Christie Ridgeway, An Offer He Can’t Refuse

An Offer He Can't Refuse

Christie Ridgeway

Avon, Aug 2005, $6.99 384 pp.

ISBN: 0060763485

Palm Springs, California resident Tea Caruso is a highly regarded interior designer, who has spent a lifetime or at least since she was twelve and her father vanished, probably killed, loving and hating her family. She loves every member especially her mother and sisters Joey and Eve, even her grandfather Cosimo, but detests what he does for a living as the mob chief. Tea avoids him as if he she might catch the gangster disease.

Johnny Magee hires Tea to redo his home, but actually has a hidden agenda. He blames the Caruso family for devastating his father. He has dreamed for years of avenging his sire and now has the economic means to do so but needs someone to get him inside the family. He seduces Tea so that he can accompany her as her boyfriend to Cosimo's eightieth birthday bash. To his chagrin, Johnny believes he betrays his late father by falling in love with the enemy, but fears how she will react when she learns he deceived her.

This is an intriguing second generation romance in which the protagonists are tied together by a tragedy that cost the lives of both their fathers. Johnny is a fascinating hunk who knows what he wants until he meets Tea as she is nothing like he expected from the granddaughter of the mob chief. Tea is ashamed of her background until Johnny hires her and soon she sees the other part of her family. Though the mob activity is somewhat underplayed and mostly kept off screen, Christie Ridgeway offers contemporary readers a book they can't refuse to read.

Harriet Klausner