Defiant Princess by Amy McKinley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Mafia Elite series is one of my favorites, and just keeps making the characters better known and more beloved to us. This is a standalone book, but a prequal to the series. The heads of the Five Families are all still ruling with an iron fist, the sons have all graduated college and were leading lives as well as performing their duties as the next in line to their mafia families. The daughters are seniors in college, enjoying their last vestiges of freedom before being married off via contract or taken back home to be folded back into and controlled by their fathers or new husbands.

This book takes place after Emiliana had been kidnapped and rescued and Camilla had been married off to the Russian Bratva, situations that are mentioned throughout the series. It leads up to another tragedy mentioned throughout the series.

As the last 3.5 years of college has gone by, Lil, Sofia, Em and Marissa have grown very close. No one can understand them and their lives the way they understand each other. They’ve grown as close as sisters, so as their college careers come to an end, and they head back to being under their fathers thumbs, they’re all a bit anxious.

The princesses are all daydreaming of being with someone they love, instead of someone they’re promised to. Sofia longs for Enzo, and he her. In order to protect him, she will push him away. Em and Stefano both broken from terrible past experiences, but together they make one another complete. Too bad no one else agrees, and his father outright refuses it. Marissa is promised to Tony, and he is now getting very possessive. While making a decision to try to make things work with her arranged marriage to him, she is anxious to speak to someone in the Bratva to see if her sister Camilla is even still alive. Lil is daydreaming of running away to stay out of her fathers clutches. Will anyone have their daydreams and wishes of true love come true?

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