Hidden Heart by Camelia Miron Skiba

Hidden Heart
Camelia Miron Skiba

Synopsis: Tessa Cosma is a deceptively sweet businesswoman who knows how to ride the wave of chaos in corrupt, post-communist Romania to maintain the lifestyle she so carefully built for herself. Her ideal world shatters when an unplanned pregnancy ends after a brutal assault. To compound her troubles, she must unravel a fraud accusation that threatens her reputation and career. Alessandro Santinelli, the charismatic Italian banker with whom she spent an incredible, lust-filled night a year ago, comes to her rescue. But Tessa refuses his help and chooses to rise above the devastating forces of death, betrayal and fraud to prove her innocence and discover her true self. Throughout Tessa's journey towards forgiveness and redemption, Alessandro guards over her from a distance. He provides her the space and time she needs to heal, meanwhile hoping to recapture something he believes was lost and unattainable.

Wow. Hidden Heart takes you on quite the emotional journey. Tessa Cosma certainly gets rung through the ringer again and again and again. She starts off being someone every woman in post-Communist Romania wishes they could be - successful and respected by the men she works with (but unfortunately not by the numbskels in the street that still treat Romanian women like no-nothing whores and loser boyfriends that can't deal with the woman being more successful than they are). Her job and relationship officially go to hell-in-a-handbasket when she's accused of stealing money from her latest work transaction, then cancels an out of town work obligation just to go home and find her boyfriend in bed with another woman. What a day...

But the hits don't stop there. The bank employee sent to investigate the fraud allegations turns out to be a man she had a steamy one night stand with. Joy. Her drunk ex-boyfriend begins to harass her and threaten violence. Super joy. She finds out she's pregnant with drunk's child. Gre-at...A family member passes away. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Is it any wonder she contemplates suicide after being brutally beaten and left for dead?

What I liked about Hidden Heart was that you trully learned to care for Tessa and began to feel what was happening right along with her. Luckily, Tessa has one positive thing going for her that makes all these horrible tribuations bearable - a new lover that makes her heart melt...and the reader's too.

 Copy provided by author for honest review.