King Arthur Movie Tristan

title: Sons and Princes

author: James Lepore

genre: crime thriller

published: 2011

source: sent by publisher for review

pages: 330

first line: Joe Black Massi's funeral had been a singular experience.

rated: 3 1/2 stars out of 5









About:


Sons and Princes is a gritty novel about family, betrayal, revenge, drugs and the mob.


Chris Massi's father was a mafia assassin and his ex-father in law is a mob boss.
Chris himself was an successful attorney and has been trying to live the straight and narrow life with is wife and children. A series of events had him disbarred, but Chris wants nothing to do with the mafia.



A now divorced Chris wants to keep his children out of the mob scene more than ever. His fourteen year old son Matt however, seems to be going toward a life of crime, and with a powerful grandfather it will be easy for him to be part of the mob.


Chris makes a deal with his ex-father in law, Junior Boy DiGiglio. He will kill someone for him if Junior Boy leaves his grandson Matt alone.




Chris' younger brother Joseph is a heroin junkie. Joseph has survived by being the boy toy of lonely rich women, in turn they pay him an allowance and ask him no questions.



Ed Dolan was Chris' best friend growing up, but when Chris' father killed Ed's, Ed has grown to hate Chris with a vengeance.


Michele Mathias is a heroin addict who will stop at nothing to get her next fix. When her roomate turns up dead however, she finds herself to be the next target.



Michele and Chris' lives become intertwined as these two try to find a way to save themselves and the ones they love.





My thoughts:



I am a fan of James Lepore's, having read A World I Never Made and Blood of My Brother.

When I began reading Sons and Princes, I had good expectations. I'm happy to say this book didn't disappoint.
The storyline takes twists and turns as it takes the reader into the seedy underworld of the mob. You see a world that's not pretty. Drugs, sex, revenge and violence are all weaved within the storyline set in New York and New Jersey.



Two of the main characters are heroin addicts and as you read Lepore really drags you into a harsh world where nothing is sugar coated.




I liked how the story would take a twist here and there that I wasn't expecting. Joseph, Chris' brother, really impressed me with his courage and sheer determination.
Chris himself was a complex and likable character. He battled personal demons and did what he felt he had to do to keep his family safe. He has a good heart.


The relationship between Chris and Michele had me intrigued. I wanted to see what would become of these two.


LePore wraps the ending up really well and I was satisfied with the conclusion as well as surprised with a few reveals.

When he lay down on the sofa to sleep on Saturday night, Chris smiled as he stared up at the shadowy ceiling. He had forgotten completely about the things that had been so pressing on his mind and his heart in the lifetime prior to the one he had just begun: his disbarment and so-called public disgrace, the devil's bargain that Junior Boy had offered him, the anxiety about what to do for a living. After reading Joseph's letter at La Luna, he had stepped into a new world where there was no room for such mundane worries. Such are the blessings of big trouble: it puts little trouble in perspective.

p. 244

I recommend Sons and Princes for anyone looking to read a good crime thriller with memorable characters and a suspenseful, fast paced plot.




Special thanks to Lou Aronica for making this possible.

title: Blood of My Brother

author: James LePore


genre: crime thriller

pages: 313

published: 2010

first line: In July of 1967, Jay Cassio, who would be turning five in September, started a prekindergarten program at St. Lucy's School on Sheffield Street in Newark, New Jersey's oldest, largest, and about to be most turbulent city.

source: ARC from author

rated: 3 out of 5 stars

When Jay Cassio’s best friend Dan is murdered in a job clearly done by professionals, the walls that he has built to protect himself from the world of others begin to shatter. Now Jay, a successful lawyer, must find out why Dan died and find a way to seek justice for his murder. Isabel Perez has lived a life both tainted and charmed since she was a teenager in Mexico. She holds powerful sway over men and has even more powerful alliances with people no one should ever try to cross. When Jay catapults into her world, their connection is electric, their alliance is lethal, and their future is anything but certain.

I was very happy when author James LePore contacted me about reading his latest book, Blood of My Brother. I was introduced to his work when I read and very much enjoyed his first novel in 2009, A World I Never Made.






Jay Cassio and Dan Del Colliano grew up together in the mean streets of Newark New Jersey. The two boys were best friends. Jay grew up to be a lawyer, while Danny who was more of a 'bad boy' grew up to become a private eye. Danny however has debts and owes money to a local shark.

Jay's female client turns up dead and her husband is the prime suspect. The husband however, soon turns up dead himself. While Jay is trying to put together pieces of the puzzle, Danny's body is found brutally murdered in Miami.




Isabel Perez is a beautiful woman who has lived the hard knock life. As an orphan living in a nunnery in Mexico, she was adopted by a man who called himself Senor Hermano and who sold her into prostitution at a young age.
Isabel lived this life for many years, not knowing anything else.

Isabel last 'assignment' involved Danny. The people she is working for know she knows too much and plan to kill her off after this final mission.




On the quest to find Danny's killers, Jay tracks down Isabel. After getting to know the truth about her, he slowly begins to fall for this dark beauty. When she meets Jay, Isabel develops genuine feelings for him also. Soon enough, the two work together. Isabel wants to free herself from Hermano's clutches once and for all. Jay wants to avenge Danny's murder.




Blood of My Brother is a suspenseful read and I did enjoy it. There is passion and drama within these pages, and I enjoyed reading about Isabel and Jay as their relationship develops. Being a sucker for romance, that was my favorite aspect to this story, this crazy, on-the-run, dangerous love affair.

Books with a plot twist that can truly shock me are few and far between. There is a shocking revelation in this book that had me saying 'no way!' Secrets are revealed, truths come to light and the plot takes twists and turns as the suspense builds.



I also got a kick out of the setting during the first part of the story. It takes place in my hometown of New Jersey and as I read I would tell my husband about the different familiar locations within the story.
I'd say things like 'Hun, the Newark cops just found a head in the Passaic River.' And he'd say something along the lines of 'That's cool honey.'




I do want to mention that there are flashbacks throughout the book, the story goes from past to present and vice-versa. I know some readers would want to know that. Personally, I don't mind flashbacks and they didn't deter me from enjoying the book nor did I find them confusing.



I do recommend Blood of My Brother to those who enjoy a good crime thriller with plenty of suspense and plot twists. The book was unputdownable toward the end.

Love does not come alone. It brings a host of other feelings with it, feelings that long neglected, assert themselves with a startlingly persistent energy: demons, it might be said, who will have their day in the sun. Perhaps it is to confront these demons that we fall in love in the first place. Perhaps facing them squarely is the price we pay for love.

p.232

Special thanks to James LePore and Lou Aronica.

title: A World I Never Made

author: James Lepore

pages: 262

genre: mystery, suspense

published: 2009

first line: Dad, I don't owe you or anybody an explanation, but I think you'll appreciate the irony of a suicide note coming from a person who has abhorred tradition all of her life.


rated: 4 out of 5





In A World I Never Made, American Pat Nolan is called to Paris to claim the body of his daughter Megan. Apparently Megan was suffering from cancer and commited suicide.
Megan had been traveling the world working as a freelance journalist for many years and Pat went for long stretches of time without seeing her. Pat raised Megan alone because her mother died during childbirth.
However, when Pat sees the body, he knows right away it is not his daughter. For some reason Megan faked her death and Pat is trying to find out why she did it and where she is now.

Pat looked into Annabella Jeritza's eyes and then down at his hands. He had used these hands to do and fix many things. Move the earth with a giant machine, tear apart and rebuild a car engine, make a soda box wagon for Megan. He sometimes thought that whatever he was good for in life was contained in his hands. But now he had entered the territory of the broken heart, which hands could not repair.

With the help of a beautiful Parisian detective Catherine Laurence, Pat goes on a hunt to find his daughter. Slowly but surely, startling secrets are revealed about Megans life.


As the book goes on you get glimpses into Megans life. She met a Saudi businessman named Abdel Lahani and began to have an affair with him. What Megan doesn't realize is the danger she has put herself into because of her connection to Abdel.




I really enjoyed A World I Never Made. There were alot of plot twists and turns. I liked Pat's chracter and I was quickly drawn into the story.

If you're in the mood for a suspenseful story with interesting characters, pick this one up.


Special thanks to Lisa at TLC Booktours




---------------------------------

Now onto author James Lepore's guest post.




Naida,


You have kindly said I could feel free to post whatever I like, so here goes.

“When women stop reading, the novel well be dead.” Ian McEwan, novelist.

I have been thinking lately about the fact that women make up 70% of the fiction readers in the world and wondering what effect this will have on me and the career I would like to have as a novelist. Reasons for the women-read-more-fiction phenomenon abound: women have more advanced mirror neurons (some kind of nerve endings behind the eyes), which make them more empathetic; women are genetically engineered to be more in touch with their own emotions and therefore are more willing to make the emotional commitment required to engage with other people, in the real as well as the fictional world; girls do better at reading/writing assignments in school because they are more patient and this carries over into adulthood. Whatever the reason, it’s a hard fact that women read much more fiction than men.


What does this mean for me, a male novelist? Can I compete with the many extremely popular female writers out there? I don’t know. I take heart from the fact that of the twenty or so good reviews of A World I Never Made, ninety percent are by women. One or two have commented on the well-drawn female characters in the novel. (There are two, Megan Nolan, the beautiful, cynical young woman who fakes her suicide because she is on the run from some very bad people; and Catherine Laurence, a French detective who shakes off her sadness to help Megan’s father, Pat, track her down). We all have traits or “sides,” as they say, that are thought more traditionally to belong to the opposite sex. Maybe I have a feminine side that gives me insight into women, or at least helps me describe the workings of their hearts with some credibility. Or maybe it’s because there came a point in my life when, after much resistance— dumb guy that I was—I finally began to grapple with, rather than avoid, my own feelings.


I don’t know the answer. I do know that, as a man, I like action as a means of resolving problems. I do not see the point of dithering when a decision has to be made. However, I understand that it is the heart that has to be looked to—and listened to—when deciding what action to take. Megan Nolan had a huge heart-driven reason for doing what she did, as did Pat and Catherine. To me, listening to the heart is a human thing, not a gender thing. It is the first thing we have to learn how to do in order to grow as human beings. And I hope this idea—how crucial it is that we listen to our hearts—is what people—men and women—take away from A World I Never Made, and anything else I am fortunate enough to get into print in the future.




------------------------


Thank you Mr. Lepore for stopping by my blog today!
I totally agree when you say: 'listening to the heart is a human thing, not a gender thing'




About the author:


Jim Lepore practiced law (civil trial work) in New Jersey for over twenty years and then sold the practice so he could write and take pictures full time. Some of his photography can be seen at nakedeyeimages.com.