Is Lisa Taddeo Book Based On A True Story?

After fifteen years away, I was finally brought back to the DeLuca family. I thought I was returning to my real home. Instead, I walked into a house where the adopted daughter wanted me dead, my father treated me like a burden, and my brothers would rather watch me bleed than make her cry. On my first day back, she set dogs on me. That night, I was dragged to the top of the observatory and forced to apologize to her. When I fell from the tower covered in blood, they still called me a liar. Because in the DeLuca family, I may have been the real daughter by blood— but she was the daughter they loved. She thought she could bully me, poison me, and freeze me to death without consequence. She was wrong. Because the night I nearly died, my mother finally chose me—and turned a gun on the whole DeLuca family.

For five years, I let my husband’s mistress take whatever she wanted. My birthday. His time. His attention. The tenderness that used to belong to me. I even told myself I could survive watching my own son choose her over me, because a damaged family still had to be better than none at all. It wasn’t. This year, my husband took his mistress away for their birthday trip, and my son ran straight into her arms and called her Mom. That was the moment I finally understood something I should have learned five years ago: no matter how much of myself I gave to that family, I would never be the one they chose. So I filed for divorce. None of them believed I could really walk away. My husband thought I was bluffing. His mistress thought she had won. My son did not even look back. None of them believed I could really walk away. Then a call came from overseas: Matteo Bellandi’s wife was dead. This time, I left them with nothing but my ashes.

When Elena Russo's husband, the formidable mafia boss Lorenzo Russo, is brutally murdered, her life is shattered. But as she delved deeper into his past, she began to doubt all she thought she knew about him. Secrets emerge—dangerous ones—and she wonders if she ever truly knew the man she married. With each discovery, the distinctions between love, treachery, and revenge become less clear. Adrian DeLuca, a powerful rival with a personal vendetta, becomes the prime suspect. He not only owned a stake in Lorenzo’s casino but had a heated confrontation with him just a day before his death. But Adrian has his own demons—forever haunted by his mother’s brutal murder at the hands of his father’s enemies. Determined to prove himself to the man who never saw him as enough, Adrian sees Elena as both a key to the truth and the woman he’s secretly desired for years. With the truth emerging and unseen foes waiting in the shadows, Elena must decide if she can trust Adrian to help her solve the mystery of Lorenzo's death. But as the truth emerges, it threatens to shatter the illusion of the man she once loved, forcing her to choose between vengeance, survival, and a passion she never expected.

From frying pan to fire was the story of Isadora's life. In the space of a day, her hopes and dreams of going to college are taken from her, she is sold to a cruel don, kidnapped and then thrown into a world full of lies, greed and deceit. Isadora isn't supposed to trust anybody, and yet she finds herself unable to resist her new husband, even knowing that he may be the very enemy that seeks to destroy her.

She was a powerhouse—brilliant, driven, and unstoppable—until the day her world shattered in the delivery room. Told her baby had died at birth, she buried her grief beneath ambition and success, building an empire while silently mourning the child she never got to hold. What she never knew was the truth: her husband had betrayed her in the cruelest way imaginable, fleeing with his mistress and the newborn daughter he claimed was lost. Years later, a business expansion leads her to a quiet, close-knit town far from her high-rise life. There, among tree-lined streets and familiar faces, she meets a commanding, magnetic man whose strength matches her own—but whose integrity and warmth begin to crack the walls around her heart. As their connection deepens, unsettling coincidences surface, pulling her toward a past she was never meant to uncover. The revelation is devastating and undeniable: her daughter is alive, growing up in this very town, raised by the husband who abandoned her and the woman who stole her life. Forced to confront betrayal, buried grief, and a motherhood stolen from her, she must decide how far she’s willing to go for the truth—and for her child. In a town where secrets never stay hidden, she faces a choice between vengeance and forgiveness, between the life she built and the love she never knew she could still claim. This is a story of resilience, second chances, and discovering that sometimes, what was lost can still be found.

Isabella Romano has spent two years trapped in a house where every glance and whispered word reminds her she is nothing more than a pawn. Her husband, Adriano De Luca, keeps her at arm’s length, while his mother, Caterina, views her with disdain. When a figure from the past returns to Chicago, the delicate balance of power shatters. Alliances shift, dangerous desires ignite, and a web of deception threatens to consume everyone in its path. In a city ruled by mafia families, trust is rare and betrayal lurks behind every smile. Caught in a deadly game of manipulation, forbidden passion, and ambition, Isabella must decide: remain a pawn in her husband’s secret agenda, or rise, reclaim her power, and fight for the life she was meant to live — before everything she holds dear burns around her.