Italian Bodies of Change

Maria was ''special,'' but nobody really understood or cared until her stugats dropped during a fight with Selena - of all things, the daughter of the Montreal Irish West End Gang leader, Dunie Ryan.

Suddenly, the usual rambunctious, fearless Maria faces uncertain mortal danger. Her family, caught off guard, desperately attempts to hide her intersexuality from the homophobic West End Gang, the Montreal Sicilian Mafia, and their own far-reaching Calabrian ''Ndrangheta.

Andy Giordani, her mother, does everything and anything to support and understand Maria''s struggles but Maria''s powerful father, Stefano Giordani, is unable to face her physical changes and emotional upheavals. Instead, he flies in Venezuelan bodyguard Alessandro Pesseck and leaves for Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to join their formidable famiglia head, Zio Leo Mangione, as he undertakes a massive expansion of the famiglia laundering business into South Carolina''s Hells Angels territory.

Over the next few years, bodies keep dropping as collateral damage, but that''s okay-so long as it''s not Maria.

Italian Bodies of Change, the second part of the Italian Bones of Contentions Pride Series, continues the Giordani saga as the famiglia fulfills its destiny within the French Canadian ''Ndrangheta - the Calabrian Mafia.