In The Marcelli Bride Susan Mallery pulls off a terrific triple play by combining action/adventure, daily family life, and a wonderful romance. Add in a soupcon of hot sex and extremely likable characters and you have my second DIK of the year. Since I went all of last year without a DIK, I am happy that things have picked up this year.

U.S. Presidential Daughter Darcy Jensen is having the most horrendous day. She has been kidnapped out from under the lax noses of her Secret Service detail, and if that isn’t bad enough, the baddies throw her back. They wanted to kidnap her sister Lauren; as the kidnappers tell her, “nobody cares about you.”

Until the kidnappers are caught, the Secret Service decides to send the two sisters to separate safe houses. Darcy is sent to the Marcelli Winery. Lt. Commander Joe Larson is selected to be the liaison between the Marcelli family and the new group of agents guarding Darcy. Joe is chosen for three reasons: 1)he is the estranged biological son of the Marcelli’s; 2)his SEAL unit just screwed up and caused an admiral’s prize antique boat to be blown to smithereens; and 3)Darcy has a reputation of being a spoiled, royal pain in the ass. His captain decides that Joe’s being out of the admiral’s sight for a while would be the best thing for Joe’s career and Joe has no choice but to accept the assignment.

Joe has extremely mixed emotions about going to the winery. He has tried to keep the Marcelli clan at arm’s length since they found him three years earlier. Joe was given up for adoption at birth because Marco and Colleen Marcelli were still in high school when he was born. Grandpa Lorenzo forced them to give up Joe and he has long regretted his actions. But Joe, who had an absolutely miserable childhood, has not been able to put the past behind him and accept his family. Somehow their complete acceptance and love for him makes him wary and angry and he has several shouting matches with Lorenzo and various family members. The Marcelli’s for their part are so happy that Joe was found; they love him and want him to take his place as the proper heir to the family business. Joe, though, wants no part of any of it and wishes they would just leave him alone. Mallery does a good job in filling in this backstory for those who have not read the previous three books without boring readers who are already familiar with the Marcelli clan.

After the action-packed beginning, this lovely book becomes a tale of romance and family interaction. Darcy turns out to be a scared and insecure girl. Her vulnerability during the kidnapping left her unable to eat or sleep. Darcy uses humor and sarcasm to disguise the hurts she’s suffered in the media and from her father. Her distance from her family stems from Darcy discovering on the night her mother died that she was not her father’s biological child. Their relationship has grown extremely distant.

The author keeps all of the family interaction lively and interesting as Joe tries to come to terms with his family and cautiously opens himself up to Darcy. After having been a foster child, trust, love and openness are not easy for Joe, who considers the Navy his true family. He worries greatly about the damage done to his career by his men.

The book’s dialogue is extremely lively, realistic, and often funny. Joe’s sisters are very well drawn and the pain that his grandparents feel over Joe’s rejection of the family is very real. When one of the family members passes away in the story, I cried right along with Darcy; her interaction with Joe at the funeral as they drew together for comfort made them very believable candidates for a HEA ending.

I also liked Darcy’s emotional growth as she begins to realize it is her who kept her family at arm’s length and that they tried to reach her before finally giving up. She warns Joe that the unconditional love of the Marcelli’s is not something to take lightly – she realizes that this extremely brave and capable man is actually afraid of letting his family into his heart. Darcy’s fear that when the Marcelli’s meet her sister Lauren they will no longer want Darcy as part of them was well done. She honestly believes everyone will prefer the lovely Lauren. The nice surprise here is that Lauren was not portrayed in a negative goody-two-shoes way or as a selfish bitch, she is likable and interesting enough that I would like to see her have her own story connected to the Marcelli clan.

With Lauren’s arrival I thought the story would wind down in traditional romance novel fashion, but things ratchet up so that I was on the edge of my seat as the denouement ending the book with a bang. The author’s avoidance of standard romance plot choices was one of the things that made this book great rather than merely good or even quite good. A secondary romance between two Secret Service agents added fun and intrigue as well (“I love you even if you are a pain-in-the-ass.” “That’s OK, I love you too, even if you have a stick up your ass.”).

My only niggle with The Marcelli Bride was that it ended too soon. I would have liked another chapter or epilogue showing the Marcelli clan following tradition and gathering to make Darcy’s bridal gown, and perhaps a glimpse of Joe in his dress whites waiting at the altar. But, that is a minor quibble. In what has been a very good series to date, with this latest installment, Mallery has stepped over into greatness, and I can hardly wait for Mia Marcelli’s story.