BOOK REVIEW:
Wickedly Dangerous
When
I picked up Deborah Blake’s Wonderfully Dangerous, I didn’t know much about Russian
folklore but I did know about the Baba Yaga.
Who
I thought was only an equivalent of the fairy tale trope for old, evil
hags/witches, I learned was actually also a spirit of good. So Baba Yaga is not
entirely evil, and though capable of benevolent deeds, she was more or less an
anti-hero. Or who folklorist Vladimir Propp called a figure that was part
villain, part fairy godmother/donor.
Anyways,
in this series Baba Yaga is a title. Meaning there's more than one Baba Yaga in this world where this series is set. Specifically it's an Otherworldly title for
human female witches who are keepers of the peace between the Otherworld and
Earth and its elements: the heroine of Wonderfully
Dangerous is Barbara “Baba” Yager (haha! Get it) and she’s on her latest
mission to help keep the peace.
You
see children are going missing in hero Liam McClellan’s town and Baba has been
called by the family of one of the missing victims. So naturally Liam and Baba
team up to solve the magical crime.
After
reading a good 1/3 of the book I realized that the novel was not an Urban
Fantasy but a paranormal romance. Seriously, I started reading this and got the
vibe of UF because the romance isn’t super strong. Also FAIR WARNING: the
romance is what I would classify as sweet.
The
book does have swear words (“bitch’ and “fuck” being one of the two I can think
of right now), but the sexy times between Baba are few and far between and if
it isn’t behind closed doors, it’s implicit through euphemistic language. So
don’t expect hot and heavy from this adult PNR.
Yeah,
back to the romance though…there wasn’t all that much going on. When Baba and
Liam were on the page together, I definitely felt the attraction/chemistry. But there were a few chapters where Liam dropped off the face of the plot—seriously.
It was all from Baba’s perspective and she wasn’t thinking all that much about
Liam, too.
Also
there were a lot of coincidences. See I have this problem with magic. I mean I
get why it’s called magic in this context—it’s meant to make life easy and all
that stuff. Still I hated how easily Baba would solve problems with a twitch of
her fingers or something like that.
It
was frustrating. There always seemed to be a bloody loophole where all things
magical were performed—Ugggggh.
If
this book had a little less magic, a little more detective, I would have liked
it all the more. Thankfully the Russian folklore elements and the characterization were great and I was rooting
for Liam and Baba in the end (particularly where Baba sets down roots).
So
hit this one up if you’re looking for a sweet romance quasi-PNR. :) And check
out the second book in the series, Wickedly
Wonderful, as well. :)
My
verdict:
✮✮✮✮
(3.5 stars)
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