked Paige down the aisle.
I’m not saying they lived happily ever after. This is the mob we’re talking about. Things can get a little crazy.
Sometimes Borys comes home with blood on his shirt. It’s okay. It’s not his.
They’ll spend the rest of their lives together. God help anyone who tries to get in their way.
The End.
The End Credits Song
And I would do anything for love,
I'd run right into hell and back
I would do anything for love,
I'll never lie to you and that's a fact
But I'll never forget the way you feel right now,
Oh no, no way.
-I’d Do Anything for Love by Meat Loaf
Listen to the Love Notes Soundtrack for more end-credits songs.
The Lovely Book Recommendations
If you stuck around this long, you’re in for a treat!
Each week I recommend one of my favorite romance novels for you to binge.
These are top-tier, 5-star, thoroughly vetted recommendations. I have read—and most likely reread—all of these books, and I would read them all again.
There’s no mafia romance I would reread. They’re all guilty pleasures😅but this week’s recommendation is an old favorite—Son of the Mob by Gordon Korman.
Son of the Mob is a young adult romance/coming-of-age story about a mobster’s teenage son who falls in love with the daughter of the federal agent who’s trying to put his father in jail.
I met someone recently who also read this book in high school and it made me so happy.
Happy reading!
See you next week with a story about Stockholm syndrome.
Your friend,
Rachel
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