The Banker

By: Penelope Sky

Narrated by: Michael Ferraiuolo, Natalie Eaton

Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

They've taken my father. They'll take me next unless I comply with their demands. 

Taking down the most powerful man in Italy. 

Cato Marino. 

The man is accompanied by his security team everywhere he goes. His fortress in Tuscany is impenetrable. He's the most paranoid man in the country. 

And there's no possibility I'll be able to take him down alone. 

If I want to save my father, I only have one option. 

To get into Cato's bed...and stay there.

©2019 Penelope Sky (P)2019 Penelope Sky

SHE’S DONE IT AGAIN.. A 5 ⭐️ NON-STOP LISTEN

After the Buttons and Lingerie series, Penelope Sky is an auto-download author for me and the start of this, her new dark trilogy, had me riveted til the wee hours.. and I knew I wasn’t going to stop (or sleep) until I’d reached the end. It’s an all consuming story as the heroine Siena is threatened and forced to get ‘up close and personal’ to cold-blooded Cato (the most feared man in Italy) to save her estranged father. He’d been kidnapped by a vicious criminal gang who want Cato badly but he’s always surrounded by layers of heavily armed guards.. or in clubs with a revolving door of interchangeable ‘pairs’ of women. Cato and his brother are cold-blooded killers.. they’re criminals.. they’re bankers to mobsters, cartels and crime syndicates.. and Siena has to lure him in without getting caught.

Siena and Cato’s journey doesn’t start off well.. but, along the way, attraction and chemistry knock down walls, bring them closer and fuels a steamy relationship. However, as Siena manoeuvres and manipulates to get closer and closer to Cato, it’s her you’ll want to smack not him because he’s the victim.. he lowered his walls to let her in, he ignored his brother’s advice and he misguidedly trusted her. But it didn’t end well for either Siena (or me) because there was a nasty evil cliffhanger waiting for the both of us.

Worth a credit? I love.. love.. loved it - but I wish I’d known beforehand that this is part 1 of a trilogy because I’d never have started it until all the books are out. Nevertheless, it’s an intense and insanely good start, the dual POV narration by Michael and Natalie was perfect and YES, IMO, it’s definitely creditworthy.

so disappointed.

loved it until the cliffhanger!!!!! Love this author, tired of her never-ending trilogy's!!!!!!. tell me first. let me choose to buy now or wait until I can get them all at once. Love the story, HATE the wait.

Cliffhanger

Where is book 2? I hate when there is a cliffhanger without another book to follow!

Poorly researched; Cliffhanger/first in a series

First, this book is a cliffhanger first book in a series. The others are available yet so it looks like a stand alone on the Audible site, but it’s not.

Nothing irritates me more than a poorly researched book. This isn’t the author’s first book to take place in Italy, yet you’d think it was and that she had no clue. It comes across as she’s never even been there or done any research other than briefly looking at a map.

She just writes Americans but claimed the cities they are in are Italian cities - total lack of understanding the Italian people and culture. One example: they go out to dinner and the woman says something like, “Who goes to an Italian restaurant and doesn’t eat cheese?" First, not all Italian food has cheese, but worst yet, if someone is Italian and eating at a restaurant in Italy, it’s not an “Italian restaurant” its just a “restaurant”, nothing special about the type of cuisine.

There are also multiple times when the characters contradict something they say a few chapters earlier. There are many inconsistencies throughout the book. It’s like they were rushing to produce and publish this book so didn’t take time to think about or edit the writing.

Also, a major detail that should give away her secret is brushed away with a totally inaccurate addressing of the issue. She’s shot in the first chapter (first chapter, so not a real spoiler). However, a month later her wound is passed off as an old injury. It wouldn’t be remotely healed after a month. She might even still have the stitches!

Performance: average. There were a few points where the female performer even put more life into the narration than the words the character actually says, so that’s a little weird. Nothing else truly bad about the narration, but nothing spectacular either.

The story line has potential, but I’m debating if I’d read the next book in the series. It would depend on if it’s better researched and written than this one. I am however motivated by the cliffhanger - it’s a good one (but I won’t reveal that detail here).

Pretty terrible

I chose this and another one to take advantage of a sale, and pretty much anytime I’ve done this I’ve been disappointed. I end up trying authors and titles I’d never choose otherwise. This was such a stupid story that I couldn’t find a way to care about. The sex scenes got grosser and more stupid (for example: ‘I went to sleep with so much cum and cream between my legs it stained the sheets’) it’s not sexy, it doesn’t add anything to the story. Ultimately this (totally cliched male character )supposed master of wealth, power, money and sex is taken down by regular vanilla sex without a condom after he’s used to only having sex with two women at a time and whatever he pleases but he’s never had sex without a condom so that was the clincher for this lothario. Oh and the fact that every other woman wanted to love and marry him except this one. How stupid. I’ve never listened to a book on 2x speed, still skipped through in the 30 second jumps, chosen to just skip chapters altogether till the 2nd to last then still skipped in 30 second intervals. The male narrator would be great to read non fiction or something like Hamilton but for this his voice is just too mature and austere. This was terrible.

Another great series

I really enjoyed this dark romance. Cato was a "too rich and handsome for his own good" jerk. This book reminds me of the Buttons series and it drew me in from the beginning. Siena was given an impossible task to bring Cato down. The writing was excellent and the story moved along at a nice pace. The narrators were outstanding.

Disappointed

Prepare yourself for unnecessary vulgarity. The ending wii leave you hanging. This could have been a good book.

Awful! Awful! Awful!

Maybe, but I doubt it, this book would not have been so bad if I read it instead of listening to it. Female sounded too young and had lengthy pauses at the end of every sentence. Very annoying, she also grossly overacted. The male narrator had the most annoying nasal voice. Both did awful renditions of opposite sex voices. Performance was just bad, really bad. Characters were extremely shallow, female was an idiot, male major conceited ass who loved the "c" word which is just not sexy. The female used the "d" word which was also not sexy. The writing was immature and lackluster. I cannot think of one thing to say positive about this book except, thank God it is over. I am definitely not reading the last two books in this trilogy. Don't waste your Audible credits or money on the Kindle version.

not her best - this is book one not a complete nov

story line was very good but very repetitive, same thing over and over to make a 4 hour read into 7+ hours.

Worst book ever

This was the worst book I ever read or listened. It felt more like a porn book. It was total waste of money. Do not recommend these kinds of books ever.😒😒

Good story

I feel sorry for her her future is so uncertain it would be good to hear more from this story is there a sequel? I hope so I want to know what happens to her and the child