Mafia Chic (Red Dress Ink)

Rating:
Summary: If the Sopranos had a Carrie Bradshaw-type character...
Review: ...it would be Teddi Gallo. This fun chick-lit novel is about a Mafia princess and her relationship and career plights. Is it possible for the daughter of a big Italian mobster to find true love? That is something Teddi has always asked herself. Men run a mile when she tells them about her family. Not that that's a bad thing. After all, she doesn't want to be "struck by the thunderbolt," an Italian expression for falling madly in love. She saw what happened to one of her uncles when he got struck by the thunderbolt, and she does not want the same thing to happen to her. But when two men show interest in her -- one a seemingly sweet journalist and the other a pestering FBI agent -- Teddi does not know what to do. To make matters worse, a rival mob is after her family and her restaurant business is in trouble. Could she sort out her problems on her own, or will she need her Mafia Chic connections?

I loved the constant quips and the scenes centered on the Gallo-Marcello family. The heroine is a blast. Teddi is Orloff's signature no-nonsense city girl. As said earlier, if the Sopranos were to have a Carrie Bradshaw-type of character it would be Teddi Gallo. All of the characters are great, especially Diana, Teddi's upper crust British best friend. She is an awesome, three-dimensional character. However, even the pompous British don't sound like the actress Patricia Routledge in Keeping Up Appearances, especially if they are young. I have been to England various times and I've never heard anyone there use adjetives like "smashing" half as much as Diana does. Other than that, I loved this novel. Despite Robert the journalist's predictable outcome and the abrupt ending, Mafia Chic is an entertaining story about family love, delicious Italian food and the latest Jimmy Choo stilettos falling from trucks. Erica Orloff is one of my favorite Red Dress Ink authors and she has created another fun novel. I enjoyed Orloff's foray into darker fiction with The Roofer, but it was nice to read another one of her chick-lits. I look forward to reading her other stuff. In the meantime, I recommend Mafia Chic most highly.

Rating:
Summary: Sopranos meets Sex and the City
Review: Erica Orloff's books just keep getting better and better! Her latest, Mafia Chic, is witty, smart, and hugely entertaining. Teddi, member of not one, but two well-connected mob families, is trying to find love, run a restaurant, and dodge her bodyguards at every turn. This book has lots of action and isn't a typical "boy meets girl" story. Her fashionable roommate, a Brit with a crush on Teddi's wise guy cousin, adds another spark of humor to this already funny book. You'll love the descriptions of Teddi's family and her love interests make wonderful additions to this story.

Read it and you won't be able to put it down until that last morsel of pasta is gone.

Rating:
Summary: Mafia Chic is a must read!
Review: Erica Orloff's latest, Mafia Chic, is a charming, funny, and romantic tale about a "mafia princess" named Teddi Gallo Marcello who's in search of her "thunderbolt" - that is her prince charming. The two most likely candidates are an attractive, WASPY cable television journalist named Robert, and an equally handsome Italian-American FBI agent named Mark, who just happens to be investigating her family. The minute this little triangle forms, you'll be rooting for the FBI agent - no question about it - as Teddi and Mark's palpable chemistry sizzles right off the pages.

As for Teddi's family - they might be gangsters, but they love her fiercely, and despite their obvious faults, she loves them dearly too. The Sunday dinner scenes with Teddi's large extended family are right on the mark, and will have you laughing out loud. After all, what's a novel about a bunch of Italian-Americans without food? Yes, food plays such a major role in this story that it might as well be an actual character! Teddi owns a restaurant with her charming, womanizing cousin Quinn, and the descriptions of her cooking will truly leave you with your mouth watering.

Teddi shares an apartment with her best friend, a quirky Brit nicknamed Lady Di, who somehow finds a way of equating nearly everything to a James Bond movie. You'll root for her too, as she falls for one of Teddi's hunky mobster cousins.

Mafia Chic delivers just what it promises on the cover - it's a novel about love, family, food and the witness protection program! Mafia Chic is a great read!


Rating:
Summary: pleasant reading
Review: I enjoyed this book. The romance was skimpy, but the story was sweet. The heroine is a little scared of finding her
"Thunderbolt" (true love) because of the tragic tale of her Uncle Mario she heard about as a child. She spends her whole life hoping she never gets struck by the thunderbolt, thinking she can avoid it by dating people she does not feel that strongly about. Yet, her thunderbolt finds her and it's not who she ever would have expected.
Teddi is overwhelmed and overprotected by her mafia family, and has one true friend in Lady Di (as she calls her British friend Diana). There is a sub-romance brewing between Lady Di and Teddi's cousin Tony which is cute to see evolve as well.
Mostly I just loved the Italian family references and how the family interacted with one another. The author made them seem very "real" and that is what made this book endearing.

Rating:
Summary: I loved Mafia Chic!
Review: I loved reading about Teddi and Lady Di, in this mafiosa-ish book! They were funny with each other, and for me, easy to relate to...not sure why, but I felt each of them was a little familiar to me! I definitely liked reading about the 2 men in Teddi's love triangle, I won't give away the end, but it fit perfectly! You'll keep reading 'til the end, and won't want to put it done til it's done! Another great job Erica Orloff!

Rating:
Summary: definetly chic
Review: I read The Roofer and Mafia Chic in the same week and loved them both however, Mafia Chic made me laugh out loud while the other was more serious.
The story was sweet yet, serious at times obviously when dealing with the mafia it has to have serious moments.
I enjoyed the entire book and must admit that I would love to find some Jimmy Choos that had fallen off the back of a truck as would any fan of Sex in the City.
Keep up the good work Ms.Orloff and you will have a fan for life.

Rating:
Summary: Love, food and the Mob
Review: Mafia Chic is a fast moving, light hearted romance. Teddi is the Chef and one of two owners of Teddi's, a restaurant in NYC. She is an Italian girl from a Brooklyn organized crime family, the only granddaughter of the Don. Her roommate works for a PR firm and is the daughter of an English Earl. Both are princesses in their own way, looking for what Teddi's grandfather calls the "thunderbolt". Teddi finds out that she is under surveilance by a good looking FBI agent, and Diana is in love with Teddi's "hunky" cousin Tony. Teddi's family and other relationships complicate things.

This story had me laughing out loud at times. The characters are bizarre and real at the same time. The story line made for a very quick read and I was sorry to have it end. I will look for more books by this author.

Rating:
Summary: Funny at first but...
Review: Mafia Chic is about Theresa "Teddi" Gallo, a 27-year old woman who just happened to have been born into one of the most notorious Mafia families of New York. She's tough as nails, has a huge, bustling Italian family that dote on her, runs her own Italian restaurant, and lives with a posh British girl named Diana whom she fondly refers to as "Lady Di". At the beginning of our story, she's determined not to be struck by the "thunderbolt" of love, as at least one of her family members has done and lived to regret. She also wants a normal life somehow, despite her assorted relatives staking out her apartment on a nightly basis, tracking her every move, and a grandfather who hands over $100 bills like candy. But how? For Teddi, it means having Lady Di distract her cousin Tony with baked goods while she sneaks out for a date with an eligible man she met one night in a club.

I highly enjoyed Mafia Chic for the first four chapters. It was laugh-out-loud funny in a witty, dry-humor sort of way, which I love. However, it began to pall as I got deeper into the book. As much as Orloff tries to portray Teddi's Mafia family endearingly to her readers, and does to a certain extent, it just didn't get very far with me. Especially when it became apparent that they were supposed to all be a big group of "softies." I mean, how soft can these guys be when they have been found in the past with body parts in their freezers? And found with loads of stolen goods that just happened to fall off of a truck? What really galled me was when one of Teddi's family members made it clear that a guy was "Good" so long as he wasn't into "drugs and stuff like that". Oh yeah, drugs are so bad, but cutting various body parts of other human beings isn't? And killing for revenge? And having various relatives in prison doing life sentences for murder? I have to admit I wasn't convinced.

Overall I was a little disappointed with "Mafia Chic." It started off great and was laugh-out-loud funny at times, but as the book wore on just got a little too predictable and a little ridiculous.

Rating:
Summary: Lost me by the end
Review: This book was terrific at first. However, the "family" becomes a bit grating and annoying by the end. I really love Erica Orloff's other work, but this one just missed the boat a bit.

Rating:
Summary: lighthearted Sopranos meet chick lit romp
Review: Twenty-six years old Teddi Gallo holds a special spot in the hearts of Mafiosi family. She is the only granddaughter amongst eighteen grandchildren of Don Grandfather Poppy Marcello. Teddi has protection wherever she goes as no one will allow any harm to come her. She and her cousin Quinn co-own Teddi's Italian Restaurant in Manhattan where she doubles as chef while he works the front.

Conservative columnist Robert Wharton sees Teddi as an avenue to do an exposé on her family; so he begins courting her. Meanwhile FBI Special Agent Mark Petrocelli stalks Teddi as if she holds the key to bring down her mob family. As both men woo her with similar goals, Teddi finds herself attracted to the Fed, but not at the cost of Poppy and her uncles.

A boxing bet near the beginning of the tale sets the tone for this lighthearted Sopranos meet chick lit romp. The story line is totally played for laughs even when a serious scenario seems appropriate. Teddi is a terrific center keeping the relatives in line while her suitors behave without regard to her needs though Robert is fingered by her grandfather and Mark told to find new work. Fans who enjoy the Sopranos will appreciate this even lighter crossing of the MAFIA CHIC lit combine.

Harriet Klausner