Love's Shadow by Nichole Van
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Brother's Maledetti is a totally engrossing series that I am loving every moment that I spend with it. I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review from EbooksForReview.com which I always love participating in whenever I can. Love's Shadow is the second book and is Branwell and Lucy's story. Branwell, Dante and Tennyson are triplets and they have been handed what some might think is a raw deal in the form of a curse. Each of them has a different "gift" and I use that term loosely. For those that it helps it is a gift. For them it seems to work more like a curse, except when it allows them to help the ones they love. Lucy and Branwell have a long history together and I have to admit that I was very leery of, she was Tennyson's girlfriend previously and it ended as these things do, with a crash and burn. In my house my family had one hard rule and that is we do not date each other's ex-boyfriends and we never ever date someone the other one is interested in dating. So, I was emotionally involved in that scenario. How could Lucy and Branwell end up together after everything that happened with her and Tennyson?

Tennyson is a wreck and getting worse as each day moves on. Lucy has been in the US for the last two years and is visiting Florence, Italy where her brother and his family are living. Lucy is going to babysit her amazing niece, Grace while her brother and his wife take a vacation in Africa. They are gone no more than a day when tragedy strikes, the trail is cold before the police are even involved and the only ones that can help are the Maledetti brothers. Tennyson knows there is a problem with Lucy before she even reaches out to them, but, Branwell is on-site quickly to help because this is Lucy, Tennyson's ex whom Branwell has loved for many years and never had a chance of every having a relationship because it might hurt Tennyson beyond repair. Things in Lucy's brother's villa are odd and it really takes all of the Maledetti's including their sister, Chiara, who is the most well-versed in the D'Angelo's family history, has many connections to pull on to help and is a whiz with research. The situation is fraught and everyone is on edge and things are more on edge because Tennyson is getting worse, Branwell is having problems with his GUT (curse), well more than usual, and Dante has family issues to deal with on Claire's side that makes him not as available as he would like.

Florence, Italy is an amazing place to see in person and Nichole Van does an amazing job of presenting the scenery so that it is vivid in my mind and I can see it as if I was still there. She has done her homework on the location and it is evident in the way she makes the location another character in the story that stands out like Branwell and Lucy. It is a book that is hard to put down especially once you start delving into the Branwell's story.