Who Illustrated The Original Strega Nona Book?

Vittoria Guerra was raised to rule. Born into the Cosa Nostra, she was groomed as an heir, not a daughter. Trained to read people with deadly precision, Vittoria sees what others miss—lies, weakness, intention. Power is the only certainty she trusts. When an unexpected betrayal pulls her into the hands of the ’Ndrangheta, Vittoria finds herself trapped inside enemy territory where alliances are currency and survival demands sacrifice. What begins as a strategic arrangement quickly becomes something far more dangerous. In a world ruled by blood and ambition, trust is a risk and emotion is a liability. The Don’s Daughter is a dark mafia romance about legacy, control, and a woman who was raised as a weapon in a game where every move has a cost.

For one year, I believed Matteo De Luca had truly fallen in love with me. Our marriage began as an alliance, but he held me every night, kissed me before council meetings, and fastened the De Luca Donna brooch at my throat as if I already belonged beside him. Then his first love, Vanessa Ashford, came back. Within days, our official ceremony was postponed, her access was added to the Donna wing, and Matteo stopped wearing the family signet he once used to claim me in public. He said it was council business. But council business did not leave amber perfume on his skin. It did not sit beside him on a private jet to Palm Beach. And it certainly did not smile from the Donna’s chair while his friends watched me lose my place. The final humiliation came at a private dinner, when someone asked whether I was Matteo’s wife. He looked at me, then said calmly, “Elena and I have an arrangement.” That night, I stopped waiting to be chosen. Matteo could keep his first love, his title, and the home he let her enter. I packed my passport, my Florence contract, and the prenatal report he had never seen. Then I left New York with his child.

Every Christmas Eve in Port Saint Giovanni, the Camerlano family hosts the Claiming Rite at Saint Giovanni Manor. Twelve girls stand in a line. Whoever receives the white-gold signet pin becomes the heir’s publicly acknowledged bride candidate. I am Grace Sorrento, the bastard daughter of the Sorrento family. If I do not receive that signet tonight, by sunrise I will be put on a plane to Chicago and married off to a Rizzo, a man rumored to have killed two former fiancées. Adrian Camerlano, the boy I grew up with, swore to me in blood three days ago that the signet would be mine. But when the moment came, his hand turned. With a smile, he pinned it on Lucia, the orphan his family had sponsored. Then he leaned close to my ear. "Let Lucia have her moment. No one has ever really looked at her before. Don’t worry. This is my estate. No one will dare arrange your marriage without my say." I grabbed his sleeve, but he removed my fingers one by one. "Lucia has no roots and no last name. Tonight is all she has. But you are a Sorrento. Even without the signet, no one will touch you." That phrase, no last name, drew every gaze in the ballroom toward me, full of pity and quiet mockery. The next morning, I boarded a flight to Chicago. When Adrian heard, he made one call to Port Saint Giovanni Air Control. "Ground every plane. Nothing leaves today!"

In the Corvona underworld, there is one unspoken rule. When a Don keeps a new woman by his side for three consecutive months, the Donna must personally remove the signet ring symbolizing her power and place it on the new woman's finger before the entire family. When my husband, Luca, the Don of the Bellini family, announced he would take Mia alone on a three-month business trip, the entire Corvona underworld waited for me to have a meltdown. I had been with Luca Bellini for seven years. I followed him everywhere, refusing to leave his side. I would even wake up in the middle of the night to touch him, needing to know he was there to feel secure. They were all aware of my clinginess and were betting I would never let go. But when Mia extended her hand to me, her voice dripping with saccharine, I didn't shed a single tear. I calmly removed the signet ring engraved with the family crest and slid it onto her ring finger. Luca, lounging in the leather chair at the head of the table, swirled the whiskey in his glass, satisfaction gleaming in his cold blue eyes. "Elara, you've finally learned your place." I lowered my gaze to my bare finger, saying nothing in return. What Luca didn't know was that a month ago, I had recovered all seven years of my lost memories. I wasn't some street orphan at all, but the long-lost Principessa of the Rossi family, the most powerful of the Old World families. In three days, my brother's armed convoy would roll into Corvona to take me home.

When I took a bullet for Theo Moretti, the bullet grazed my temple, compressing the optic nerve and causing blindness in both my eyes. He kneeled by my hospital bed, pressed the family crest to his chest, and swore: “Sophie, I will be your eyes for life. If I break this oath, may I die a horrendous death.” I believed him. However, the day my sight returned, I saw Theo through the bedroom door, naked on our marital bed with the maid, Isabella. He gripped her waist and thrust violently, his voice hoarse in a way I had never heard, growling, “Bella… you really are the most seductive woman in all of Sicily…” “Theo, who else besides me could satisfy you like this in bed? Divorce that blind woman already!” Isabella nibbled his earlobe. “After all, I’m the one who truly understands you.” “Wait a little longer,” Theo panted. “I need time… Don Lucas just handed me control of the docks. If I divorce now, I’ll be left with nothing.” Rare snowflakes rained down outside. I walked barefoot out of the estate in a thin nightgown and sent an encrypted message to my father. “Father, send someone to pick me up in three days. I’m coming home.” Don Lucas, my father, never expected that the boss he had personally promoted would dare betray his daughter. He replied with a single sentence: “For daring to betray you, Theo’s dead.” What I did not know was that this message would ignite a storm that would sweep across all of Sicily. In three days, Theo Moretti, the man I had risked my life for and I had personally helped rise to power, would lose everything he held dear, including me.

Araceli has spent her entire life sheltered within the church, raised under the watchful and rather twisted guidance of Father Ambrose who was like the only family she has ever known. But just after turning eighteen, she is given away to a man she believes is the great love God has destined for her. With unwavering faith and a heart full of hope, she steps into what she thinks is her wedding, only to be humiliated when she discovers the truth. The man she was promised to is marrying someone else. Shattered and alone, she flees into the unknown, desperate for refuge. That’s when she crosses paths with Luciano Salvatore. To her innocent eyes, he seems like a savior. But Araceli has unknowingly walked straight into the arms of the devil himself. And the devil has no intention of letting her go. What started as a mere intrigue grows into a deep desire and dark obsession that makes a man go mad and go to insane lengths to keep his little saint by him.