Wickedly Powerful (Baba Yaga #3) by Deborah Blake

Bella is one of the three Baba Yagas in charge of the United States.  When she feels an urge to head to the forest in Wyoming, Bella is originally unsure if she is there to investigate the missing Riders, or to deal with the sudden fires that are occurring.  Growing up as a Baba Yaga in training was hard for Bella and she found that never really fit in with humans and therefore now enjoys spending time by herself with her companion Koshka, a dragon disguised as a cat.  The stakes her high but despite all Bella has to do, she finds herself distracted by the handsome but deeply scared, former hotshots fireman Sam Corbett.  If that were not enough, when Bella finds Jazz, a runaway teen living rough in the forest, Bella realises that she cannot just leave the girl to fend for herself. Can Bella somehow handle it all?

By now, the Baba Yaga series has become pretty predictable.  When Bella meets Sam and Jazz, there's never any doubt that all three of them will end up together living as a family. It's always only a matter of how it happens.  That beings said, when Bella's fellow Baba Yagas show up to look for her, I was expecting  Deborah Blake to bring on the awesome.  I feel very much at this point that we were due, particularly given that this book was written largely by the numbers.  Unfortunately, to say the big showdown was anticlimactic is to be kind. Blake didn't bring the epic and seemed rush to wrap everything up in a neat little bow, so that she could move onto writing about the Riders.

I liked watching Jazz and Bella bond; however, I wished that the bond had not occurred over the fact that they are both orphans and come from a history of abuse.  I suppose at least for Jazz, there was no other way to have her living in a forest withput adult supervision.  The issue for me is that suffering is used too often as a shortcut to characterization.  The same issue occurred with Sam, with his PTSD, survivor's guilt and scared face. I never felt like I got to know Sam as a person and he really became was his loss and fears.  The only good thing I can say is that while woo woo was used to cure Sam of his lung damage and scars, at least Blake had Sam acknowledge that dealing with his PTSD was going to take some time.

The antagonist is Brenna, a former Baba Yaga the queen had forced to retire.  We met Brenna in Wickedly Wonderful; however Blake did a good job of explaining to readers where Brenna's anger stemmed from and her history with the Baba Yagas.  If you have not read any of the other books in this series, you will not have any trouble following along with Wickedly Powerful. Brenna, is not pleased to have been forced to retire and she is further enraged that this means the loss of the Water of Life and Death, which slows down the aging process of the Baba Yagas and strengthens their powers. As her hair begins to go grey and bones begin to creak, Brenna is driven to kidnap the Riders and torture them until they lose their immortality so she that she can become what she once was - powerful.

Wickedly Ever After (Baba Yaga #2.5) by Deborah Blake

We first meet Barbara and Liam in Wickedly Magical.  Barbara is the modern version of the infamous Russian with. In Wickedly Wonderful along with solving a mystery, Barbara fell in love with Liam, a human sheriff.  Now in her eighties, though she looks to be in her late twenties or early thirties, Barbara is tired of a solitary life. and is relieved to have found a husband and a young child to train as her replacement. Barbara now has the family she never knew she wanted and couldn't be any happier.  Having completed a human marriage Barbara knows that for marriage to really work she needs the blessing of the Otherworld Queen because without her approval, Barbara will far outlive her new husband and be forced to watch him grow old and die.  Naturally, nothing can run smoothly in Barbara's life and she finds the shoe on the other foot when she is given three impossible tasks to complete before she can get the Queen's approval.

At it's heart, this Baba Yaga series is essentially a paranormal romance with a few of the trappings of the Baba Yaga mythos interwoven into the plot.  In truth, this sort of makes me sad.  I was completely sold on Wickedly Magical because it's so rare that we get a Baba Yaga story, let alone one updated to fit our modern world.  The fixation on romance however seems to have taken the teeth out of the mythos altogether making it at times unrecognizable.

In all of the books to date, we are told how scary the Otherworld Queen is because she did after all turn a few maidens into swans when they got on her nerves.  The entire court seems to tremble and back away from the Queen for fear.  In Wickedly Ever After however, the teeth are completely removed when the Queen's impossible tasks are easily accomplished because even she has a sweet spot for love. The whole thing is so damn saccharine.  I knew from the moment Baba and Liam were able to capture the sound of the sea that these tasks would be easily accomplished.  I couldn't help but roll my eyes when they got a seashell from the selkies.  Really? It just evidenced such a complete lack of imagination. 

The entire story was just so completely predictable that I felt no tension reading it.  Even the famous Chudo-Yudo, the dragon who hides as a dog, who protects the waters of life and death seemed to lose his teeth.   He's essentially a glorified baby sitter for Barbara and Liam's  ward and has lost all of the snark I so loved about him in Wickedly Wonderful.

Blake tried to give us humor in Babs deadpan responses to everything.  Having been raised in part by a former Baba Yaga in the Otherworld, her absolute truthfulness throws both Liam and Babs for a loop.  There's also Liam's attempt to raise Babs as a human child and then his shock with Barbara's approach to child rearing. Barbara is fully aware that no matter what they do, Babs will always be different because she is a Baba Yaga in training.  All of it just felt so damn forced to me.  

This series continues to be completely erased.  There are no people of colour, no disabled people and no LGBT people.  I know that all of this is typical for a paranormal romance series but that doesn't make it acceptable.  If Blake can turn the hut which stands on chicken legs into a gulfstream and a dragon into a dog, then there's no reason why there cannot be more diversity in this series.

I think  that setting this world in a paranormal romance actually does a great disservice to the Baba Yaga mythos.  Where is the fear of the witch who is supposed to be anything but nice - someone you call as a last resort?  Where is the oddity?  The more of this series I read, the more disappointed I become. 

Wickedly Wonderful (Baba Yaga #2) by Deborah Blake

Beka Yancy is the youngest of the three North American Baba Yagas.  Her mentor has recently retired to the Otherworld and Beka finds herself dealing with an environmental disaster that leaves her mystified.  Not only are the selkies and merpeople dying but the fish have disappeared from the ocean leaving the local fishermen all struggling.  Beka has vowed that she will solve this problem but despite a number of dives, she has absolutely no clue what is happening.  If that were not enough, Kesh,  the prince of the selkies and a local fisherman named Marcus are both vying for her attention.  Beka doesn't know which way to turn and even starts to wonder whether or not she is cut out to be a Baba Yaga.

I originally picked up this series because while the Baba Yaga is a very old myth, she has not appeared in many fantasy novels.  I was very excited to see what Blake would do with this awesome witch.  Unfortunately, in Blake's Baba Yaga series, the Baba Yaga, is simply a name for a powerful witch and many of the things that make the Baba Yaga, the Baba Yaga are missing from this series.  No longer is the Baba Yaga an old crone, no longer does she fly in a mortar and pestle and no longer does she live in a cabin which is made mobile by chicken legs.  Even the dragon chudo yudo has been turned into a Newfoundland dog.

Wickedly Wonderful is essentially a paranormal romance; however, while the romance between Marcus and Beka features largely in the story, it never overwhelms the mystery of why the ocean has become polluted.  Beka is steadfast in her search and never stops working towards her end goal, even though she is constantly battling with the taciturn Marcus, who is not found of hippie people. Because of the way that Wickedly Wonderful is written, we know from the beginning who is responsible for the pollution and his motivation and simply wait for Beka to figure it out.

Beka is very different from Barbara, the protagonist in Wickedly Magical and Wickedly Dangerous. Barbara, being older than Beka, is very confidant and sure of her magical powers.  Beka spends much of Wickedly Wonderful doubting her abilities despite constant assurance from Chudo Yudo.  Beka is supposedly so insecure because she was raised without any positive reinforcement from the retiring Baba.  My issue with this is that Beka is almost a 30 year old woman and while she might reasonably have some doubt in her abilities, I think it went a touch too far.  There is also the issue of Beka's naiveté. Everyone who interacts with Kesh for instance, almost immediately says that they don't trust him, yet Beka has several meals with him and even makes excuses for his behaviour.  Beka only questions Kesh's behaviour when he gets into a testosterone pissing match with Marcus over her. I like that Beka declared that she is not a commodity to be owned but I would have liked her to question Kesh's motives more, particularly after learning that Kesh was on the outs with his family. Beka just seems to keep making the same moves though it is not progressing the case that she is investigating and I found that to be extremely frustrating. 

Wickedly Dangerous (Baba Yaga #1) by Deborah Blake

Three children have gone missing from the little town of Clearwater.  Sheriff Liam McClellan has been searching for some kind of clue as to who took the children and if the kids are dead or alive but no matter where he looks, he finds no answers.  When Mary Elizabeth Shields goes missing, her desperate grandparents send for the Baba Yaga.  Barbara Yager arrives in her Airstream, with her companion dog/dragon Chudo-Yudo.  After making a the typical request that Mary Elizabeth's mother perform the three impossible tasks required for the aid of the Baba Yaga, Baba gets to work on the case.  Baba quickly finds herself drawn to Liam, even as she does battle with an Otherworldly creature to save the town of Clearwater from environmental damage, the Otherworld from destruction, and to save the missing children.

I began the Baba Yaga series with Wickedly Magical, which has absolutely no hint of romance.  It is on the strength of that book that I decided to read Wickedly Dangerous.  Had I known that Blake would turn the Baba Yaga into a love story, I never would have picked up Wickedly Dangerous.  It feels quite a bit like a bait and switch.  I went into Wickedly Dangerous expecting a wilily protagonist, who is grumpy, awkward but yet extremely powerful.  What I got is a Baba Yaga who spends much of her time lamenting the fact that she doesn't possess good social skills, doesn't fit in because she isn't quite human and is obsessed with Liam.  Baba is barely competent in the investigation. Despite all of Baba's whining about not fitting in, the people of Clearwater take to her immediately, which is weird because small town people are normally a little resistant to strangers.  It's only when some of Baba's herbal medication backfires due to interference of the evil protagonist  that they become suspicious. 

I quickly became frustrated with Baba mooning over Liam.  Despite the fact that her life is in danger, he seems to be all she can focus on.  I had trouble believing at times that she is supposedly a very long lived supernatural.  I couldn't stop my frustration at the repeated commentary about how good Liam's T-shirt looks on him or the brown flecks in his eyes. Yes, focus on the hot guy while your life is in danger, that's just the most appropriate way to handle things. If this had just been Baba, it would have been bad enough but Blake includes Liam's perspective, so there is a ton of internal monologue about how frustrating Baba Yaga is and his fascination with her amber eyes and long dark hair. This naturally leads to the will they or won't they be a couple scenario because Baba Yaga's life is one where she travels around when called and Liam, having lived in Clearwater all of his life, is reluctant to leave.