An absolute breathtaking journey of love, loss, choices and of course, Loyalty.

This immersive journey is a tour through Sicily in the 1800’s woven expertly with fact and fiction.

You see the rise of the mafia in Sicily through the ambitions of the not so wealthy. How power and greed corrupt absolutely. How the choices made both enhance and incumber the people of this small town.

Boys are being kidnapped from the wealthy. Dante is kidnapped and placed in a madhouse, left at just 6 years old with the raving mad. His abuse and torture is brutal. More boys disappear and only one man (a lawyer) is compelled through his faith to find them… no matter the cost. (And the costs are high for him and the boys.)

You’ll meet Lucia and Mufalada, forces from their home since Lucia is born albino. The town believes her a curse and Mufalda chooses to flee and live off the land in order to raise her child she believes has been sent from God as a blessing, not a curse.

When all these players in the book converge, death and destruction, love and forgiveness and justice and revenge is exacted.

This is a fast paced, brilliantly written, breathtaking experience of Sicily, its beautiful lemon groves, and the rise of the mafia. Loyalty, it’s a blessing and a curse.

I can’t give enough praise for this novel set to be released in March of 2023.

Thank you to #NetGalley, the publishers and author for extending me an ARC in exchange for my honest opinions. This is one you truly will not want to miss!

My full review will be posted to all my social media, blogs and retail sites on release day.

This is definitely not your average modern day courtroom Lisa Scottoline book. So before you read it, get any expectations out of your mind and then enjoy the throwback to old school Italy! I will say it was a lot of characters to keep up with...

1810 Palermo, Sicily:

A little boy, Dante, is kidnapped during the St. Rosalia Festival procession and tossed into a madhouse, where a bribed guard, Renzo, tells the administrator the child was relinquished by his parents for trying to kill a fictional little brother.

On the outskirts of Palermo, Franco Fiorvanti manages a lemon grove for Baron Zito, a crop desired by the British Navy to prevent scurvy, and wants to one day own his own grove. So much that he will do almost anything, including arranging such kidnappings.

Gaetano Catalano is a lawyer and a member of Beati Paoli, a secret society trying to stop those preying on children.

Mafalda gives birth to a long awaited baby, Lucia, on the same night that her fisherman husband, Turi, is the sole survivor of a shipwreck. The villagers think he and Mafalda made a deal with the devil and they deem that Lucia, a very light-skinned (maybe even albino but with blue eyes) baby is cursed as a result.

Alfredo is a cheese maker who considers his 4 unusual goats his daughters and has a family secret that will most likely die with him.

Dante starves in prison; Gaetano loses his job; Mafalda and Lucia become homeless; Alfredo loses the ability to feed his goats. Only Franco, the kidnapper, seems to thrive until he asks for the hand of the ungrateful Baron’s daughter…. How do these stories get intertwined in the end? Does the storyline keep getting darker?

This is not a typical Lisa Scottoline Rosato & Associates novel or legal thriller.

You need patience before the main characters come together. Ms. Scottoline’s books tend to run over 400 pages (no page count was supplied), so the storyline moves deliberately, with Gaetano’s quest getting the most attention since it will be the thread that weaves the others together. It’s almost at the two-thirds mark when the book jumps 15 years into the future and the individual stories start to overlap. I loved the richness of the Sicilian settings and I could easily envision lemon groves and gardens, but I became slightly impatient waiting for the story to become one narrative instead of five. Ms. Scottoline’s talent is evident since she did entice me to keep reading to the conclusion. 4 stars.

Thank you to G.P. Putnam/Penguin Group and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): NO The characters of “Loyalty” have eyes the color of hazelnuts or chestnuts.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): YES/NO Lemon groves are featured as the yellow jewels of the Golden Basin (Conca d’Ora).

I love Lisa Scottoline’s books, especially the last two, Eternal and What Happened to the Bennets, so I was more than thrilled to be able to read her new novel, Loyalty, as an advanced read. As excited as I was is as disappointed as I am after reading the book.

My main issue with Loyalty is that some of the writing seems superficial and at times just not up to snuff. I did not feel invested in or care for any of the characters, who seemed poorly developed. While the plot was interesting, it took too long to get going, and I had a hard time maintaining interest. Not her best effort, though this won’t keep me from reading any of her future books.

My thanks to the publisher and to Netgalley for providing an ARC of Loyalty.

This story is a different from Scottoline's previous writings, but I enjoyed reading about a completely different time in history and setting than I've ever read about. This story takes us to Sicily and the lives of lemon-growers, barons, criminals, kidnapping, and more. There are several different story lines and characters at the beginning of the story. This was a little confusing to me at first, but I knew that they story lines would begin to come into play with each other and all make sense in the end.

Loyalty by Lisa Scottoline. A very dark story, hard to relate to the characters or events in the story. Not what I was expecting from a Lisa Scottoline book. Readers of historical novels may find the setting and events interesting

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book

Thank you for this advanced copy. I really like Lisa so thought I would give this book a try although I don’t care for historical fiction. I did not care for this book. It was way too long for one. Demon babies. Kids kidnapped and locked in mental instructions. Families killing each other. I ended up skipping around more than anything and it just had no interest to me. Happy ending though I guess you could say. If you’re a fan of Lisa but her earlier works, you may want to skip this one.

Lisa Scottoline first distinguished herself as a first-rate thriller writer. Now she is turning her hand to writing historical fiction, and I couldn't be happier! This was a fascinating inside look at the mafia as it grows in power in Sicily, and how it affects four unique, unforgetable souls. I loved this book and its epic feel, and I highly recommend it!

This book was everything I wanted it to be. It had me turned pages without even realizing. It was so good!