Danger, Sweetheart

Our Review

Blake Tarbell’s visit to Sweetheart, North Dakota was supposed to be a simple trip to visit his mom and make sure she’s okay since she’d insisted on moving back to the small backwater town where she’d been rejected years before. What he hadn’t expected is for her to be pissed, and I mean royally pissed, that he’d used his wealth and interfered in the community’s troubles.  Now the town’s slowly dying and his mom’s demanding that he solve the problem.  How?  By stripping off his over-priced attire and getting his hands dirty working a real ranch – complete with a temperamental pony he has to somehow entice into tolerating people.

 The one bright spot in this whole fiasco is Natalie Lane, the ranch’s owner, who for some unknown reason despises Blake; in fact, she refers to him as Vegas Douche.  She despises Blake on principle alone, but once she gets to know him and understand him better Natalie discovers that he’s actually pretty charming – even if his mannerisms are a bit odd.  While Natalie does everything she can think of to ensure Blake runs screaming back to his fancy city lifestyle and leaves her little community alone, Blake is determined to win over not just the townspeople but Natalie in particular.  Natalie and Blake each entered into their battle of wills for different reasons but they’ll soon find themselves fighting for the same side.

I fell in love with MaryJanice Davidson’s writing years ago when I first discovered the WYNDHAM WEREWOLF series and have smiled my way through everything I’ve read of hers ever since. DANGER, SWEETHEART is no exception even though it is certainly a different sort of book.  Instead of following the typical ‘recipe’ for a romance novel, Ms. Davidson combined as many different tropes ( commonly occurring situations in romantic reads),  45 to be exact,  as she could think of into one read – with humorous results.   While the romance between Natalie and Blake is cute and fun, what I really loved was Blake’s transformation from a Sweetheart hating city boy to a country boy at heart willing to do anything to save the town – and his tirades or blatant honesty  are definitely chuckle worthy.   And I really adored his conversations with his brother Rake, who he insists is ‘terrible.’ 

If you’re looking for a fun tongue-in-cheek read then DANGER, SWEETHEART is a great choice. Of course, I’m a firm believer that you’d be safe with any of Ms. Davidson’s books.  There’s just something entertaining and exciting about her writing in general.