Fans pick 59 books like Dante

This is the mafia romance that upended all my beliefs about what the genre could be. I vividly remember opening this book for the very first time, reading the prologue and the first few pages, and saying out loud, “Oh!” And then settling into the chair because I’d realized I wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.

Yes, there’s a great hero and heroine, yes, there’s heat, but what I love about this book is the mystery. I just had so many questions and they were the right sort of questions: I was intrigued, not bewildered. I just wanted to sink into the book until I’d devoured every page, which is exactly what I did.

A good mafia romance is all about family, and that’s what this one delivers in spades: two dysfunctional, squabbling, but ultimately loving mafia families who collide head-on when two of their number are forced to marry.

I loved both of them, even though they were very different: the cool, even cold Irish Mafia Griffins and the chaotic, passionate Italian Mafia Gallos. This is a forced marriage romance with real crackling enemies-to-lovers heat between Callum and Aida, which is exactly how I like it.

And between an election race, the wedding, and enemies vying for power, the plot races along. What I love most about this book is how two mortal enemies change and grow and become a couple you can genuinely see working.

I’ve never come across a book that mixes mafia romance’s sumptuous luxury and knife-edge danger as well as this one. It almost feels like a billionaire romance: the hard-working assistant ignored by her cold, arrogant boss, the lavish cars and apartments, the way money is life-or-death for the struggling heroine but an irrelevance for the hero.

But Ruslan, the hero, isn’t just a CEO: he’s a Russian Mafia boss, and that brutal danger runs through the book like a vein of silver. I loved the way the heroine, Emma—who’s wonderfully self-reliant and has a BIG heart—stood up to him. I adored Ruslan’s cold exterior and secret warm heart, but it was the way he bonded with Emma’s adopted family that melted me.

Even though it’s not all that old, this is what I think of as the classic mafia romance and one that puts the romance front and center. It has all the classic elements: Cosa Nostra (Sicilian rather than Russian or Irish Mafia), a forced marriage, an innocent heroine, and a cold-hearted hero who melts for her.

I took to Tori immediately: she’s very relatable and I could imagine her as a friend. I loved the sweetness of the romance, especially when this is a genre that often leans towards the dark, and I just ate up Angelo’s big, bold statements of love. This is the book I often recommend as a first mafia romance, especially for romance readers who aren’t sure if they’ll like the genre. 

Michael by Bonnie Rose is an exciting mafia romance novel with plot twists I didn’t see coming. I love her writing style—it’s straightforward, clear to read, and it touched a spectrum of emotions, from elation to tears. The protagonist, Emily, has known her love interest, Michael, since they were children. Told from her perspective, the story takes readers on a journey of entangled love, family drama, and crime. A sweet boy grows up and evolves into a dominant and frightening mafia boss. Yet, Emily’s desire for dangerously handsome Michael becomes stronger in this gripping story.

Gotta love a hero/antihero with a great wit and a fast mouth. Most Wanted is the first book in a sci-fi series that may remind you a bit of Firefly, and I don’t use that comparison lightly. The narrator’s wit definitely puts this book on this list, but “that’s us, out here on the raggedy edge” is the soul of the book that makes the series for me. Not the best, not the brightest, not the richest or strongest, but a group doing what they can to get by and be there for each other. Maybe accidentally right some wrongs along the way.

I enjoyed the sassy main character, Pepper, who suddenly acquires the ability to interact with the dead. The first book in a series, her current project, an entertaining mafia don, tasks her to solve his thirty-year-old murder. His persistence made me chuckle at his refusal to leave until Pepper helped him. While struggling with life in general, mainly rich girl turned pauper, she finds herself in sticky situations. Her job as a cemetery tour guide adds its own comedy to the story.

In spite of weighing in at one-sixth of a ton and never willingly leaving his home, Nero Wolfe disappears completely, arranges employment for his personal chef Fritz Brenner, and leaves man-Friday Archie Goodwin to shift for himself.

This mano-a-mano contest between crime boss Arnold Zeck and the reclusive Wolfe stands out from Stout’s 50-some-odd cases in that it becomes a duel between evil and vengeful. Law and order are non-players, and the ending fully satisfies the reader. Rex Stout ranks with the best and his protagonist amongst the most rude, lazy, and brilliant.

Danny Greene is a bad role model but a great protagonist. A former US Marine and union boss convicted in federal court of embezzling, he transitioned into organized crime by doing enforcement work for the Cleveland Mafia. However, he soon branches out on his own in the most brazen ways possible, incurring the wrath of his former associates. Murders, an extended bombing campaign and Greene’s work supplying intel to federal agents all culminate in a conclusion that has real consequences – the downfall of La Cosa Nostra in Cleaveland in 1977. It’s hard not to empathize with the crazy-brave Greene, standing shirtless in plain sight in front of his headquarters as the Mafia plots his death. When a criminal is this kind of character, it’s easy for a reader to lay polite society aside and immerse inside that world, enough so to root for a bad guy.      

This book totally swept me away! Carmine, the ultimate bad boy with a soft spot, and Haven, the innocent girl caught in a world of mafia chaos, had me rooting for them from the start. Their love story is intense, heart-melting, and just the right amount of drama. I couldn’t put it down!

The mafia elements add an extra layer of suspense that had me on the edge of my seat, and let’s be honest, Carmine is the kind of morally grey character I can’t resist.