Review: Dangerously Divine by Deborah Blake (Broken Riders #2)

Dangerously Divine (Broken Riders #2)
Deborah Blake
Published: Nov. 28, 2017 (Berkley)
Purchase: Book Depository or Amazon
Review source: copy provided by publisher in exchange for an honest review

Reviewed by: Amy

Rating (out of 5): 3 stars

Note: While this review will be spoiler free, it may contain spoilers for Deborah Blake’s Baba Yaga series, as well as reference events from the previous book in this series. If you haven’t started this series yet, check out VBC’s review of book 1, Dangerously Charming.

As The Riders, brothers Mikhail, Gregori, and Alexei offered aid to the Baba Yagas whenever needed. After being tortured close to death at the hands of an evil Baba Yaga, the brothers were stripped not only of their powers but their immortality as well. Choosing to go their separate ways as they try to find their new place in the world, Gregori Sun has decided his peace of mind can only be achieved by entering the monkhood.

He winds up at a Monastery in Minnesota, but as he begins his studies, he starts to develop very strong psychic powers. Figuring these powers stem from his mother’s side of the family he sets out to find his estranged parent, and what better place to look than at the library, where Gregori meets Ciera.

At first it seems as though Ciera is just a mild-mannered librarian who volunteers at the homeless shelter on her days off. Soon, however, it becomes apparent that a secret from Ciera’s past is back to cause trouble, but this time, she’ll have Gregori on her side—that is, if Gregori’s own past doesn’t end up wiping out the city completely.

Going into Dangerously Divine, and being more familiar with previous events, I connected to the story better than I did with Dangerously Charming. I liked Gregori’s character a lot and I appreciated the precarious position that Deborah Blake puts Gregori and Ciera in by having Gregori’s end goal to become a monk. In a romance, this means that you know some decisions, some sacrifices, are going to be made and I was very interested to see how this would play out. I’m a big fan when unexpected obstacles are placed in front of our couple(s), and seeing how/if the author will get them together in the end.

Unfortunately, things were very disconnected between Gregori and Ciera’s storylines. They each have too much going on individually, which is fine, except that it doesn’t lend itself well for any kind of relationship to form between them, yet as a romance we’re supposed to believe in their love above all else by the end. The common grounds that they develop–Gregori visiting the library where Ciera works while he searches for his mother, and similarly Ciera finding out that Gregori is a trained fighter—never feel like they actually deepen the feelings between Gregori and Ciera. I just could never get on board with their romance.

Their individual story paths both have merit, which makes it difficult to conclusively decide which one I feel Deborah Blake should have given more weight, but I definitely feel one of them should have precedence.

This one was just an all right read for me. While there is interesting build up for Alexei’s story next, because of my questionable feelings toward this book and its predecessor, I may not be too quick to pick up the next book right away.

Sexual content: sex