Her Name, Written in Blood

Official public synopsis

A complete, unpublished work.

In 1923, twenty-three-year-old Lucia Bellandi leaves Canepina, Italy, for New York with her father’s savings sewn into her coat and a private dream of Broadway. The city offers possibility, but it also judges her accent, her surname, and her empty pockets. As Lucia earns her first real role, she falls for Mario, an Italian American ironworker and war veteran who must learn that loving her is not the same as deciding for her.

Lucia’s rising profile draws the attention of polished racketeer Carlo Vitale and his violent rival, Emilio Mancuso. Extortion, nightclub gunfire, police corruption, and a theater fire turn her success into leverage—and when Lucia’s name is written in another young actress’s blood, she refuses to let fear define what the Bellandi name will mean. Her fight for love, independence, and a future of her own opens a completed three-book family crime saga.