Title:  Taming The Italian Bad Boy
Series:  International Bad Boys
Author:  Joanne Walsh
Genre:  Contemporary Romance
Published:  September 17, 2015
Publisher:  Tule Publishing
My Rating:  5 stars
Source:  NetGalley
Cover Description:

Wealthy, incredibly sexy Italian entrepreneur Danilo Spinozzi zooms into Lucy Luxton’s life on a motorcycle one quiet afternoon, and she can’t keep her mind or eyes off him. The people of Ravello, a small town on the Amalfi Coast where she is studying jewelry design, warn her that he is the town’s bad boy and a ruthless womanizer, but how can Lucy keep her distance when he is the one man who looks beyond her shy, plump exterior and sees the sensuous and creative woman about to bloom?

Devastated by the one woman in his life who should have loved and protected him, Danilo Spinozzi has had good reason to avoid long-term commitment. But after he takes one look at Lucy and basks in her kindness and unassuming, voluptuous beauty, he needs to make her his for more than a handful of nights. She’s a girl who deserves to be treated right, a tall order when he’s left a trail of broken female hearts behind. He’s going to have to do something he’s never done before—stay and woo her.

Even though Lucy knows she’s due to return home to England at the end of August and that Danilo will move on to his next conquest, she can’t resist him… Or has Danilo really changed his ways for good?

Read on for my thoughts on Taming The Italian Bad Boy.  No true spoilers, promise.

Taming The Italian Bad Boy is such a sweet and sensuous love story at the same time.  Lucy is a curvy English beauty whose family, aside from her Nana, really doesn’t see her as she truly is.  Perhaps neither does Lucy as she has become accustomed to small cuts and slights for most of her life.  When Danilo practically crashes into her quiet life Lucy may actually take her Nana’s words of “take a wee risk” to heart.

Danilo is truly a man with a wicked reputation.  He has no intention of settling down and has enjoyed his life of affairs and rules of no long term commitments quite well so far.  Yet, Lucy pulls at him as no other woman has.  Yes, she is not a petite stick like so many woman he has dated are.  Her womanly curves are a delight to him, but even more is the person within those curves, the woman who doesn’t truly see her own worth.  But if Danilo has his way she soon will.

The book cover description tells you much about Taming The Italian Bad Boy, so let me tell you about the feelings this story evokes.  Lucy is a sweet, charming young woman who cannot see what she has to offer.  She sees herself through the eyes of her family and classmates.  Her stammer and her body build have convinced her that she will never find a man to love her for just her.  She’s shy, timid yet there is a boldness beneath the surface that Danilo brings out.  Our handsome, sexy hero Danilo has serious trust issues.  He cannot believe in a lifelong, forever kind of love for he never saw it in his reality.  So a bad boy playboy has become his lifestyle.  With Lucy he found something he never knew truly existed.  Sure, his plans for them had only been for a few months during her stay in Italy.  But slowly she has opened up a closed heart, one that cannot resist the love of a good woman.

As I said earlier – a sweet yet sensuous love story.  Each of them finds something in the other that no one else has.  Each brings out emotions that neither thought possible for them.  Their road to love is not without a few pitfalls, love rarely is that easy, yet in the end they will see past what they were and believe in what they can be together.

I enjoyed Lucy and Danilo’s romance very much and would recommend Taming The Italian Bad Boy for any reader of romance who believes that love is possible for anyone especially when they are not looking for it.

*I received an e-ARC of Taming The Italian Bad Boy from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. That does not change what I think of this novel.*

Available for the Kindle