THE BOSS' DAUGHTER

Hey y'all! I'm new to this forum and would love some feedback. I can't say I hate my synopsis, but it certainly gives me pause. I keep thinking it sucks (which it might) or maybe I'm just overthinking it and it's not too terrible. Either way, it seems the synopsis was harder to write than the novel - which is a romantic thriller about the daughter of a mob boss. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!

Synopsis

Renee Parnell is the only child of a powerful mob boss in Boston, Massachusetts. On her wedding day her fiancé, Christopher Reynolds, is pronounced dead before the ceremony can start and Renee suspects her father is responsible.

Matthew Parnell is a selfish, arrogant, and powerful Underboss for an organized crime family, separate from the New York Five, run by David Lundy. Matthew never wanted children, but when his wife dies in childbirth, he has no choice but to raise Renee alone. Renee is raised in the Family and, at the age of sixteen, becomes the youngest Madame of the Family. She is sworn to protect all women who bear the tattoo of a black rose extending from right shoulder to left hip with a teardrop in the shape of a letter P hanging from a single thorn.

So focused on her work, Chloe knows next to nothing about typical teenage girl life outside the family. The girls who work for her become her closets friends and the ones Renee turns to when she meets Christopher and doesn’t understand the powerful feelings that gush forth whenever she thinks about him. The girls help Renee understand her feelings and, after their first date, Renee and Christopher are inseparable.

After the wedding, Matthew confronts Renee, telling her that he is responsible for Christopher’s death and reveals his revulsion and utter contempt toward his daughter. While holding a gun to her head, he informs her that he will do everything in his power to emotionally destroy her, using her until he gets what he wants - David’s power as Boss of the Family. Once Matthew has attained his goal, Renee’s death will be swift.

Terrified, Renee flees Boston and drives to Virginia where she obtains a new life. She is given a new identity as Chloe Riggs, and career as a small business consultant so she is able to travel for work without having to stay in one place too long.

Over the eight years after running away, women with the black rose tattoo have been showing up dead on the news. Chloe knows her father is ordering the murders, and knows he’s doing it to keep his promise to hurt her. While working in Lafayette, Louisiana she comes face to face with her past when she reconnects with Alice Perkins – the first girl she hired for the Family in her role as Madame – who is also hiding from Matthew. As the two friends reunite, Chloe spends time with Alice, her husband, and six-year old twin boys. Chloe discovers the horrific consequences that followed her disappearance from Boston and believes the fate of her murdered friends is ultimately her fault. She also learns her father is still looking for her, and David Lundy is still not happy she is gone.

While attending Festival International, she meets Hunter Lawton, an FBI agent who is investigating the Black Rose Murders. Despite the emotional wall she has surrounded herself with, and the danger that comes with revealing who she is, she cannot help how she feels about Hunter. She wants to be with him, but knows she can’t. After a night wrapped in each other’s arms, Chloe’s tattoo is revealed and she must make a choice to either let him into her secret world or disappear, like she always does.

At the same time Hunter finds out who Chloe really is and how she can answer all his questions about the murders, Chloe is found and confronted by David Lundy. Secrets are revealed and questions answered when Chloe learns her father has become an increased risk to the Family and needs to be eliminated sooner rather than later; Christopher is, in fact, not dead; and, that Chloe’s biological father is David’s son, Wyatt Lundy, who was murdered shortly after taking over the Boston territory with Matthew. Understanding that she has been leverage between Matthew and David for so many years, she realizes the only way to try to stop Matthew from killing more of her friends is to go back to Boston and give him what he wants most: herself.

Once face-to-face with Christopher after so many years and buried feelings, Chloe is forced to confront her feelings about Hunter. She realizes that after so many years of running from love, she has found everything she wants in Hunter. She doesn’t want to lose him, but Matthew forces her hand by making Alice and one of her six-year old boys the next murder victims. Both Chloe and Hunter know she has to leave; both knowing Matthew will kill her at his first opportunity. All they have to hold on to is hope that she can gather evidence on Matthew for Hunter’s investigation before Matthew gets his chance to kill her. However, if Chloe succeeds in stopping him, she will inherit his place as Underboss of the Boston territory. Just one more reason she and Hunter can’t be together.

Chloe returns to Boston and has a chilly reunion with Matthew, all while keeping David’s revealed secrets to herself. Matthew finds out about Hunter and orders a hit on him; however, David intervenes by killing someone else in Hunter’s place to make Matthew believe Hunter is dead. Matthew’s confidence in breaking Chloe grows until confronted by David with evidence proving Matthew is responsible for Wyatt Lundy’s death.

At a birthday party for Matthew, coinciding with a meeting of all Underbosses in the Family, Matthew knows his chances for survival are thin. He threatens to kill Chloe unless David relinquishes power of the Family to him, thereby giving Matthew the undisputed means to eliminate David. However, David and Chloe use Matthew’s questionable health to their advantage and, during a father/daughter dance in front of Boston society, Chloe tells Matthew everything she knows right before she makes sure he dies in her arms in front of everybody at the party.

In a confrontation after Matthew’s death between Chloe, David, Christopher, and Matthew’s Captain, Christopher is killed, but this time a hero’s death by giving his life for David’s. David informs the Underbosses that Chloe will be taking Matthew’s place as Underboss in Boston. Chloe solidifies her place in the Family by taking the life of the person who found her in Louisiana and told Matthew - the same person ultimately responsible for the death of Alice’s six-year old son - and becomes the first, and only, female Underboss of the family. She did what she must, but her heart is broken knowing she and Hunter will never be together.

Believing Chloe dead, Hunter tries to move on with his life and forget about her until he receives an anonymous note in the mail five months later. He finds Chloe in Lafayette once again, this time as a permanent resident. They admit they are still in love with each other, but the only way to be together is for one of them to give up their lifestyle for the other’s. Chloe shows Hunter she is six months pregnant and, with that, Hunter quits his job at the FBI, asks Chloe to marry him and becomes part of the Family.