Reviews for The Seductive One (Marcelli Sisters Series #3)

The average rating for The Seductive One (Marcelli Sisters Series #3) based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-09-04 00:00:00 Christopher Beresford The only two things Brenna Marcelli wants in life is to run the family business, Marcelli Winery, after her grandfather and to start her own wine label. When the former seems to be even further out of reach then before upon the discovery of her long-lost older brother, Joe, Brenna goes ahead with the plans for her own label, Four Sisters Winery. After exhausting all of her options, she turns to her last hope: Nicholas Giovanni. The Giovanni and Marcelli families have been enemies for over sixty years, yet Brenna turns to Nic for a million-dollar loan. It seems like an okay idea: go to Nic for the money, hope he gives it to her, and make the most of it if he does. However, Nic and Brenna have a history: ten years before, when given the choice, Nic chose Brenna over his family, but she chose her family over him, bringing about a betrayal so fierce that he still holds it close to his heart all these years later. Ever since coming back from his exile to run Wild Seas Winery after his grandfather's death, Nic has been waiting for the moment when he could buy Marcelli Winery and humiliate the Marcelli family. When Brenna comes to him asking for the loan, he figures that he has the perfect leverage to hold over her grandfather. So he gives her the loan and continues with his plan to destroy Lorenzo Marcelli and his family, against the advice of a close friend. As Brenna moves forward with her label, she and Nic spend a lot of time together, getting to know one another again. She even invites the illustrious Nic to the engagement party of her sisters Katie and Francesca. While at the party, the Marcelli family, with the exception of Lorenzo, welcomes Nic into the family and is kind to him, making him have a few doubts about his plan. When a commotion is caused by the arrival of Joe Larson, the long-lost Marcelli son, Nic is left by Brenna to think about what he's about to do but he doesn't change his mind. Days later, Nic and Brenna rehash the past and the complete truth finally comes out, resulting in a moment of passion and remembrance as they relearn all the ways they had pleasured each other before. Upon being offered the winery, Joe turns it down and defends Brenna, who has quickly become his favorite sister, to their grandfather and threatens Nic should he hurt her. Brenna and Nic continue to get closer, however, and she realizes that she is in love with him, that maybe she never stopped loving him all these years. Not long after coming to this realization, she learns from her grandfather that someone offered to buy the winery and it became painfully obvious to her that she may never have her dream come true. In tears, she runs to Nic and tells him everything that had happened and then proceeds to tell him that she loved him. Just when he is about to tell her what he had been planning concerning the winery, Mia, Brenna's younger sister, comes in with the diary of Nic's great-grandmother, Sophia, which she had been translating for him, and reveals that the reason for the families fued had been true all along: Nic's great-grandfather, Salvatore, had poisoned the vines of Brenna's great-grandfather, Antonio, because Sophia and Antonio had had an affair and conceived a child together, resulting in a stillbirth. Nic never gets the chance to tell Brenna about his plan because she leaves with Mia to tell Lorenzo about what Mia had found. While talking with Mia and Brenna, Lorenzo reluctantly tells them that he knows who really wanted to buy the winery: Nic. Brenna's heart his broken, not only because of Nic's plans to ruin her family, but because she had told him she loved him and thought he hadn't cared for her at all. After not being able to see her that night, Nic calls the house the next morning to talk to Brenna but Mia picks up and tells him to never call again. After weeks of not seeing each other, Brenna still misses Nic but refuses to go to him as he betrayed her and her family. In the midst of all this, Lorenzo reveals that he had been testing her ever since she returned to the hacienda to see if she would stay at the winery and run it after he died. He tells her that she passed and that he was going to leave her in charge and let her start making more changes to the winery. One day when the two were walking together, Lorenzo brings her to where the dividing line between Giovanni and Marcelli lines should have been before handing her a piece of paper stating that Nic had given her part of the Giovanni lands. Her and only her. Nic approaches and the two of them talk, with Grandpa Lorenzo slipping away inconspicuously. Nic says he will do anything to get her back because he loves her so much that he never wants to be apart from her again. She accepts his proposal to marry him and suggests making Francesca and Katie's double wedding into a triple wedding, and they live happily ever after until the next Marcelli novel. I absolutely loved Nic Giovanni. From the moment he stepped onto the page, I wanted to be in the book so he would fall in love with me instead. He was sexy, smart, funny and sarcastic, loving, and attentive. He was adorable with Max, his new puppy. I appreciated his dedication and love for wine and his job, even if he drove me crazy sometimes. I felt for him when he admitted to always being envious of how close-knit the Marcelli family was and wished he could have that too and was glad when he and Brenna finally got together, making him a part of the family. Admittedly, there were parts in this novel where he did things that, if he was any other guy, would make me furious at him, like when he was planning to ruin the Marcelli family and didn't change his mind even after coming to know them. If any other male character did that, I would have been so thoroughly pissed off with him, but with Nic, I could barely stay mad at him! How did Susan Mallery create such a fantastic character that I could not resist?! Brenna was so adorable. I admired her strength of mind, heart, and body, her determination, wit and sense of humor, her sarcasm, love for her family, and her love for the wine and her job. I respected when she started her own wine label to prove that she could and to show her grandfather that she was worthy of running Marcelli Winery. I admired the fact that she did not resent Joe and could still find it in her heart to love him, despite the fact that he could have taken everything she ever wanted away from her. Brenna Marcelli was just an all around great character. Grandpa Lorenzo annoyed me quite a bit throughout the novel, expect in the end. I appreciated how reluctant he was to tell Brenna that Nic was the buyer and that he wanted her to be the one to run the winery so bad that he had to test her to make sure. And I love how he was the one to bring Nic and Brenna back together in the end. I just loved everyone in this book and it makes me want to go out and find copies of the first two and the last two Marcelli books so that I can read up on the whole family. Susan Mallery has quickly become one of my favorite authors and I find myself snapping up her books at every chance I get. In this book, I found some similarities to Mallery's Lone Star Sisters series, despite the fact that this series came first. First the fact that the Marcelli sisters had a long-lost, older brother (even though he was not malicious towards them as Garth Duncan was to the Titan sisters). Second the fact that Nic was using sneaky but legal ways in order to ruin the Marcelli family. And third the fact that ten years before Brenna chose her family over Nic, just as Skye chose her father over Mitch. However, these similarities didn't bother me. Usually, I really don't appreciate reading books, especially by the same author, that are very similar. Maybe I was just able to move past that and to see the magnificence of the novel itself.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-09-18 00:00:00 Mark Mcewen I loved learning about wines at this level. Brenna and Nic are really good at the wine repartee and great characters. Brenna can really work hard, and Nic holds a pretty mean grudge. I wasn't sure about his reparations, since I figure grafts would have been enough if I was reading the wine growing data correctly, but it was a classy gesture. You were really in Brenna's corner from the get-go, whether it involved Nic or her grandfather. What a book!