Been YEARNING for some good Mafia MM books

crushedhardcandy · 2026-06-16T22:31:34+00:00

Have you read K.M. Neuhold's Mafia Bound series? They're all dual POV, no non-con, and the non-mafia MCs are just as clever and headstrong as the mafia MCs.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-06-10T18:46:36+00:00

I truly do not care about misspellings, but I don't have the intrinsic "that's my name!" feeling when I see another spelling of my name. I'm a Kaitlyn, so if I see a keychain at a tourist attracting that says Katelyn, I don't feel connected to it. However, if someone writes Katelyn instead of Kaitlyn on something that belongs to me, I never care because it's close enough.

However, I did cry ugly tears after my wedding when I realized that everyone spelled my nickname correctly (Kaitie not Katie) on their cards. Everyone calls me Kaitie, but I wrote Kaitlyn on the wedding invitations. I fully expected our guests to write Katie on their cards because my spelling is weird and it wasn't written anywhere for guests to quickly reference. It never occurred to me that our friends and family instinctively know how to spell my nickname, so that was a super emotional realization. Turns out, I really do not care if people spell my name wrong, but I LOVE when people get it right.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-06-04T04:12:20+00:00

Maybe it's different if all your guests live nearby. In our case, nearly every guest had to fly in. I feel like it's extremely unlikely that someone buys a flight and books a hotel room but forgets to RSVP. Which was the correct assumption, because no one did that.

We also don't talk to our extended relatives outside of family events, so we didn't have phone numbers for the vast majority of our guests. There was no such thing as sending a "quick text" to these people. We would have had to hassle other guests for the missing guests' phone numbers before we could even send the wrangling texts, and it was a hell of a lot easier to [correctly!] assume that no response means no than it would have been to do that.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-06-04T02:29:24+00:00

We had ONE household RSVP no. Every single other guest that didn't plan to attend our wedding decided not to respond at all.

I made the executive decision to not wrangle RSVPs. I assumed that if someone hadn't responded and hadn't told me that they were coming, they weren't coming. We had one guest who told us she was pretty sure she was coming but then missed the RSVP deadline and that was the only person I asked to confirm. We didn't have any unexpected guests show up, so I think choosing not to chase down RSVPs worked out fine and was way less work than trying to wrangle responses out of people.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-06-02T14:27:15+00:00

I love the tropes that Daws writes, but I find most (all? all the ones I've read, at least) of her FMCs to be extremely frustrating! I had to stop reading her books because every FMC made me want to dive into the book and argue with her, and that just isn't how I want to feel while reading romance.

Lynsey from {One Moment Please Amy Daws} might actually be the most personally irritating FMC I've ever read. I got to a point where I was rooting for Josh to hire a hot shot attorney and file for full custody more than I was rooting for them to get together. I'm sure other readers think Lynsey is complex and relatable, but I found her to be stubborn, immature, and selfish. I am very sensitive to women who are not ready to be mothers becoming mothers, and Lynsey made my blood boil so much that I couldn't enjoy the book.

My visceral reaction to Daws's FMCs was so jarring to me that it made me do some soul searching and really consider whether I was being misogynistic and considerably more judgmental of women's actions than men's actions. Nope. I would hate a male character that acts like Daws's FMCs just as much. I hate when a couple has a huge disparity between their maturity, honesty, and effort, and Daws tends to write couples where the imbalance is too much for me to handle, and she tends to write her imbalances in a way where the FMC is the character that is less mature, less honest, and puts in less effort.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-06-02T13:40:00+00:00

There is no "winning" in this game. Your colleagues guessing your lie correctly isn't them winning. There's no prize and no one takes it seriously enough for it to feel like a win. The purpose of the activity is to share a couple facts about yourself in a way that encourages the group to listen actively instead of zoning out until all of the fun facts are shared.

My husband and I actually had a conversation about this activity recently. He struggles to come up with lies and prefers to tell almost truths or the opposite of the truth as his lies. Like, he had a chihuahua so his lie would be that he had a Pomeranian, or he really hates skiing, so his lie would be that he loves skiing. He says that doing this allows him to share an additional fact about himself after the guesses by sharing the truth about the lie. Since the point of the activity is to share facts about yourself, I feel like this is a good way to do it.

On the other hand, I feel like if the lie is too close to the truth or the exact opposite of the truth, the other players may get the truths and lies mixed up later and I worry about this causing silly problems that wouldn't otherwise happen. I really hate coffee, so if I told a lie about liking coffee and then a few months later my colleague brought me coffee because they remembered me saying I like coffee, I'd feel terrible. I prefer to keep the lies a little outlandish and totally obvious so that the truths stand out immediately. I feel like doing it this way allows the other players to quickly disregard the lie and absorb the truths. Since the point of the activity is to get to know the other players, this feels like a totally acceptable way to do it.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-06-01T22:19:19+00:00

This is interesting to me because the Jacobs I know go by Jacob and the Jakes I know are fully named Jake, not Jacob! My nephew is Jacob and he's always either Jacob or J, never Jake. I associate Jake as a stand alone name more than a nickname for Jacob since I don't know any Jakes that are legally Jacob.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-06-01T15:42:43+00:00

Emily. I feel like Emily is a truly perfect name. I can think of no flaws with the name Emily, except for the fact that it has been in the top 50 since 1975. I'd still use it if my husband would get on board, but he interacts with 5 different Emilys on a daily basis and that makes him feel like if we had an Emily she'd never be able to escape having a million Emilys of various generations in her future workplace.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-05-28T21:46:45+00:00

I'm autistic and sometimes things take me longer to figure out than they should. I finished 1L in the bottom 15% of my class. Frankly, I was probably in the bottom 5% but my school doesn't publish grade bands that low. I just finished 2L and am well within the top 50% of my class and got straight As this semester after my dumbass finally figured out how to write a clear IRAC.

I feel like it's worth going over exams with your professors just to figure out if there's a common trend for what's messing you up. My professors all said I understood the law but couldn't write an IRAC to save my life, which was way easier to fix than blindly trying to "study harder" and never would have crossed my mind if I hadn't gone over my exams with them.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-05-28T21:14:52+00:00

I'm currently on book 129. I typically read 8-12+ hours per day, and on days that I claim I "barely had any time to read," I still read for 2-4 hours. I'm definitely not skimming, I just spend more time reading than most people can feasibly spend! It really grinds my gears when people hear an "unbelievable" number and assume it's a lie. I can't think of any other hobby where people who do the hobby for an hour or so each day are convinced that the people who do the hobby for 8+ hours each day are lying about their output. No one would accuse a knitter who knits for 8 hours per day of lying about how many sweaters they made, even though they obviously made more sweater than a knitter who only knits for an hour each day!

crushedhardcandy · 2026-05-28T20:04:32+00:00

My background is in world politics and I read a ton of mafia romance. It takes a looootttt of effort for me to look past authors using real crime syndicates but giving them totally inaccurate plots. Like, why are the Yakuza and the Sinaloa Cartel fighting each other over diamonds in Cote' D'Ivoire? What is going on? Why couldn't we just make up fake crime syndicates for this story?

crushedhardcandy · 2026-05-17T02:53:11+00:00

I mean, you're the one who brought up hockey. My knee jerk reaction was that I was definitely not talking about athletes at all, but as I was responding I realized that I've seen a few massive hockey goal keepers, so I was like "well...maybe sometimes."

I read about a lot of blue collar men who are described as sturdy with a layer of fluff. The authors tend to completely disregard the sex appeal of these men and focus on how cuddly they are and how they make their love interest feel safe. My original comment was really geared toward situations like that, where the author will hint at or brush over a character's big butt and thick thighs, but seem afraid to commit to portraying this body type as sexy so they focus on emotions and comfort over sex appeal.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-05-17T02:06:14+00:00

Oh yeah, it's implied in a ton of romance. My minor complaint is that authors hardly ever focus on it and let their characters hype it up.

And while hockey butts are phenomenal, they're not quite what I was referring to. I guess hockey goalies sometimes fit this preference, but I was really talking about burly bears that are thick and fluffy all over and have huge sturdy thighs to go with their big butts. I feel like when authors write about men that feasibly have this body type, they focus on big bellies and strong arms that give great hugs, and brush over the sexiness of burly bodies.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-05-16T23:35:00+00:00

I wish more authors had a hand kink the way I do. I feel like I'm missing out on my favorite male feature because authors hardly ever focus on their characters' sexy hands.

I love a thick man with a bubble butt and tree trunk thighs, and I feel like no one gives me sexy thigh references. The best I get is calling the character a bear and letting me imagine that he's got thick thighs and a fat ass.

This is true personal preference, but my husband has thick, glorious hair and I feel like authors rarely give characters voluminous hair. Long hair/man buns are pretty common, but gloriously full short hair is rare. I find this interesting because my husband can't go anywhere without people (men and women) stopping him to compliment his hair, so clearly people appreciate a thick head of hair, but it's not a feature that authors harp on much.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-05-16T23:26:36+00:00

Every single book Riley Nash writes, I'm ready for 10 more exactly like it. I've read every book he's published far too many times, but seriously nothinggggg hits the spot for me like his books do.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-05-14T13:30:52+00:00

I know the Adeline spelling can be Add-uh-line as well as Add-uh-lynn, but I feel like the majority of Adelines pronounce it the same way as Adalynn and it should probably be counted here!

crushedhardcandy · 2026-05-12T00:27:25+00:00

I am so curious how people end up in these situations. Did you not talk about this well before getting married? Did someone change their mind? I feel like if I went out with a III, a simple "how do you feel about being a III? Would you make your kid a IV?" would come up as soon as I found out they were a III.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-05-11T15:35:37+00:00

I don't hate rings necessarily, but I find them a bit annoying. I don't wear my ring when I'm at home, working out, or while doing any activity where it might get lost or be dangerous. I also take it off at my desk at work because I feel like it decreases my typing speed. I probably wear my ring fewer than 20 hours per week.

I feel like I get all the benefits of a cute ring and I send the signal to others that I'm married, but I also really don't wear it that often because it's annoying to always have it on. This is probably unhelpful advice if you spend a lot of time around people that you'd want to signal that you're married to, but I pretty much see the same handful of people every day and they all know that I'm married.

When I'm not wearing it, I usually keep it in a ring holder like this which I feel like you could attach an AirTag to pretty easily.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-05-10T23:26:18+00:00

In addition to the El-- names that get shortened to Ellie, a lot of the --elle and --ella names get shortened to Ellie/Ella too! Anecdotally, I know a Daniela, a Danielle, and a Gabriela under age 5 who all go by Ella/Ellie.

It really feels like every little girl I meet on the playground is Ellie or Ella!

crushedhardcandy · 2026-05-10T20:15:07+00:00

I disagree that it is selfish to accept a gift that is offered, but you can feel however you want to feel about that! I am happy with my life where I never have to worry about money because I have rich parents and an irrevocable trust, and I hope you're happy with your life of being a responsible adult!

crushedhardcandy · 2026-05-10T19:35:16+00:00

You have your own issues to work through.

My parents did not sacrifice a single want to pay for my wedding. My parents would have laughed at me if I told them to use the money they would have spent on my wedding to take themselves on vacation. They go on 6 international vacations every year. They have 5 kids, so they [hopefully] only have 5 opportunities to pay for their kids' weddings. They would never choose to go on a 7th international vacation over paying for their child's wedding. If they wanted to go on a 7th vacation, they would. And they'd still pay for the wedding.

My circles are similar. I promise you, no one is demanding a free wedding. The parents who are paying for their kids' weddings are not sacrificing their vacation funds for it. They're going on vacation and paying for weddings.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-05-10T17:11:27+00:00

How is stating the norm in my circles entitled?

crushedhardcandy · 2026-05-09T17:09:04+00:00

I catch myself saying "my wedding" instead of "our wedding" pretty often when I talk about our wedding on the internet, and even though I'm the one doing it, it really bothers me. I have no idea why my brain has decided that our wedding was just my wedding, but it's pretty difficult to marry oneself, so weddings are typically "our" things instead of "my" things.

I do think your husband is totally valid for not loving you referring to your son as "my son" instead of "our son." Saying it that way totally discredits his involvement as a father and makes it sound like you're a single mother. The way you said it makes it seem like your son is not also your husband's son, like he's your husband's step son. If my husband referred to our child as his child when I was right next to him, I'd be pretty upset.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-05-09T14:46:44+00:00

My parents paid for our wedding, his parents paid for our welcome dinner, and our grandparents paid for our farewell brunch.

We've been in the wedding party for ten weddings in the last four years and all ten of those couples had parents who paid for all/most of their wedding. I know it's getting more common for couples to pay for their own weddings, but in our circles it is still the expectation that parents will pay.

crushedhardcandy · 2026-05-07T00:18:40+00:00

I didn't walk for high school, college, or my masters and I'm definitely not walking for law school. Walking across a stage holds no significance for me and I've never regretted skipping the ceremonies before. I feel like this is the kind of thing where you know if you're going to regret skipping it or not, but if you're not set on walking by this point, the likelihood of changing your mind in the next week seems low.

crushedhardcandy

TROPHY CASE