Review: Dangerously Charming by Deborah Blake

dangerouslyDangerously Charming
(Broken Riders #1)
By: Deborah Blake
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: Oct. 4, 2016
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Rating:

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The Riders are three immortal brothers who protect the mythical Baba Yagas. But their time serving the witches has ended—and their new destinies are just beginning…

Ever since a near-fatal mistake stripped Mikhail Day and his brothers of their calling to be Riders, Day has hidden from his shame and his new, mortal life in a remote cabin in the Adirondack mountains. But when a desperate young woman appears on his doorstep, he cannot resist helping her—and cannot deny how strongly he’s drawn to her…

For generations, women in Jenna Quinlan’s family have been cursed to give up their first born child to the vengeful fairy Zilya. When Jenna finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, she is determined to break her family’s curse and keep her baby, even if it means teaming up with a mysterious and charismatic man with demons of his own…

To unravel the curse, Jenna and Day will have to travel deep into the Otherworld. But the biggest challenge of the journey might not be solving an ancient puzzle but learning to heal their own broken hearts…

 

 

My thoughts…

Dangerously Charming revolves around a former Rider and a woman who’s cursed. For generations the women from her family have had to give up their firstborn to the faerie that originally cursed them. The only hope they have is that they can keep their baby if they are able to solve a riddle. Obviously, not wanting to give up her unborn baby, Jenna sets off to hide in the middle of nowhere in the hopes of eluding the faerie who’ll be coming to claim the baby. Which is where she stumbles across Day. He’s been hiding out since he recovered from being tortured by a baba yaga. He wants nothing to do with anyone and just wants to be left alone to sulk and lick his wounds. However, when Jenna shows up at his door clearly distraught and tells him about her curse, he decides to help her. Dangerously Charming is a story about their journey of solving the riddle, breaking the curse, and healing each other.

I will confess that I have not read the Baba Yaga series yet. It’s been on my TBR list for a while and I just haven’t gotten around to reading it. When I saw that the author wrote a new series in the same world, I jumped on the opportunity to read it. I had no idea that you needed to have read the previous series in order to fully follow along. I mean, Day is apparently a big player in the previous series and there’s a turn of events that takes place in them that is the catalyst for this book. Plus, we run into other characters from that series and they are always bringing up the past. So, not only did I feel left out, I also didn’t get that deep character connection that I probably would have if I’d read the Baba Yaga series.

Even though I was unable to fully connect with the characters, I did like all the adventure and fantasy elements of the story. Day and Jenna travel to the Otherworld and meet the Queen and King, they venture through the Otherworld trying to solve the riddle before time is up, and Day starts to go through some transition that no one is sure what it means. This could have easily just been a paranormal romance where the two meet, fall in love, and break a curse. However, the author went past that and gave us an adventure.

Unfortunately, even though this is the first book in a series, it’s not a series you can just start reading without first reading the Baba Yaga series. However, for those who have read the previous series and enjoyed it, I think this would be an amazing new series of books. You get to see the Riders get their own stories and fall in love. Plus, you get to see your favorite characters pop up from time to time. One of these days I will get a moment to go back and read the Baba Yaga series and then maybe I will jump into this one.

 

Favorite quote…

“It wasn’t that he was one of those guys who couldn’t stand to have a woman pick up the bill, exactly. It was just that he was discovering that the only thing worse than helping someone when you didn’t want to was not being able to help them.”

 

 

 

8 Thoughts on “Review: Dangerously Charming by Deborah Blake

  1. Nice review – and good to know you couldn’t just pick this up without reading the previous series. That one has been on my list for a while.

    I’m a sucker for a good ‘woman in desperate trouble’ every now and then.

  2. Oh that sucks. Yeah they weren’t constantly on page in the previous series but they were a presence and impossible not to love. Got my fingers crossed this one will work for me when I start it tomorrow. Eep!

    • You will love it since I know you are a fan of the series. I haven’t started the Baba Yaga series yet so there was a lot of disconnect between me, Day, and the characters from the previous series.

  3. I’ve only read the first Baba Yaga book, need to catch up before I try this one it looks like 🙁 I was wondering if I could just hop to this one, but I’m glad you mentioned that’s a no go.

  4. Yeah, I still need to read the Baba Yaga series. I actually really want to though.

  5. No!

    I skimmed because I’m looking forward to this spin-off. Gah! Sorry it didn’t work for you, I do love the Baba Yaga series despite it’s corny endings. Lol

  6. Well-stated, Kristin. It’s too bad you didn’t know ahead of time that the Baba-Yaga series needed to be read in order to better connect with this story. That stinks. But I appreciate having that knowledge as I’d thought of starting this series seeing as it was new and I wanted to read Blake. I’ll be sure to begin with Baba-Yaga. 😀

  7. I have heard of this author her Baba Yaga novels, although I haven’t read any books by her so far. It does sound like this is a series you should only read after the Baba Yaga series, it’s good to know that.
    I can imagine it must’ve been confusing reading this before the other series. It does sound like an intriguing series and world, but if I pick up one of her books I’ll make sure to start with the Baba Yaga series first. Thanks for the review, so at least others know not to accidentally start with this one.

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